Coaching hire crucial for Miami

Miami cut ties with Chris Bergeron two weeks ago, and with the need to nail down assistant coaches, recruit future players and re-recruit incoming players as well as attempt to retain potentially returning players — especially in the Wild West transfer portal era — the proverbial clock is ticking for the university to name the RedHawks’ seventh head coach.

And the transfer portal is set to explode today.

With this team having fallen from No. 1 seed in the 2015 NCAA Tournament and NCAA power to league doormat in nine years, this hire could be the most important one in the program’s five-decade history.

Despite the success under Enrico Blasi through 2015, Miami could probably use a change from the Bergerico, Oxford-insider approach.

Many teams in the NCHC are having success with younger coaches who bring fresh approaches and may better relate to the 21-year-old collegiate hockey player in a post-COVID world.

So who will Miami’s seventh head coach be? That call belongs to AD David Sayler, and the salary offer will likely play a role. Miami owes Bergeron over $325,000 for next season — his 2023-24 salary — although outside donor money may cover that.

A few names have been mentioned in recent weeks in anticipation of this leadership change. Some candidates:

— Peter Mannino (assistant coach, Colorado College): Mannino was brought in as a Miami assistant in 2018-19 and Derek Daschke among others followed him to Oxford. His recruiting is top-notch. Mannino was only 34 when he joined Miami’s staff, and he was an unfortunate casualty of the Blasi firing in 2019, so the RedHawks never had a chance to benefit from his recruiting prowess. After leaving Miami he accepted the HC job at USHL Des Moines and was successful in his two seasons there. Mannino then took an assistant position at Colorado College and has helped transfer a CC program competing for bottom-dweller status to a near-NCAA Tournament berth this spring. Mannino also won a national championship at Denver as a goalie, so he is intimately familiar with the league, and he played six games in the NHL. And with Mannino being a former netminder, essentially that would give Miami a goalie coach. Mannino’s name came up as a candidate to take over behind the bench after Blasi was fired five years ago, and the question was whether he was as strong on X’s and O’s as recruiting, since that would be a primary responsibility as a head coach. But years wiser since his initial hiring as an assistant for the RedHawks, Mannino is still just 40, energetic and loves Miami’s program despite being let go after one campaign.

— Mike Haviland (assistant coach, AHL Cleveland): Like Mannino, Haviland is intimately familiar with the league and Colorado College in particular, having coached there for seven seasons. The Tigers won 20 games their first three seasons with him at the helm but notched 33 victories the next three before tying Miami for last in the bubble season. His resume is solid: He won two ECHL Kelly Cups in three years, was an assistant for the Chicago Blackhawks for four seasons, and he never finished with a win percentage below .579 in four campaigns as a head coach in the AHL between Norfolk, Rockford and Hershey. There’s also a tie to Miami — Haviland is currently an assistant coach at AHL Cleveland to former RedHawk Trent Vogelhuber. The Monsters are in second place in that league’s North Division. If Miami is looking for D-1 coaching experience and knowledge of the game at all levels, Haviland is an interesting candidate, although the four-win campaign in 2020-21 that led to his dismissal at Colorado College leaves a bad taste. Putting together a college staff that recruits all of its players is also a different animal than coaching in the pros. He turns 57 in July.

— Brett Riley (head coach, NCAA Long Island U.): His name has surfaced a couple of times recently, and no one can argue his pedigree or ability to build a program. He started Division III Wilkes University in Pennsylvania from scratch, leading it to a 16-8-2 record and earning conference coach of the year honors. After one season as an assistant at Colgate, Long Island University named him its first-ever head coach in spring of 2020, the Ground Zero COVID period. He had no players, no staff and no home rink, and after a soft opening 3-10 COVID season, the Sharks won 10 games in 2022-23 (including one over Miami in Oxford) and 13 this season despite being independent. He is a third-generation hockey coach, as his father coached Army for 19 seasons and is a Buffalo Sabres scout, and his grandfather, Jack Riley, coached Team USA to its first gold medal at Squaw Valley in 1960. Riley appears to be a budding young coach, but he has never been tested anywhere near this level.

— Erik Largen (head coach, NCAA Alaska): Largen’s name has surfaced multiple times recently (including a post by CHN’s Mike McMahon on Twit-X). The Alaska-Fairbanks graduate and current head coach has resurrected the Nanooks, who have been dumped by the WCHA and canceled their COVID season in the past few years. Despite nearly losing the program, Largen led UAF to a 17-14-3 record this season against a schedule that included six games vs. North Dakota, St. Cloud State and Denver, and the Nanooks finished 25th in the PairWise. In 2022-23, Alaska finished 22-10-2. Largen turns 38 in October, was born in Fairbanks, played for UAF, was an assistant there and now is the head coach of the Nanooks. His credentials are solid, but like Riley, this would be a big step up from the last frontier.

Trent Vogelhuber (head coach, AHL Cleveland): The 2012 Miami graduate’s name has also been thrown around the media rumor mill the past week, which is surprising considering his pro hockey trajectory. Following four years with the RedHawks and six seasons in the AHL as a player, Vogelhuber jumped immediately into coaching as an assistant for Cleveland of that league. Following four seasons as an assistant for the Monsters, Vogelhuber was named head coach last season, and after failing to make the playoffs in 2022-23, Cleveland is in second place in its division and appears primed for a playoff run. Which is another reason the thought of Vogelhuber coming to Oxford is interesting at this time: Not only would the money likely be less, his regular season doesn’t even end until April 21, and the Calder Cup playoffs run into June. Vogelhuber — a Columbus native — has certainly coached at a high level, although the NCAA is a different culture entirely. He turns 36 this summer and would be the third consecutive Miami graduated to serve as RedHawks head coach.

Eric Lang (head coach, NCAA American International): AIC has experienced unprecedented success under Lang, including three NCAA berths in the past six seasons. The Yellow Jackets finished fifth in the AHA this season but advanced to the league championship game last month, which they lost to RIT. Lang, 48, played four seasons with American International in 1994-98 and was an assistant with the Yellow Jackets for two seasons before taking the same position at Army for four campaigns. He took over as AIC’s head coach in 2016 and went from eight wins his first season to 15 in his second and 23 and an NCAA berth the following year. McMahon also mentioned he was being looked at by Miami, as well as…

Anthony Noreen (head coach, USHL Tri-City): If Miami is looking for head coaching experience, Noreen has the most of anyone else on the board. He has spent nine seasons in that role at the USHL level — four with Youngstown and the last five with Kearney, Neb.-based Tri-City — plus two at the helm of ECHL Orlando in 2015-17. Tri-City went 47-15 last season but failed to advance past the second round of the playoffs, and none of his teams have won in that round since he was promoted from assistant to head coach in Youngstown in 2012. It can’t be stated enough how important knowledge of the USHL — the NCAA’s primary high-level talent feeder system — is for today’s NCAA head coach, and Noreen has it. Plus he could potentially guide players from his successful Storm team to Miami, which has already seen several players hit the transfer portal.