So the men will play one blue blood after another in November and December. Ouch, but if you want to climb to their tier, then this is how it’s done. It worked well for Bobby Bowden and his Florida State football Seminoles in the 80’s.
There will certainly be some ugly scores mixed in throughout the year. But I also there's a good amount of games they can be competitive and have their best chances of picking up wins in, such as the Alaska's, Bentley, Stonehill, LIU, Air Force, AIC, and a Vermont team that hasn't had it's best seasons of hockey lately. Air Force definitely outscored the Lions last season in their exhibition series, but I thought 5v5 those games were very even, problem is LU took a lot of penalties and the Falcons capitalized on a very hot PP.
As you say, those teams are the best benchmark that all teams aspire to be in the company of, step 1 is to start playing the games.