Now entering his 16th season as head coach, Aaron Saul ’98 looks to build off the 2023-24 season that saw his Soaring Eagles lose in the Elite 8 of the National Tournament last March.
After seeing five of his players ink pro contracts in different leagues across North America and Europe, Saul believes this group will have a more balanced offensive attack and rely more on returners down the middle, such as Bailey Krawczyk ’24 and Chance Gorman ’24.
Having coached in college for over 20 years now, Saul knows how difficult it is to win a national championship. “There’s so many good teams out there. When you get to the tournament, you have to be playing your best hockey. Everybody else is playing their best. Sometimes, it takes a little bit of luck, a bounce here or there. We’ve come so close so many times, and it’s unfortunate but starting with a new group, of 12 new freshmen, it’s a challenge. We like the group that we brought in. I’m assuming we’ll all get better as the year goes on. It’s how quickly everybody can pick up our systems and come together as a group. It’s one week at a time,” the head coach explained.
One notable change for this year’s campaign features the Soaring Eagles playing the same team on back-to-back nights. For instance, once conference play begins the weekend of Nov. 8-9, EC will face Southern Maine on Friday and Saturday night, instead of playing one team on Friday and another on Saturday.
Saul believes it will be easier on the teams regarding travel and preparation but the games will be more competitive. “A lot of times when we’re on the road, sometimes it’s an hour, sometimes it’s two hours in between [schools]. Playing the same team is always tougher on the ice because you’re battling for points so it’s always a challenge. I think preparation will be a little bit easier, concentrating on one team instead of two, it’s always easier. I think the games will be pretty intense, especially when you play back-to-back,” he said.
One group that the rule won’t have much of an effect on is the class of incoming freshmen. Looking at the forward group, Saul thinks the extra size is a strength combined with the skating ability and competitive level. On the blue line, Saul expects there to be more than a few freshmen that see regular time. While having a younger blue line can be challenging, the Soaring Eagles’ identity on the ice is to grind out games and defend as a unit, meaning forwards are expected to chip in and help with coverage in their own zone.
Saul named Shane Miller ’25 as a player to watch on the backend for the Purple & Gold, saying “a transfer, a senior that we took. He’s played a lot of hockey in three years. He has experience running the power play at his prior institution and he seems to be fitting in very well. On the offensive side, definitely look for him to be a leader of the defensemen.” Miller transferred from Western New England University where he put up 13 goals and 39 assists for 52 points in 70 games.
The Soaring Eagles ended last year with a 31% conversion rate on the power play and scored 29 goals on the man-advantage. “Our power play the couple of years has been pretty good. We’ve had the same personnel. When you have chemistry with people, you know where they’re going, they know where you’re going. It makes it much more easy to coach. This year, it’s going to be different. We’ve got pretty much a whole new power play. New first and second units. We’re working on it, it seems to be going pretty well. It’s so important with the way the game is called nowadays. You must succeed on the power play if you want to win games. And it does win games for you, so it’s something that we take very seriously and it’s very important in winning games for us,” Saul said.
A year after winning 10 of 13 on home ice, Saul knows how important getting wins on home ice is. He also says it to be a “huge advantage.” Two of the biggest reasons for the team’s success at the Murray Athletic Center are the “amount of fans and the environment we create. It’s definitely a different feel, especially for teams who haven’t played at Elmira. We feel comfortable there. Obviously, we want to win games in front of our fans. They make a huge difference for motivation for our guys, when you have people cheering you on, it really gives you extra juice.”
Losing players is never easy for any coach. When leaders leave the program, filling their void becomes challenging for everyone. This year, Saul will rely on Krawczyk and Matt York ’26 to wear the C on their jersey while also putting responsibility on Reifler’s shoulders, as the graduate student will begin the year with an A on his sweater. Saul spoke highly of his grad students Krawczyk and Reifler, saying “When it comes to Bailey and Ryan, the experience they have, they’ve seen a lot of hockey. [They’ve been here] through COVID year when we were trying to piece games together, right up to our run last year. So the experience and games they’ve played in will definitely help.”
York’s head coach described him as a “natural leader.” Saul also said, “He’s only a junior, but the guys look up to him, and he works hard.”
Overall, he expects the team to lean on all three of those players and believes the new players can learn something from all of them.
In net this year for Elmira, Kyle Curtin ’26 returns as the starter after a 15-8-1 season and a career save percentage of .926 through 40 games. Curtin dropped his goals-against average from his freshman year of 2.66 to last year’s 2.39 and is primed to make another leap this season. Also working in the crease will be Brody Haynes ’26 and freshman Cameron Manley ’28. Saul believes in his goalies, saying, “Kyle had an exceptional year last year. He got put into a role where Brody was hurt on two different occasions. Kind of by default, Kyle got a lot of those games and he did great. He definitely established himself as a number-one guy. Reliable, set records for Elmira College and he looks even better this year. Brody is a great goaltender. Totally different style. Hopefully, he can stay healthy and we can give him some games early. You must have two guys to be a top team in the country. We really like [Cameron Manley] as well, so I think it’s going to be a battle. It’d be ideal to go Friday one, Saturday, the other. But we’ll see how it goes.”
Coach Saul and his group embark on their five-month journey tonight with their sights set on winning Elmira’s first national championship in men’s ice hockey. The rest of the schedule can be found here.
