Syracuse ice hockey trusts Brian Idalski’s ‘process’ in Stonehill victory
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Brian Idalski was clear on his expectations for Syracuse ice hockey in his first season behind its bench.
He didn’t put a number on shots, goals or wins. He focused on process.
“What we want to do is compete as hard as we can every game,” SU’s first-year head coach said a month before the 2026-27 season began. “If we do that, that’s successful to me.”
Friday, minutes after SU shot more pucks on goal than it had in any game since 2022, with three goals in Idalski’s tenure-opening win, he kept his breakdown process-oriented.
Getting pucks deep. Rolling four lines. Playing physical. Applying pressure.
“That’s the identity we want to keep cultivating this year,” Idalski said.
From Friday’s first whistle to its last, Syracuse (1-0-0, 0-0-0 Atlantic Hockey America) brought intensity to Stonehill (0-1-0, 0-0-0 New England Women’s Hockey). Its process yielded results: 60 shots on goal and three scores, and Ava Drabyk shutting out the Skyhawks to win its season opener 3-0.
Still, process was on Idalski’s mind. Postgame, he was positive but analytical. In a measured tone, he picked out where Syracuse excelled and where it could improve.
He liked the pressure Syracuse applied on the forecheck while killing. He didn’t like the pressure SU put on its kill, taking five penalties.
SU’s second goal came from the point, on the power play. But after finishing 1-for-7 with the player advantage, Idalski noted it’s a “work in progress.” He thought SU’s blue liner’s gaps improved but called Syracuse’s defenders “over aggressive.”
“It’s a process,” he said. “We throw a lot at them. It takes a lot of time and practice.”
Regardless of their familiarity with new coaching systems, the Orange met Idalski’s expectation to compete. With and without the puck, Syracuse swarmed Stonehill.
“We want to be aggressive,” Idalski said. “That starts in the D-zone.”
About 15 minutes into the first, Peyton Armstrong got into Brooke Harb’s hands, as the Skyhawks forward hurried a pass across the blue that bounced to a streaking Kendra Raypholtz. She collected the puck in stride and drew a tripping penalty in front of the Skyhawks’ net, her feet taken out from underneath her by a diving Fiona Waddick.
Syracuse struggled in its first minute and a half with the player advantage to generate shots as Stonehill caused a slot turnover. A slightly errant transition pass, a mishandled puck and a slip on a broken stick by Jordan Blouin, who scored SU’s third goal, worked against SU.
But the Orange set up in the final 30 seconds. As Waddick’s minor penalty expired, a Jessica Cheung point shot nearly bounced to Nea Tervonen’s stick on the far post. Syracuse’s power play found success entering the zone before releasing the initial shot. Stonehill’s kill succeeded in clearing rebounds out of the zone.
SU’s second goal came on its fourth power play on a Cheung point shot after the Orange connected several passes near the blue line.
Stonehill’s response to Syracuse’s physicality — and complete control of possession — was chippy. Nine minutes into the second period, after the whistle, Reagan Whynot cross-checked Stella Costabile‘s chest four times despite Costabile hardly chipping Skyhawks goalie Alexsa Caron as she crashed the net for a loose puck.
With eight minutes left, Stonehill’s Reese Combe was called for slashing after retaliating to contact from Nina Geric by swinging her stick on Geric, whose head snapped back.
Earlier in the period, Skyhawks defender Bella Sacca was called a mere 15 seconds into a Stonehill power play for interfering with Armstrong, shoving the forward to the ice. Before Sacca left the box, Harb joined her after cross-checking Rachel Walsh into the boards.
Emma Gnade, who opened the scoring with a rebound bury in the first, put it bluntly.
“Hockey’s a physical sport,” she said. “You just got to work through it.”
In a four-minute span in the second period, four penalty whistles were blown. In total, there were six second-period infractions.
“Some of that was us,” Idalski said.
That opening second-period penalty was a Celia Wiegand hook. Just under four minutes later, freshman defender Alara Murphy was called for hooking, too, tangling with Stonehill’s Kyana Mitchell as Mitchell skated the puck over the Orange’s blue line. Two minutes later, Gnade was penalized for a board-quivering body check.
Idalski said he could handle penalties if Syracuse was competing but didn’t include penalties with the stick or after the play in that assessment.
“Those things need to get cleaned up,” he said. “Those penalties, I have a hard time.”
But the Skyhawks went 0-for-5 with the extra player. Syracuse’s penalty kill applied constant pressure, its forwards curling low — sometimes past Stonehill’s defensive hashes — to cut off passing and skating lanes.
The Skyhawks power play was forced to chase, from forced dumps in Syracuse’s end to tracking its wraps back behind their own net.
“We started to see some of the execution,” Idalski said. “I think we’re starting to understand what some of the structure looks like and what we’re asking them to do execution-wise, so it’s a matter of reps. There’s still some things to tighten up a little bit.”
That tends to happen in seasons that are a day old. But as far as baselines go, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better process by now than Idalski’s squad: 60 shots, three goals and the shutout win.
