The Russ Report: Ole Miss Hockey Schedule Part One

By Russ Eddins

Journalism Student

Ole Miss hockey kicks off the season on Sept. 15 against Georgia Tech at home and I’ll review the team’s schedule in advance. But before I get into that, there are a few notes I’d like to make.

Here goes: ties are few and far between, but are possible.

A win is two points, a loss is zero points, and overtime losses, shootout losses, and ties are all worth one point.

Points determine where a team is in the rankings – the more points, the better (points are also a player stat that combines goals and assists).

There is not a set amount of games each team has to play. From what I gather, this is the first time that Ole Miss hockey will play teams in the ACHA (that is another conference). The ACHA was reconfigured in the offseason, so any information on what division their teams are in is from the 2022-23 season.

And finally, there are 28 teams in the CHS, 96 in Division 3 of the ACHA, and 185 in Division 2 of the ACHA. 

For reference, in the 2022-23 season, Ole Miss was 25th in the CHS, played 18 games, had a 2-16-0 record for 4 points, scored 40 goals, and allowed 104 for a goal differential of -64. It was an awful season (there are a few reasons why they were 2-16 and I’ll visit that in a later article). That being said, fans can expect a much better record and season from Ole Miss hockey. The coaches are working extremely hard to find the best available players and are looking to fill the team’s positional needs through an extended tryout process.

Georgia Tech 

Ole Miss plays division opponent Georgia Tech on Sept. 15 and 17 at home. In 2022-23, Georgia Tech was 14th in the CHS, had a 10-15-1-1 record (they had one overtime loss and one tie), scored 87 goals, and allowed 90 for a -3 goal differential. Their special teams (power-play and penalty kill) are not bad: they scored 24 power-play goals, which was 12th in the conference, and allowed 20 power-play goals, which was 11th. They will not be a great team, but they will be a good challenge for the Rebels to open the season.

Dallas Baptist University

The Rebels play for the second straight weekend against DBU on the road. These games will be on September 22 and 23; this will be an out-of-conference series. DBU is Division 3 of the ACHA. Like Ole Miss, DBU had a poor 2022-23 season. They played 28 games, had a 4-23-0-1 record zero overtime losses and one tie) for nine points, scored 76 goals, and allowed 154 for a -78 goal differential. Their power-play units are not notable, but their penalty-kill units are. With 31 power-play goals allowed, DBU gave up the second most power-play goals in the ACHA (there are 96 teams in their division). This series will be good for Ole Miss to prepare for a tough week three. 

University of Missouri

For the third straight weekend, Ole Miss will play hockey (last season, the most weekends they played in a row was four, which was at the end of the season). This series will be played on Sept. 28 and 29. Head coach of the Ice Rebs, Josh Herbert, believes this will be one of the toughest series of the season. The reason being Missouri is an outstanding team, and he has no experience playing against them. They are one of the best Division 3 ACHA teams. Last season, they played 3rd, had an 18-5-1-0 record one overtime loss) for 36 points, a .720 win percentage scored 125 goals, and allowed 69 for a 56 goal differential. Luckily, this is a home series; that will be Ole Miss’ biggest advantage. Getting a win against Missouri would give the team a big boost. 

Clemson University

After a weekend of no games, Clemson comes to town. The series will take place on Oct. 13 and 14. Clemson is not a bad team, but they aren’t great, either. They are in the same division as Ole Miss. In 21 games last season, they placed 16th, had a 9-12-0 record for 18 points, scored 87 goals, and allowed 106 for a -19 goal differential. Their special team units were both 13th in power-play goals scored and allowed. Ole Miss has the potential to take both games from Clemson. 

Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville

Ole Miss hockey will travel to Illinois for their fifth series of the year. They play the Cougars on October 20 and 21. Edwardsville is an ACHA team. In 2022-23, they placed 93rd out of 185 teams. They played 28 games, had an 11-15-2-0 record (two overtime losses) for 22 points, scored 84 goals, and allowed 110 for a -26 goal differential. The Cougars don’t take a lot of penalties – they had 289 penalty minutes last season. That was the 94th fewest in Division 2 of the ACHA. That said, they take over 10 minutes worth of penalties a game, so in relation to their division, they do not take a lot of penalties. 

University of Tennessee

Tennessee will be the first CHS team Ole Miss plays in the 2023-24 season that qualified for the playoffs in 2022-23. They made it to the play-in game of the playoffs but lost to USF 4-5. Ole Miss went 0-2 against Tennessee in 2022-23. Tennessee placed 12th in the CHS, played 23 games, had a 13-10-0 record for 27 points, scored 125 goals, and allowed 94 goals for a 31 goal differential. They had the 11th most penalty minutes in the CHS (360). Tennessee beat up on the Rebs last year; plus, this is an away series, so this will be a very tough matchup. If Ole Miss can split this series, that would be great.

Middle Tennessee State University

The Rebels played well against MTSU last season (in the first game); they went 1-1 against them. This year they will play MTSU on November 17 and 18 in Tennessee. In 2022-23, MTSU placed 21st in the CHS, played 22 games, had a 4-17-1 record for 10 points (one tie and an overtime loss), scored 84 goals, and allowed 141 goals for a -57 goal differential. The most notable stat about MTSU from last season is that they were 10th in penalty minutes with 360. They are a division opponent.

Sources:

https://www.collegehockeysouth.com/teams

https://gamesheetstats.com/seasons/1730/standings?filter%5Bdivision%5D=10110

https://www.achahockey.org/stats/standings?division=-1&standingstype=division&context=overall&specialteams=false&season=21&sortkey=points&league=1

https://twitter.com/uh_hockey?lang=en