BU 2020-21 Season: The Road to … Nowhere?

[Rogie21]

New lines and D-pairings for today. Hope Albie listened to Scarlet about practicing faceoffs.
Puck possession matters, bigly.

Tuch-Mastrosimone-O’Brien
Cockerill-Skoog-Peterson
Wise-Zabaneh-Kaufman
Quercia-Boguslavsky-Armstrong

Farrance-Fensore
Vlasic-McCarthy
Campolieto-Jarman
Webber

Commesso

[defkit]

With all the precautions being taken i am surprised it's still happening this much. I wasn't expecting three teams to have to. How accurate is testing? Depends on the type of test? To me, the protocols to allow a team to play are extreme but whatever. Hopefully with the FF being one site they can do a better job and create as close to a bubble as possible.

It is a little surprising, though I think any interaction in public is more dangerous now than a few months ago, in terms of potentially catching COVID. Numbers are going up again, in my opinion it is because the general public is being less careful and doing more, since they see the most vulnerable have been vaccinated, and the weather is conducive to doing stuff and seeing people again ("it's outside, it should be fine"). I feel like college kids are the epitome of this, I know several that have contracted the virus in the past 6 weeks.

[BCeagle]

That would blow if one team tested covid for the FF

would they just take out the player(s) testing positive and let the rest of the team play ?

[J.D.]

With all the precautions being taken i am surprised it's still happening this much. I wasn't expecting three teams to have to. How accurate is testing? Depends on the type of test? To me, the protocols to allow a team to play are extreme but whatever. Hopefully with the FF being one site they can do a better job and create as close to a bubble as possible.

[Harry Cleverly]

With Notre Dame and Michigan out for COVID reasons, if this were a year ago the entire tournament would have been cancelled.

There is a reasonable chance that one or more of the teams that reach the Frozen Four could be affected. So Frozen Three? Frozen Two??

[Bomber]

Michigan is out due to COVID.
Who's next?

Wisconsin. Oh, wait, they just sucked.

[Harry Cleverly]

Michigan is out due to COVID.
Who's next?

[mookie1995]

Ha, I was thinking that about the BC game. 1 PM...a dreadful time if you have young kids, especially with it warming up outside. But I've come to realize there is no good time with young kids. Mookie is in on the 1 PM start though!

Best time possible!!
watch he game then go to sleep :-)

[J.D.]

From a getting a bit more rest for the winner, good. From a convenient time to sit down and watch the game, bad.

Ha, I was thinking that about the BC game. 1 PM...a dreadful time if you have young kids, especially with it warming up outside. But I've come to realize there is no good time with young kids. Mookie is in on the 1 PM start though!

[ericredaxe]

That's the most fair resolution, good to see.

From a getting a bit more rest for the winner, good. From a convenient time to sit down and watch the game, bad.

[brassbonanza]

Oh good, you'll probably win 5-1.

[SCSUBlackandRed]

What kind of game does St. Cloud play?

Here is who I would like to see in the line-up. The top 3 lines are not really by line, just more who I think should be in the top-9.

O'Brien - Cockerill - Kaufman
Tuch - Zabaneh - Mastrosimone
Wise - Skoog - Peterson
Quercia - Boguslavsky - Stevens
13th: Armstrong

Tough to leave out Senior Witkowski - I wouldn't mind if he is there 13th, or DeBoer for that matter. But I think everyone in those 4 lines should dress.

Farrance - McCarthy
Vlasic - Fensore
Jarman - Webber

I would prefer a 13th forward to a 7th d-man, as I've just seen too many challenging plays by Campolieto.

Any chance they start Duplissis (sp?)?. Probably not, but a change may not be a bad thing. Other than the game in which he was pulled, he played amazingly.

SCSU likes to play a very uptempo game. Lots of team speed. Transition out of the D zone and into the offensive zone quickly. Pass very well. If you caught the NCHC tourney final you would have seen they are right there with UND in that regard. Pretty aggressive forecheck. Don't take a lot of penalties but are good on the kill (84.8%, #11 in NCAA) when they do. Power Play is pretty good (22.5%, #13) but believe has been on a bit of a drought the last few weeks.

In goal, Hrenak is a four year starter and he is good, not great. Solid numbers but he is streaky. You're either getting 0-1 or you're getting 4, it seems.

Top forward line is Miettenin, Krannila and Okabe. This is their first NCAA appearance. This is the "foreigner" line, heck with Hrenak and Trejbal added in, you could call us the World Team instead of SCSU. These guys are really skilled with the puck and move and shoot well. That said, Miettenin (definitely top scorer/player) hasn’t been the same since taking a cheap knee to knee shot against CC in the NCHC quarters. If healthy (not sure he is), he is fun to watch. Did play against UND but didn’t do much.

They do roll four full lines but none as close to as dangerous as the first line. That said, Brodzinski, Hentges and Walker are the scorers on lines two and three. The fourth line does wear on you and they don't make a lot of mistakes, so they do their job.

Defense is solid but I wouldn't say great, lead by Perbix and Meier heading up pairing one and two. Perbix leads the offense and can score as well as set up others. If the D is going to make a mistake, it isn’t going to be him. The other guys are pretty non-descript.

Again, this is a well coached and well disciplined team. Can be a little physical but prefer the speed game overall. Overall don't make a ton of mistakes but it does seem they'll put a knucklehead play in there at what seems to be the worst possible team (see NCHC championship game against UND to begin the 3rd after dominating the first two periods and leading 2-1 - AT UND).

Goes somewhat without saying that they struggle in tournament play. Losses in two straight years as the overall #1 seed to lesser competition. Think we've been to 5 of 7 NCHC championships, have only won one.

This team is not as talented as the 2018 and 2019 teams that were overall #1 seeds. Guess we’ll see if that matters.

What to expect from BU other than I know you haven’t been able to play as many games as I’m sure you would have liked this year because of Covid. And we’re both super happy BC gets a bye before facing the winner of our game. Win or lose, I do like how the field is set up this year. It’s spread out a bit and we’ll mostly get matchups of teams that don’t play each other a ton. Obviously there are exceptions to that (one potentially looming for you) but at least they didn’t shove all the top West teams in one regional and the East in another.

[Scarlet]

See you guys on Sunday!

Please don't. I'm already enough of a mess as it is being in your bracket!!!

[Nick Papagiorgio]

See you guys on Sunday!

[brassbonanza]

BU-SCSU game moved to 1:00pm on Saturday.

That's the most fair resolution, good to see.