UNH Wildcats 2019 Offseason - How Much Progress Did We Really Make This Past Season?

[Snively65]

No one was calling Gary Doak a key cog in the B's defensive corps back in the Bobby Orr or Brad Park eras.

You can be getting regular ice time, but 3rd pairing is 3rd pairing. Lesser among equals. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, it's been a tough few months for the DRW Alumni Association. First Ted Lindsay, now Red Kelly, and of course not that long ago, it was good ol' #9 himself too. Kelly retired as a player before I had any recollection of him playing (and he left DRW before I was born), but my memory of him was as the head coach in Toronto in the mid-'70's, one year in which his team took the defending Cup champion Flyers to 7 games when he was using some bizarre "pyramid power" schtick to offset the Broad St. Bullies.

I did see the following from Stan Fischler yesterday (linked below), where he makes the case for Red as the progenitor of Bobby Orr, and perhaps the most unique superstar in the long history of the NHL, being in the midst of two dynasties (DRW in the '50's as a defenseman, then with Toronto in the '60's as a center, winning 4 Cups apiece at each destination). I never saw the guy, and footage of his DRW days is limited and grainy, but he was apparently the goods. And he wore #4, which is a go-to number for elite all-time great defensemen.

https://thehockeynews.com/news/artic...-like-no-other

Actually, I WOULD call Gary Doak a key cog on some of those late 1960s and 1970s Bruins teams. Really nice guy, too, as he was one of the B's who would sign stuff for us kids after Saturday matinee games, which my parents let me attend by taking the Michaud bus from Durham, $2.40 round trip. He might have played on the second D pair in a couple of those later seasons in the late '70s. TvR would be so lucky to hang in the NHL for Gary's 18 seasons. R.I.P. Gary Doak, two years ago, way too young at 71.

[wildcatdc]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019 Offseason - How Much Progress Did We Really Make This Past Seas

Bring on UNH South

[HockeyRef]

Bring on UNH South

Ha! Beat me ( and Snively) to it!!!!

[wildcatdc]

Ha! Beat me ( and Snively) to it!!!!

I give all copyright credit to Snively - just glad to be there! Especially after C’s laid another egg

[Snively65]

I give all copyright credit to Snively - just glad to be there! Especially after C’s laid another egg

C's? Who are the C's?

Hoping that TvR recovers in time to play some in this next series, which should be a good one. I am thinking 7 games.

EDIT: on UNH-South's last visit to the Garden on March 5th, a 4-3 win for the home team, TvR got an assist and 3 SOG, Pesce got an assist, and Foegele got 2 SOG.

[wildcatdc]

C's? Who are the C's?

Hoping that TvR recovers in time to play some in this next series, which should be a good one. I am thinking 7 games.

EDIT: on UNH-South's last visit to the Garden on March 5th, a 4-3 win for the home team, TvR got an assist and 3 SOG, Pesce got an assist, and Foegele got 2 SOG.

He’s not seeing the ice for 4-6 months. Shoulder surgery a few days ago. A shame.

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019 Offseason - How Much Progress Did We Really Make This Past Seas

As a neutral, I'm rooting for Carolina but I frankly think the Cup is there for the B's to lose at this point.

Snively65, I'll let you skate on believing Doak was a key cog way back when. Great guy by all accounts, and I believe he owned The Epicurean restaurant in Exeter until it closed sometime back in the early 1990's? Not a big guy by any stretch, but fearless and would dive in front of any shot from any player - Bobby Hull included. But ultimately, he was a spare part who played more than 50 games in a season once (1) during his first 5 year stint in Boston, which came to an end in the '70 Cup-winning game.

He returned to Boston three years later after time in Vancouver and Detroit (his second stint there also), and ended up enjoying his most productive seasons after he turned 30, when he actually started to dress semi-regularly with the Don Cherry-era B's. But even he would tell you, he was never more than depth guy, even at his "peak". And had there not been a WHA during that final stretch of his career, it might still have been "business as usual" for Doakie, who retired shortly after the merger IIRC.

Any of you who are old enough to remember Eddie Andelman's old "Sports Huddle" radio call-in show back in the day, you'll no doubt remember the fake "Doak-A-Cola" ad they would run, with one of the guys mimicking a Canadian voice, talking "aboot how all the guys - Hodgie, Sheppie, Cashie, Cheesie" etc. would enjoy a Doak in their spare time. The B's were still the biggest show in town, even in the late '70's, and fake comic ads focused on Everyman Doak brought that home. Miss those days, a lot.

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019 Offseason - How Much Progress Did We Really Make This Past Seas

Name That Goalie (video quiz - brought to you by the WIS Subcommittee for Athleticism in Goalies):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egfKEpSLZak

(1) Ben Bishop
(2) Roberto Luongo
(3) Tuukka Rask
(4) Frederik Andersen
(5) Jake Oettinger

No one took a shot at this recent WIS quiz, but the following video bit confirmed the correct answer …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FWT4GdmZk8

"Duncan, stay up … no sleepies"

[Dan]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019 Offseason - How Much Progress Did We Really Make This Past Seas

JVR scores in Team USA’s pre-tournament game versus Germany at the World Cup. He played much of the second half of the game on a line with Patrick Kane and Jack Hughes and will probably start the tourney with those two. Plugger that he is, I hope he can keep up...

[wildcatdc]

JVR scores in Team USA’s pre-tournament game versus Germany at the World Cup. He played much of the second half of the game on a line with Patrick Kane and Jack Hughes and will probably start the tourney with those two. Plugger that he is, I hope he can keep up...

Is “plugger” an upgrade or a downgrade from a “plodder”, which is I think where we started??

By the way, Dan, your recap of the USHL selections on the other thread had me researching the league last night. One shocker for me - there are exactly ZERO USHL teams here in the “State of Hockey”, my weekday home. There were no fewer than 5 USHL teams in MN in 1980, the year that “some coach did something”. I guess it speaks to the crazy popularity of HS and college hockey out here. EDIT: Gophers hockey attendance notwithstanding.

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019 Offseason - How Much Progress Did We Really Make This Past Seas

There were no fewer than 5 USHL teams in MN in 1980, the year that “some coach did something”.

See what you did there, well played

[wildcatdc]

See what you did there, well played

Chuck, I honestly was going to give you a call-out after I typed that. But I held back.

I knew you’d get it.

[Dan]

Is “plugger” an upgrade or a downgrade from a “plodder”, which is I think where we started??

By the way, Dan, your recap of the USHL selections on the other thread had me researching the league last night. One shocker for me - there are exactly ZERO USHL teams here in the “State of Hockey”, my weekday home. There were no fewer than 5 USHL teams in MN in 1980, the year that “some coach did something”. I guess it speaks to the crazy popularity of HS and college hockey out here. EDIT: Gophers hockey attendance notwithstanding.

I thought it made a lot of sense a few years back when they added a team in Bloomington - but apparently there is a Bloomington in Illinois...

[Snively65]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019 Offseason - How Much Progress Did We Really Make This Past Seas

Hmm, our Warren Foegele has learned lots of dirty play in the NHL.

[HockeyRef]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019 Offseason - How Much Progress Did We Really Make This Past Seas

Love that dirty water....