UNH Wildcats 2018-2019: Souza the Opportunity or Louza the Opportunity

[JB]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2018-2019: Souza the Opportunity or Louza the Opportunity

Chuck,

No disagreement here. Maine did push and I don't think UNH had the best response. My hope and my point is that a 3-2 OT win should be a learning experience, probably more for the coach than the players...

It was a very nice offensive zone faceoff win and play in OT. Something I don't recall Umile teams doing often.

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2018-2019: Souza the Opportunity or Louza the Opportunity

Let's not forget … this is NOT a veteran team, nor is it a team that's used to winning games at this level. There are going to be hiccups and learning experiences - for players and coaches alike. Also, it's natural that a team that's two goals down (or really, any goals down within reach) is going to play with more attacking urgency, and a team with a two goal lead might think a little more defensively. To the trailing team, there is nothing to be lost if you open up, get burned, and lose by 5 goals. You still lose, so you take that chance to try to get level, and then you try to win the game. It's one of the reasons why SOG's are the mostly meaningless stats they are. UNH never trailed last night, yet UMaine led in shots, by quite a bit. Irrelevant, again.

UMaine just had one of those nights where they had to gamble, and managed to get level. Did UNH's tactics contribute to that? Some knowledgeable posters say it did. I can't say, since I wasn't there - I listened on the radio on my way back from Hartford. But UMaine probably spent themselves doing just that, and had nothing left after. And UNH won in OT, which is all that matters. Ironically, they won it off an O-zone faceoff, which has been a huge focus of past complaints against the last coach and his staff.

UNH is 3 points out of home ice for the QF round. Win tonight, UNH is due for a feature write up on USCHO, sellout crowds are back at The Whitt, and suddenly and unbelievably, MS7 may even be pushing Coach Carvel for Penrose and HE COTY honors.



Gildon may have a reason to stick around, and many others now have a reason to come to Durham.

It's still early days, but what's not to get excited about?

[JB]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2018-2019: Souza the Opportunity or Louza the Opportunity

UNH as they became tired reverted to trying to jam the puck up the boards to clear the zone. Maine D we're sitting in zone waiting.

There have been times this year where UNH plays a 3 man game with a short pass coming off the wall into faceoff dot and a cleaner escape from the zone.

In the 3rd there was just too much scrambling and scaling the puck around.

[d.gerry]

I totally understood what you were saying. I was responding to hockeyRef’s Facebook comment

No worries, guess I misunderstood where you were going with your comment.

[Greg Ambrose]

Souza tried to blow that game ... He acted a bit to much like Umile. Really shortened the bench up 2-0 I think it even started in the 2nd period.

Did the 4th line even play in the third period?

Did the 3rd line have more than a handful of shifts?

To me that is why UNH looked so dead late in the third. The legs were burnt for the top two lines. The 4th line was generating nice offensive pressure early in the game.

Hopefully a lucky win, on a really nice Naz goal doesn't reinforce what I see as a bad coaching move in the game... Hopefully Souza sees the tactical error.

Kind of agree. Way too conservative in the third. Better to make Maine defend the entire length of the ice than letting them look better offensively than they are. Hopefully they’ll put the pedal to the metal tonight.