Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

[Federal League]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

Nicastro was cut from the final roster of National team

Not too surprised. He played well in the UND exhibition (I haven't seen or heard anything about last night's exhibition because it wasn't broadcast anywhere), but this team is just stacked on defense. The good news here, at least for BU, is that they'll have 6 d-men for the UMass game.

Chris Brown of Michigan was the last forward cut, BTW.

[mookie1995]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

Good news on this day of festivus, we still CAN put up a 30 win season.

[slurpees]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

Chris Brown of Michigan

hah.

Good news on this day of festivus, we still CAN put up a 30 win season.

For the restivus.

[candycanes99]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuUTEOJuEmk
for those that didn't see it. typical yip, gets on ice...checks, checks again, maybe should've been called, scores. the announcer had that line in the back of his head...

Yiiiiiip!

As a side note, I hate the Avs PBP guy. He gets really annoying. Imagine the shouting in that clip, but on every single play including dump ins.

[Scarlet]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

Terriers' national championship one of Boston's top sports moments of 2009.

[BU Fan 84]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

Some scattershooting of thoughts with too much time on my hands:

I'm glad to see parker somewhat acknowledging his over use of a small group of players that had good seasons last year. This, in my mind, would lead one to conclude he needs to give others that show work ethic and heart in practice and the little time on the ice in games a larger role coming out of Christmas break to see if they can make a positive impact with larger roles.

I also noticed he talked about all "3" goaltenders when he mentioned it would be a strong suit for the team. He than went on to talk about the horrible save percentage year to date. The horrible save % and w-l record is with the two that have played.

He says he thinks those two can easily turn that around given their history (haven't seen any indication Rollheiser can be effective this year or last...he had a couple of shutouts with one or two scoring ops with last year's team in front but in tough games has not done much in my mind to demonstrate they can actually win a game on his back). I guess he should either refer to only "2" goalies as that's all he uses or give Kraus a shot once and for all. I'm tired of him implying Kraus can play when we never finds out in a game if that kid is a D-1 goalie.

I agree with other posters discussion of lack of back checking among forwards and wonder why that is not mentioned by him. That is effort and if there are no consequences to lack of effort its poor coaching because it reinforces that lack of effort will be tolerated.

Reading that letter depressed me because there seems to be nothing in there suggesting anything will change as the year goes on.

The recruiting and replenishment of talent does not seem to look too good going forward and the lack of planning to replace the enormous loss of talent last year is biting the Terriers in the a** this year. The loss of Quinn will only become a more glaring issue as time goes by.

I'm afraid the next few years could give us Terrier fans a real understanding of what its like to cheer for Providence or Merrimack.

I don't know, I kind of get the exact opposite feeling from reading this letter. I'm one of the biggest Fire Parker guys out there, but I agree with Rover. It seems like he knows what's wrong and it doesn't seem like the things that are wrong are new or have never been encountered before. I think there's a 50/50 chance he can fix them. We'll have to see. On a side note, the fact that he knows what's wrong and that these are things that have been encountered in the past make me wonder why the hell they are back again and how he could have let that happen again in the first place, but I digress.

Furthermore, I feel the exact opposite about recruiting. I agree he screwed up this year because I just don't see Megan, Santana, Courtnall or Rosen adding anything to the team over the next three and a half years, but I think the future is bright. You don't see the National Championship effect for at least one year anyway and as long as the post-National Championship effect (4-10-3 at the break) doesn't screw things up (like, say, convince Clendening to go to Canada), I expect our class next year to be #1 in the country and good stuff seems to be happening down the road.

I do think Kraus needs a start because his second appearence this season has been better than everything we've seen from Millan or Rollheiser except for Millan's first two periods against BC.

On to other things - I finally got around to starting Burn the Boats today. I'm on page 31. It's a good read so far, though in my personal opinion, if you are going to quote someone's column on page 13, I think you should put the writer's name in there somewhere. But more relevant, I really enjoyed reading about Z. Cohen's laziness. I couldn't really see it his freshman year because he wasn't very good anyway and his sophomore year, I thought he improved his skating drastically but didn't get any playing time, so you couldn't see it then. I think almost getting kicked off the team got his butt in gear last season, but (and this was before I even read the book) if you asked me who the laziest player on the team is this year, I'd have said Z. Cohen. I also thought it was interesting to learn that no one liked Wilson his first year because he was an immature little kid, and that Bennett is a good kid who thanked Parker for the opportunity after being booted. The latter is something a little different than the general tenor of the statements made about him on here.

Anyway, if you celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas! If not, enjoy your time off.

[Tater]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

Terriers' national championship one of Boston's top sports moments of 2009.

At least they got it right here. Boston.com ran earlier this week the top Boston sports stories of the decade. Not overly surprised that no college sports got in the top 10 as this was the golden age for Boston pro sports. However, they had a lengthy honorable mention list and nothing there. Evidently, that stupid Flutie drop-kick was bigger than either BU winning last season or BC winning twice this decade.

[collegefan06]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

[QUOTE=BU Fan 84;4532123]I don't know, I kind of get the exact opposite feeling from reading this letter. I'm one of the biggest Fire Parker guys out there, but I agree with Rover. It seems like he knows what's wrong and it doesn't seem like the things that are wrong are new or have never been encountered before. I think there's a 50/50 chance he can fix them. We'll have to see. On a side note, the fact that he knows what's wrong and that these are things that have been encountered in the past make me wonder why the hell they are back again and how he could have let that happen again in the first place, but I digress.

Furthermore, I feel the exact opposite about recruiting. I agree he screwed up this year because I just don't see Megan, Santana, Courtnall or Rosen adding anything to the team over the next three and a half years, but I think the future is bright. You don't see the National Championship effect for at least one year anyway and as long as the post-National Championship effect (4-10-3 at the break) doesn't screw things up (like, say, convince Clendening to go to Canada), I expect our class next year to be #1 in the country and good stuff seems to be happening down the road.

I do think Kraus needs a start because his second appearence this season has been better than everything we've seen from Millan or Rollheiser except for Millan's first two periods against BC.
QUOTE]


BU Fan,

I think that you, Rover and I are seeing the same general things in the same way but we are coming up with different conclusions.

Before I respond to your excellent post I want to say that I don't want to be perceived as always knocking Parker. I appreciate what he's accomplished over his distinguished career and watching and celebrating last year's national champhionship was a memory I will treasure forever. As lead guy, he gets credit for assembling that amazing group of athletes that possessed both amazing physical skills and were as mentally tough as any team could be.

The points I've tried to make relate to how much different this team is than last year's team and that, in my opinion, the coaching approach has hurt this team's results year to date.

The posters on this site have been identifying problems with this team for weeks, even months so JP summarinzing many of those same points in a mid-season letter should be academic. His letter mentions many of the problems we average fans see however lacks one of the most significant problems many posters have repeatedly pointed out....the lack of back checking among forwards. That single issue makes the defense look terrible hanging teammates out to dry and leads to many odd man scoring advantages.

He does take responsibility as coach but my question is he only now getting around to acknowledging them and hopefully addressing them. Perhaps he started with the benching of CC? Lack of effort is sited yet the same guys go out game after game getting disproportionate minutes.

After the first Merrimack game where Kraus came in and played well, he sited how that kid competed when others quit. To me, that was the glaring moment to make a statement....start 3rd goalie Kraus the next night and make a statement to the team that hard work and competing when others quit would be rewarded. I could go on about goaltending opinions I have but you guys see the stats and results too.

I just believe we shouldn't get a mea culpa at mid season. We should have seen philosophy changes to this team in early November.

In terms of recruiting, just count the numbers and see what next year looks like. We have 5 committments. We have 3 seniors that play every night. Bonino is almost a given to leave, Colby has wanted to leave for two years and Shatty will very likely leave as well. That is 6 players eating a ton of minutes with 5 coming in. To me, that means that Courtnall, Vic Sap, Glass, K Gilroy, Santana, Rosen, Megan......will at a minumum be counted on as contributing every day players with several on one of the top lines. We will need the underclassmen to carry a heavy load because the only senior skaters left are Joe P and Vic Sap.

When I look at the likely composition of the team it tells me that someone didn't plan properly last year in re-stocking the numbers with guys that can play. Maybe kids just didn't want to come to BU and play in Boston at Agganis arena for the defending national champs? Seems unlikely but that's where we stand next year.

I want to be wrong and want to see fundemental philosophy changes starting against U Mass.......starting Kraus would be a good indication of those changes. I hope that with their poor seasons Bonino, Shatty and Cohen return next year. There are lots of variables that JP has a much better handle on than any of us.

I was just being a worry wort given my free time over the holidays after reading the mid year letter. Rover and you are correct that he's identified most of the issues (except forward backchecking, which he surely sees too even if its not put in the letter) so here's to hoping that the action of fixing the problems starts January 2, 2010.

I still believe this team has significant talent to be a top 5 team in HE and that with proper coaching that addresses the mental part of the game, we can all see a turn around. Unless these kids have gone from 2009 national champs to hockey zombies on the ice this seems acheivable and once the HC tournament starts, who knows what can happen if they are playing with confidence and passion at that time of the season?

As echoed earlier, Merry Christmas to those that celebrate and happy holidays to everyone esle!!!!!

[buoldtimer]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

Has anyone considered that the solution to the Terriers' woes may be as simple as restoring last year's introduction? You know the one with the "Are You Ready" and "Let's Go Get 'Em Boys". Let's face it, this year's unit hasn't been ready and they haven't gone and gotten anybody.

[srsterrier]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

In terms of recruiting, just count the numbers and see what next year looks like. We have 5 committments. We have 3 seniors that play every night. Bonino is almost a given to leave, Colby has wanted to leave for two years and Shatty will very likely leave as well. That is 6 players eating a ton of minutes with 5 coming in. To me, that means that Courtnall, Vic Sap, Glass, K Gilroy, Santana, Rosen, Megan......will at a minumum be counted on as contributing every day players with several on one of the top lines. We will need the underclassmen to carry a heavy load because the only senior skaters left are Joe P and Vic Sap.

I understand that the coaching staff has to take responsibility for the team's performance and Parker has done that. Ultimately, however, it is the players who have to play. But one area where it is mostly on the coaches is recruiting and on this point I disagree with you. There are four forwards committed for next year that are among the top prospects in the country: Coyle, Nieto, Gill and Cisse. Of course, you never know for sure how a player will perform or if their development will be stunted [e.g. after a great start, Cisse was recently injured and is out for the year]. But Parker and his coaches have gone out and gotten four players who are capable of stepping in on one of the top two lines right away. And defensively, if he comes to BU, Clendening is an elite defenseman.

Originally Posted by collegefan06

(haven't seen any indication Rollheiser can be effective this year or last...he had a couple of shutouts with one or two scoring ops with last year's team in front but in tough games has not done much in my mind to demonstrate they can actually win a game on his back).

I also think the jury is still out on Rollheiser. Early in the season last year, he looked like a goalie capable of carrying a team on his back if needed. I remember the early 2-1 loss at UNH and he definitely looked very good in that game. Then he slumped a little and got injured so he did not get too many chances the rest of the way. I'd like to see him in a big spot and see what he can do.

[collegefan06]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

srsterrier, you make some fair and good points on the forward recruiting....with the four committments coming in added to what we likely have returning we wind up with a possible scenario of a pretty solid group for three lines with KG, AG, JC, WM, VicS, and a slower developing freshman competing for time on the 4th line.

I worry about numbers on defense though. It is not far fetched that 3 D-men leave next year and that would leave us with a grand total of 5 assuming Clendenning doesn't wind up in Canada. That makes me very nervous.

As for Rollheiser, I thought the Cornell game was about as big as it gets in the first semester and if not for his giving up 2 early goals he should have stopped (the breakaway shooter never really got a shot off, it just floated between 35's legs), that would have been a big win on a big stage. I think confidence is a big issue with this young team and winning that sort of game can be a great catalyst and could have really turned things around. I thought he did play well against NH but we still didn't get a win. Hopefully he steps up in his next starts!

[BU Hammer]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

After the first Merrimack game where Kraus came in and played well, he sited how that kid competed when others quit. To me, that was the glaring moment to make a statement....start 3rd goalie Kraus the next night and make a statement to the team that hard work and competing when others quit would be rewarded. I could go on about goaltending opinions I have but you guys see the stats and results too.

Having been at that Merrimack game, and having gotten that quote from Parker, I sort of disagree with your assessment. When Parker says somebody "competed hard," he means the effort was there. Obviously, that's commendable on Kraus' part, and the idea that he should get a start as a "message" to the team isn't at all a bad idea. If that's all you're suggesting, then I think you're right.

That said, Millan and Rollheiser are simply on another level talent-wise, and I think if Parker and Geragosian thought Kraus could match their production, he'd have gotten his chance by now. When Kraus "competed hard" against Merrimack, he was just getting to the puck in time on a lot of 'Mack's chances, including a handful of saves after scoring chances created by his own inefficient rebound control.

As I said, getting Kraus a start in that situation as a message wouldn't be bad coaching, especially if it sparks something in Millan and/or Rollheiser. Let's just not be under the impression that Kraus should really be in competition with those guys for full-time duties -- settling for Kraus' effort while leaving Millan's or Rollheiser's talents on the bench would be a real reason to doubt Parker.

[mookie1995]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

Greetings from the jersey turnpike! Happy holidays!

[Gryba Dekes]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

Greetings from the jersey turnpike! Happy holidays!

Wave when you pass by 8A! (Even though I don't live there anymore...)

[mookie1995]

Re: Boston University 2009-2010 Season Thread II: Still got a pulse, time for CPR

Past that. In Suffolk va right now in a hotel that rivals THe Viking from Myrtle beach