UVM begins their 50th season of hockey with two wins on the exhibition weekend!
Great weekend for the Cats, (heck the first weekend is great win or lose). A saturday night drubbing of Ottawa 7-0 followed by a 4-1 win over Acadia, freshman saw a lot of ice time, Brickley with a 5 point weekend and 7 powerplay goals
My thoughts :
The Cats were helped tremendously by playing seemingly the entire weekend on the power play. Both games were chippy and the refs were calling tight games. You can't help but pot a few power play goals when you have that many opportunities. That said, I was very impressed with Bruneteau and Hamilton on the power play. Bruneteau has always been the best d-man to run the power play but it seems that the coaching staff finally found him a partner. Hamilton can zip passes around and he isn't afraid to shoot. The two combined for 15 shots on goal over the weekend, many coming on the power play and being rewarded with 5 pts on the weekend. The power play has always been an issue, hopefully that can continue.
Pattyn chipped in another 4 pts from the blue line including 3 goals and jumped up in the play several times. Granted the competition was a step down but certainly nice to see the Defense put up some offense while also being defensively responsible.
In goal, Santaguida played 5 of 6 periods giving up 1 goal on 28 shots for a 0.964 S%. While many shots were low quality he faced some good shots and made the saves. While his puck handling outside the net seems to be lacking, he is definitely quick and agile. I would expect him to start this weekend at North Dakota considering Hoffman sat out this weekend and seems to be nursing an injury. Feeley looked good in his short stint as well.
Offensively the Cats looked a bit rusty, but were flying on the ice. Nice to see that type of hustle out of them and to see it continue through the weekend even after a very physical Saturday night. Brickley gets 5 pts on the weekend, hopefully he continues to be more offensive minded this season. He could have a break out year and the cats need him to score goals, not knock people's head off before heading to the penalty box. Bradley impressed me for the freshman, he seemed to have good speed, hustle and was right up in the play all the time battling for the puck. McKinney also was impressive IMO. I think there are 3-4 freshman that are going to see significant ice time on a regular basis this year and the Cat's should be cautiously optimistic about the season.
Lets pray the injury bug isn't going to get out of hand... Hoffman, Fallon, Reynolds are all big losses if they are out for any length of time. That said I think there is some depth on this team that can help mitigate the injuries.
As a side note there was two Matt Whites on the ice Saturday night...
GO CATS GO
Great weekend for the Cats, (heck the first weekend is great win or lose). A saturday night drubbing of Ottawa 7-0 followed by a 4-1 win over Acadia, freshman saw a lot of ice time, Brickley with a 5 point weekend and 7 powerplay goals
My thoughts :
The Cats were helped tremendously by playing seemingly the entire weekend on the power play. Both games were chippy and the refs were calling tight games. You can't help but pot a few power play goals when you have that many opportunities. That said, I was very impressed with Bruneteau and Hamilton on the power play. Bruneteau has always been the best d-man to run the power play but it seems that the coaching staff finally found him a partner. Hamilton can zip passes around and he isn't afraid to shoot. The two combined for 15 shots on goal over the weekend, many coming on the power play and being rewarded with 5 pts on the weekend. The power play has always been an issue, hopefully that can continue.
Pattyn chipped in another 4 pts from the blue line including 3 goals and jumped up in the play several times. Granted the competition was a step down but certainly nice to see the Defense put up some offense while also being defensively responsible.
In goal, Santaguida played 5 of 6 periods giving up 1 goal on 28 shots for a 0.964 S%. While many shots were low quality he faced some good shots and made the saves. While his puck handling outside the net seems to be lacking, he is definitely quick and agile. I would expect him to start this weekend at North Dakota considering Hoffman sat out this weekend and seems to be nursing an injury. Feeley looked good in his short stint as well.
Offensively the Cats looked a bit rusty, but were flying on the ice. Nice to see that type of hustle out of them and to see it continue through the weekend even after a very physical Saturday night. Brickley gets 5 pts on the weekend, hopefully he continues to be more offensive minded this season. He could have a break out year and the cats need him to score goals, not knock people's head off before heading to the penalty box. Bradley impressed me for the freshman, he seemed to have good speed, hustle and was right up in the play all the time battling for the puck. McKinney also was impressive IMO. I think there are 3-4 freshman that are going to see significant ice time on a regular basis this year and the Cat's should be cautiously optimistic about the season.
Lets pray the injury bug isn't going to get out of hand... Hoffman, Fallon, Reynolds are all big losses if they are out for any length of time. That said I think there is some depth on this team that can help mitigate the injuries.
As a side note there was two Matt Whites on the ice Saturday night...
GO CATS GO
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