UNH Wildcats 2019/2020 Ready to Rock and Roll!!

[HockeyRef]

Wanted to mention that a banner made by a UNH fan who posts here hung at the Friendahip Four listed several UNH hockey alums who played for the Belfast Giants...Snively a good trivia q for you..can you name 'em?

Seeing this banner was really special btw thanks for making it Cloud 9 even tho I wasn't lucky enough to experience the players.

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019/2020 Ready to Rock and Roll!!

Wanted to mention that a banner made by a UNH fan who posts here hung at the Friendahip Four listed several UNH hockey alums who played for the Belfast Giants...Snively a good trivia q for you..can you name 'em?

Pretty sure Mike Radja was one of 'em ...

[HockeyRef]

Pretty sure Mike Radja was one of 'em ...

Ding ding ding that's one of 'em!

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019/2020 Ready to Rock and Roll!!

Personal favorite from the glory years, Steve Saviano, apparently was another.

[HockeyRef]

Personal favorite from the glory years, Steve Saviano, apparently was another.

Glory years they were! Yep and there were 4 more...

[Dan]

Cats should be able to beat Army and Brown, as Bentley shut out both of them. Oh, wait....... :-)

It’s not about who UNH will beat it or who is capable of beating them - it’s about who UNH must beat if they want this team and season (with the deepest, most balanced, most experienced and most talented roster they’ve had in years) to represent ANY level of real improvement over the last few...

[Snively65]

Wanted to mention that a banner made by a UNH fan who posts here hung at the Friendahip Four listed several UNH hockey alums who played for the Belfast Giants...Snively a good trivia q for you..can you name 'em?

Seeing this banner was really special btw thanks for making it Cloud 9 even tho I wasn't lucky enough to experience the players.

Oh, wow, I love these questions, HR.

I can add to Chuck's Mike Radja (15/16) and Steve Saviano (17/18+18/19, when BS35+9 set up UNH for this tournament?), the following:

Our Hemingway bros (Colin and Brett) and Josh Prudden all together in 10/11, and Steve O'Brien in 05/06.

But, the guy who spent 10 out the past 11 years on the team was our old nemesis Colin Shields from U Maine, including 10/11, which must have been like old times with Colin and Josh. Colin was born in Glasgow, not too far away from Belfast. :-)

As far as Tate Rink at West Point, I have not been there in over a decade, but my guess is that you can still buy a gen adm ticket and sit about anywhere you wish, just like the Whitt and the Bentley Arena. :-)

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019/2020 Ready to Rock and Roll!!

On the next 5 game stretch … I'll predict a 3W-1L-1T haul. I'd like to see them do better, sure. I just don't think they're good enough on a consistent basis to do better than that. But it would set them up with 10 wins by the time they return to the heart of the league schedule. Let's not forget … it was only two seasons ago when UNH faced a similar stretch after a decent start to the final year of Coach Umile's Long Goodbye Tour, where many of us were banking on another solid haul of W's as a springboard to the successful conclusion of The Quest for the NRN. "Didn't quite work out the way we hoped" would be an understatement.

Like Dan, and as stated in the title of the offseason thread, I'm still not sold on just how much progress has been made in the still-unfolding MS7 Era. Coming from where the program was during the 2018 calendar year, and several seasons before that, it was always unlikely to change overnight, and the progress we've seen to date has been of the small, steady steps … the learn to walk before you can run version of digging out from the deep hole we all experienced two seasons ago. That's probably good enough, as long as the progress continues on a year-to-year basis, and a winning system and mindset are developed. But the tricky part can be what to do when some of your top talent invariably/inevitably moves on, and whether you can reload or just rebuild. So many programs get stuck in the latter scenario, where they have a few top players, no quality depth, and when the top players do move on, the replacements aren't up to the same standards - or there just aren't enough quality players to keep things pointing forwards. Heck, there were some lulls during the UNH glory years too … but it always seemed closer to reloading than rebuilding, until eventually it wasn't. The program lost that forward momentum, things got a little stale, and here we are now, looking back.

FWIW … it took Coach Madigan some time to get things moving at Northeastern, but he's there now with perennially talented and entertaining teams. Hopefully that's the trajectory we'll see with MS7 in Durham. 2019 has been a good year, and hopefully we'll look back in a year's time and say 2020 was even better. Build like that for a few more seasons, and things could start getting pretty exciting around here again. Whether we're on the right track or not probably has more to do with the games that follow these next five. JMHO.

[Snively65]

On the next 5 game stretch … I'll predict a 3W-1L-1T haul. I'd like to see them do better, sure. I just don't think they're good enough on a consistent basis to do better than that. But it would set them up with 10 wins by the time they return to the heart of the league schedule. Let's not forget … it was only two seasons ago when UNH faced a similar stretch after a decent start to the final year of Coach Umile's Long Goodbye Tour, where many of us were banking on another solid haul of W's as a springboard to the successful conclusion of The Quest for the NRN. "Didn't quite work out the way we hoped" would be an understatement.

Like Dan, and as stated in the title of the offseason thread, I'm still not sold on just how much progress has been made in the still-unfolding MS7 Era. Coming from where the program was during the 2018 calendar year, and several seasons before that, it was always unlikely to change overnight, and the progress we've seen to date has been of the small, steady steps … the learn to walk before you can run version of digging out from the deep hole we all experienced two seasons ago. That's probably good enough, as long as the progress continues on a year-to-year basis, and a winning system and mindset are developed. But the tricky part can be what to do when some of your top talent invariably/inevitably moves on, and whether you can reload or just rebuild. So many programs get stuck in the latter scenario, where they have a few top players, no quality depth, and when the top players do move on, the replacements aren't up to the same standards - or there just aren't enough quality players to keep things pointing forwards. Heck, there were some lulls during the UNH glory years too … but it always seemed closer to reloading than rebuilding, until eventually it wasn't. The program lost that forward momentum, things got a little stale, and here we are now, looking back.

FWIW … it took Coach Madigan some time to get things moving at Northeastern, but he's there now with perennially talented and entertaining teams. Hopefully that's the trajectory we'll see with MS7 in Durham. 2019 has been a good year, and hopefully we'll look back in a year's time and say 2020 was even better. Build like that for a few more seasons, and things could start getting pretty exciting around here again. Whether we're on the right track or not probably has more to do with the games that follow these next five. JMHO.

My take is that we are marginally better after 14 games (7-6-1) compared to last season (2-7-5), and would likely have a worse record record this year than last if Gildon had left early. Last season we won one, lost one, and tied five of our OT games. This season we have won four, lost two, and tied one OT games. So, we converted three OT losses last season to OT wins this season, and added two regulation wins.

[HockeyRef]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019/2020 Ready to Rock and Roll!!

My take is that we are marginally better after 14 games (7-6-1) compared to last season (2-7-5), and would likely have a worse record record this year than last if Gildon had left early. Last season we won one, lost one, and tied five of our OT games. This season we have won four, lost two, and tied one OT games. So, we converted three OT losses last season to OT wins this season, and added two regulation wins.

Appreciate the perspectives from you and Chuck about where we are now as opposed to last season. Two winnable games this weekend....the incentive for HE points is very, very critical and to head into the break on the plus side would be nice! Anyone wanting to go to the Sat. night 'Mack game they are having a Cyber Monday sale 40% off today. Can't make this one have to do the annual husband Christmas party sighhhhh…...

https://merrimackathletics.universitytickets.com/w/

[Snively65]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019/2020 Ready to Rock and Roll!!

Three UNH alums at Garden tonight.

[d.gerry]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019/2020 Ready to Rock and Roll!!

Three UNH alums at Garden tonight.

There is always at least that many. Brick, Edwards and Dean.

[UNH1932]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019/2020 Ready to Rock and Roll!!

Rub it in Snively. Losing to your employer's team was bad enough. I hope we can start winning ECAC games regularly and Atlantic Loss to Army will hurt almost as much as a Bentley win. I hope to see you at the Whitt and Lawler this weekend. Let me know if you need a ticket to the Whitt.

[Snively65]

There is always at least that many. Brick, Edwards and Dean.

Ha, ha, ha, d.gerry, you got me on that one. Good game so far tonight, and Foegeli masterfully baited Pastrnak into taking a 2-min minor.

Whenever I visit the Whitt, I cruise around the foyer the long way between the first and second periods on my way from my standing position top row next to the band to join my STH cousins in one of the empty STH seats behind the UNH bench. I like to arrive early (6:15) to watch practice, but thanks for the ticket offer, 32. I will miss Lawlor on Saturday night on my way north. Spending 3.5+ hours in traffic to attend Friday games at the Whitt is a big commitment for me; yes, I want a medal, Chuck. :-)

[HockeyRef]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2019/2020 Ready to Rock and Roll!!

Three UNH alums at Garden tonight.

...add 3 more to the list with the 'Canes in town tonight!!!