UNH At The Starting Gate....

[WildShawn]

I blew my prediction, only three points instead of four, but I'd take a three point road weekend any day; I don't think any realist could consider that road trip a failure. UNH is not a world-beater, but played quite well enough.
As always, their fate is in their own hands, with three tough games ahead.

Which of the next four games WON'T be tough?

Unh was fortunate to escape with a tie tonight, DiGi played outstanding and got some help from Borisenok late in the game. Moses' line was outstanding as well tonight again.

Hardowa was flattened from behind before uvm's goal to tie it and there prob should have been a penalty, but it looked like he and one of the forwards got caught behind the net...leaving the goal scorer wide open. Desimone was furious with something after it....

Oh well, take 3 points and move on.

They need to play 10x better than tonight to win next weekend

[unh1982]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

I blew my prediction, only three points instead of four, but I'd take a three point road weekend any day; I don't think any realist could consider that road trip a failure. UNH is not a world-beater, but played quite well enough.
As always, their fate is in their own hands, with three tough games ahead.

you mean 4 games , i see a split with the last remaining games. . NU is playing the best of the season. furthermore I see merrimack losing one up in Maine , its going down to the nitty gritty . Merrimack has all the tie breakers . The tie tonight hurts , UNH cushion is only two points. Unh takes 3 out of four its there's. Wait and see.....

[C-H-C]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

Man, it's cold in The Gutt.
Thought the team played with intensity for most of the game. Over the first two periods, right up until UVM tied the game, they were a half a step or more ahead of the Catamounts. UVM looked like an 8th place team with the exception of Madore who can be amazing.

On the tying goal, someone creamed Hardowa in the corner leading to a turnover and the puck quickly came out front for a quick shot. That really lit a fire under UVM's collective butts. UNH seemed to tire during for the remainder of the 3rd period and into overtime. The 4th line of McCarey-Pavelski-Burke played pretty well (McCarey made a sweet spin move in the crease for a point blank shot sometime in the 1st or 2nd period)but didn't get much icetime in the final period. The first line looked gassed. DiGi deserved UNH's #1 star.

Couple of nitpicks regarding the first line. I don't know what the stats show but DeSimone and Thompson (who takes the draw on faceoffs in the right circle of the offensive end) seem to lose an awful lot of faceoffs. This late in the season, it is what it is - they're not going to get some intensive faceoff training. Where's Thomas Fortney when you need him?

And another thing - when Thompson and Sislo set up on the "half-boards," preparing for a breakout of the defensive end, they seem nonchalant. They're not crouched, ready to quickly gather the puck to skate it out of the zone or to absorb a hit from a forechecker. The result is that the puck often doesn't get out across the blueline and out of the zone. This problem seems to be more a lack of intensity than not knowing what to do. Speelman, Moses, and Goumas are very good at gathering the puck at the half-boards and getting it out of the zone.

On Friday morning, I would have predicted both UNH and BC would come away with 4 points over the weekend. UNH getting 3 and BC only 1 is a pretty good outcome. Hope Northeastern cools their jets by next weekend but that probably won't happen. Playoff hockey from here on in.

[ClOuD 9]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

The UVM SH goal was the result of a botched play on the blueline by Kessel who took two swipes at it and missed, very poor. Thought that the hit on Hardowa may have been through his back but heard else where that he turned in to it, can anyone clarify?

Two plays that stuck out tonight: UVM 2 on 1 in the first period, Thompson is the next closest to the play and is gliding instead of taking full strides to catch up to it & third period, tie game, with the puck sliding to the top of the face off circle and a UNH defenseman charging in at it full speed from the blueline DeSimone, who is a sticks length away from it with his back turned to the net, stretches for it instead of just letting the incoming d-man blast it on net.

Lowlight of the night was the UVM students with their two renditions of the "F!#$ New Hampshire" cheer.

Nervous going in to next weekend, NU has been performing at a very high level lately while the jury is still out on this Wildcat team.

[billb]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

"It might have been the greasy pizza, but I think it was the wine..." It is four games, my bad, but NU picked a great time to suspend their coach and assistant. Now they're playing like Merrimack.
UNH is at the top of the heap, no one can take that away from them, but those two end-of-season games, almost always four pointers, make those poor effort losses against weaker teams hurt more.

[Malts18]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

The UVM SH goal was the result of a botched play on the blueline by Kessel who took two swipes at it and missed, very poor.

Shocking! Hell, I have never seen plays back to Kessel on the PP get botched. Oh, wait....

[WildShawn]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

bill, my take would be that UNH has not lost to any of the 'weaker teams' in the league, and there's only one of the games the lost that they should have at least tied (the 2-1* loss to BU when they got hosed out of a point).
Its a strange year this way, but they have not lost to any team in the bottom 6 of the league (thus far):

Maine - 3-0-0
NU - 0-0-1
UMass - 2-0-1
UVM -2-0-1
PC - 3-0-0
UML - 3-0-0
13-0-3 against these teams.

Now the record against the rest of the league is 3-4-0

MC is a better team than UNH (and is right up there with BC), and I'd put UNH on about the same level as BU. So, in the league, I don't think they lost to any 'weaker' teams.

The thing that concerns me the most is when you look at their entire season/schedule. Looking at the teams that are in the tournament as of today. They don't have a win against any of them since November. The second half of the season, they haven't beaten any team in serious tournament contention (Maine is a big MAYBE, but they need a LOT of things to happen to get in without winning the HEA tournament, and they don't have the goaltending to do that).

They haven't done anything to bolster their footing while a lot of other teams have. If they take 3/4 to end the season (and as long as MC doesn't win out), they will have earned the top spot as well as gotten a few big wins heading into the post season...

They might just be a pretty good team who happened to overachieve the first half of the season, and they've racked up a decent amount of wins against bad teams. They have a chance to prove differently coming up. Last nights game was ugly, and proved that they can't take any team lightly. Fortunately they still picked up a point in the process.

[smalogna]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

Hey UNH fans....you're welcome. We'll see you Friday night!

[i'zonprize]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

Just win baby! Despite being in 1st place w/ 2 weekends and a Tournement to go, the wrong combination of wins and losses could put the season on ice, very quickly. Why?

UNH is 11 in PWR, which has essentially been the most accurate predictor of NCAA ranking ever since I've been following. With only marginal adjustments made for venues. Anyway- Currently Northeastern is 38 in the RPI and not a TUC- (right now) but with games against BU and UNH remaining, they could make a serious run at being a TUC. TUC teams effect your PWR ranking. Losses against them will not help UNH's cause to stay in the top 13-14 which has been the cut of for at large bids. I'm not discounting their ability to WIN the HE Tourney, but they are by no means the hottest team in HE at the moment- but with some good fortune and renewed scoring from 1st and 3rd lines- they could be quickly.

UNH simply needs to win!!

Great weekend by the second line- keep it rolling!! Also, Mike Beck? He's been a shooter since the First Maine game a few weekends back! Nicely done!

[WildShawn]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

Just win baby! Despite being in 1st place w/ 2 weekends and a Tournement to go, the wrong combination of wins and losses could put the season on ice, very quickly. Why?

UNH is 11 in PWR, which has essentially been the most accurate predictor of NCAA ranking ever since I've been following. With only marginal adjustments made for venues. Anyway- Currently Northeastern is 34 in the PWR and not a TUC- (right now) but with games against BU and UNH remaining, they could make a serious run at being a TUC. TUC teams effect your PWR ranking.

UNH simply needs to win!!

Great weekend by the second line- keep it rolling!

Not sure what you mean by NU being 34th in the PWR since the only teams in the PWR are TUC teams, and they are not listed. They are currently 38th in RPI at .4919, they'd need to get it to .5000 to be a tuc team, and I'm not sure what that would take.

[i'zonprize]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

ya- sorry, 38 in RPI, not 34 & not PWR,(sorry, only 1 cup of coffee this morning!) as PWR doesn't go that high! If NU is going to go on a roll and manage to get up to top 25 with series' against UNH and BU and the HE Tourney ahead- UNH could be playing with fire if they don't take care of business this coming weekend as it relates the NCAA's.

[WildShawn]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

ya- sorry, 38 in RPI, not 34 & not PWR,(sorry, only 1 cup of coffee this morning!) as PWR doesn't go that high! If NU is going to go on a roll and manage to get up to top 25 with series' against UNH and BU and the HE Tourney ahead- UNH could be playing with fire if they don't take care of business this coming weekend as it relates the NCAA's.

the TUC line changed this year to everyone with an RPI of .500 or better, so they're not THAT far from being a TUC, but I'm not sure theres enough left to make them a TUC

But as you originally pointed out, Just win.

[C-H-C]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

Kevin Goumas named Hockey East Rookie of the Week for the second time in the last 3 weeks:
http://unh.prestosports.com/sports/m...20110221cr42nt

[WildShawn]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

Great job by Goumas. He and that second line were really on fire last weekend at Vermont and were the only line consistently going all out on Saturday night at the Gutt.

I saw that UML's season thread has nearly 1000 posts, and they are having the worst season in the history of our league (I think?). What gives 'Cats fans? Too quiet here

[RockTheWhit]

Re: UNH At The Starting Gate....

It appears that Umile is set with his first three lines (Thompson-Desimone-Sislo, Goumas-Borisenok-Moses and Speelman-Block-Henrion) but both of the past two weekends he's had major changes to the 4th line from Friday to Saturday. This past Friday it was Manz-Silengo-Sorkin with Burke-Pavelski-McCarey on Saturday. Who do we think will comprise the 4th as the season finishes up, or will he continue to rotate into the playoffs?