Beginning the Offseason

2008-2009 was a season that included much success for the Huskies. Although it ended on a tough loss in the NCAA tournament to the Cornell Big Red, the Huskies need to keep their heads up and focus on improving themselves for next season.

With new recruits coming in, things have the opportunity to stay the same around here for awhile.

However, there will also be some very key losses that the Huskies are going to have to get over.

Joe Vitale

Joe served as the captain of the team for the last two seasons, only the eighth player in NU history to serve for multiple seasons. Upon the completion of the season, Joe signed a contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the team that had originally drafted him before he even played a game with NU. Although his career is certainly not over as he will hopefully get his shot at the NHL, the Huskies are now without one of the greatest leaders to ever wear the NU sweater. Vitale was here through everything and always stood by what it means to be a Husky. The next step for Joe is going to be proving himself in the AHL. He has been playing with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins for the last couple weeks and the team is in the AHL playoffs. In 5 regular season games, Vitale had 2 goals and 2 assists but he has not registered a point in 7 playoff games thus far.

Brad Thiessen

How do you replace a guy that played every minute of every game?? The answer is simple: you don't. There is no possible way to replace a guy that was THE BEST goalie in the nation. When he was named an All-American and a Hobey Baker Hat Trick finalist, he solidified himself as the best out there. Now Thiessen also belongs to the Penguins and is currently helping the team prepare for a bigtime series with the Washington Captials.

So what do the Huskies do? Work on things that weren't as good as your goaltender. Those things are 1) the power play and 2) the defense in front of the backstop. If the team can score more on the power play opportunities that they are sure to generate through their hard work when they are at even strengh, it will make things easier on the new guy (whoever that may be). Same thing goes for the d-men. If you give opponents less opportunities to score, things will be easier on the goalie.

Thiessen will go down as one of the best ever at NU but instead of being remembered for leadership like Vitale will be, Thiessen's legacy will largly be surrounding the NCAA tournament bid that the Huskies earned last season, their first in over a decade.

Ryan Ginand

Another guy who made a big impact in his years as a Husky, Ginand led the team scoring 20 goals last season. The scoring is easier to replace than the goaltending of Thiessen but still a pretty big loss. Ginand's wide open, end-to-end style of play is something that might be missed by fans but probably not by coach Cronin.

I think soon to be sophomores Steve Qualier and Alex Tuckerman should be able to replace Ginand's scoring. But Ginand was a Massachusetts native who really enjoyed everything about Boston and understood the greatness of the Beanpot. It's a shame that the Huskies couldn't win one for him.

Louis Liotti

A solid stay at home defenseman who was a true leader among the group of blue liners on the team. Liotti seemed to never miss a game and really was an iron man of sorts back there who was dependable.

Rob Rassey

NU is going to miss Rassey next year but for different reasons than they might miss a guy like Ginand. He had a great work ethic and bought into the system to the point where he was going to do whatever was asked of him, no matter what that entailed. Although he didn't score that much and didn't have the most skill on the ice, Rassey was willing to work as hard as anyone else for the good of the team. Just a classy guy all around who always made the most with what was in front of him.



When the recruits coming in next season are officially established, I will post whatever info I have on them at that time (sometime later in the offseason).