Yale’s built to be a cyclical team in college hockey. They were in a low point of that cycle in the last few years leading up to 2020 but you really can’t understate how badly these teams suffered from having to take a full season off while most other programs kept playing. Beyond the players lost, it’s the year of experience lost from the players they were able to retain… that’s huge when it comes to competing with teams like Quinnipiac who’s returning loads of experience and Harvard who’s suddenly carrying more NHL draft picks than anyone in the country because their recruitment timeline happened to be the only one out of the Ivy’s not brutally impacted by the year off. It’s not going to be that easy for Yale to climb out of it quickly because they can’t capitalize on the new transfer rules as well as other programs, and they don’t take graduate seniors at all.