2009 Icebreaker: UNO, Army, St. Lawrence, Lowell @ Qwest Center Omaha

[MavRick]

UNO's season-opening tournament is usually the Maverick Stampede, but I guess we're the official Icebreaker.

I'm excited to see the Friday matinee between St. Lawrence, who's bubbling under the pre-season polls, and Lowell, who's an NCAA field pick or better in the eyes of most. I think on paper you have to like Lowell to win the tournament.

UNO's exhibition outing against Lethbridge was good, if raggedy. It was not as close as the 2-1 score might indicates, but as Blais says, "We've got a long way to go."

Players for UNO to watch:

7 Eddie Del Grosso, D - a potential all-conference defenseman
25 Brent Gwidt - a freshman forward who looked impressive
26 Alex Hudson - a beast of a sophomore forward who, if conditioned to Blais standards, might be able to score after the first period
1 Jeremie Dupont, G - if he improves again over his junior campaign, he could be tough to beat.

I'd enjoy from hearing from fans of the other field teams. Anyone coming to Omaha?

 

[TimU]

Re: 2009 Icebreaker: UNO, Army, St. Lawrence, Lowell @ Qwest Center Omaha

St. Lawrence just lost a TON of talent, production, and leadership to graduation - including six of their top ten scorers and their four best defensemen. We shouldn't expect them to repeat last year's success.

On the other hand, SLU brings back a lot of good players and appeared to get good efforts from the freshman in their first exhibition game. They'll have some good speed in the lineup, they'll skate hard, they'll try to score, and they have some guys who can hit. (Look out for Bollig.) They should give you some entertaining hockey win or lose.

And you never know.

 

[UMLFan]

Re: 2009 Icebreaker: UNO, Army, St. Lawrence, Lowell @ Qwest Center Omaha

Lowell returns pretty much everyone on the team last year, except three graduated seniors. The River Hawks probably only missed the NCAAs last year due to a six game stretch right around the break in which they lost all six games by a goal (empty netters not included). Pretty safe to say Lowell has no snipers but it's got a good amount of talent that can find the net, arguably the strongest blue line corps in Hockey East and two very good netminders.

Players to look out for (from my POV):
Kory Falite, senior. He's the best pure goal scorer for Lowell, but he's wound up in Coach MacDonald's doghouse for slacking at times as well.
David Vallorani, soph. Silky smooth with the puck. He's a kid that I know many Lowell fans feel like a steal of a recruit last year for Lowell.
Scott Campbell, junior. Hard working kid, good puck handler, can score and also has the ability to find the open man.
Maury Edwards, junior. All-American last year. Fantastic shot from the point. Plays good all around defense, but not as good as seniors Jeremy Dehner and Nick Schaus (for my money, two of the best defensive players in HE).
Nevin Hamilton and Carter Hutton, seniors. You'll most likely see both of Lowell's goaltenders this weekend, as they alternated game/game last year. Both were very solid and wound up near the top of the HE stats categories for their position.

 

[Scarlet]

Re: 2009 Icebreaker: UNO, Army, St. Lawrence, Lowell @ Qwest Center Omaha

What are the odds that two coaches in the same tournament would be named Blais(e)???? I'd say kinda slim!

 

[Patman]

Re: 2009 Icebreaker: UNO, Army, St. Lawrence, Lowell @ Qwest Center Omaha

What are the odds that two coaches in the same tournament would be named Blais(e)???? I'd say kinda slim!

I know they should take funny pictures with each other

A tournament out of the gate gives you something to work on which isn't a "throw away" non-conf game... especially when there's no such thing as a throw away non-conf game.

 

[critsports]

Re: 2009 Icebreaker: UNO, Army, St. Lawrence, Lowell @ Qwest Center Omaha

UNO's season-opening tournament is usually the Maverick Stampede, but I guess we're the official Icebreaker.

I'd enjoy from hearing from fans of the other field teams. Anyone coming to Omaha?

Not going but on the SLU thread I noticed a few of our loyal fans will be making the trip. I'm saving my big SLU trip of the year for the Denver series around New Years.

As to SLU players to watch..........

#30 Alex Petezian our goalie....he is entering his senior year, is fit and over his tenure at SLU has on occasion stoned some really, really good teams. (Ask UNH) Candidly I think our only shot against UML is if he stands on his head (assuming he gets the start.)
#11 Mike McKenzie...our top sniper and top returning scorer. He has a knack for the net and if there is ever a shoot out he is going first!!!
On the penalty kill.......#17 Alex Curran and #26 Travis Vermeulen...they are a thing of beauty to watch killing penalties
#81 Brandon Bollig....he is our proverbial bull in the china shop....get out of the way....big, strong, mean and loves the front of the net.

On "D" it is going to be a work in progress and managed by committee. Arguably our strongest returning D Men are #14 Caister and #7 Keller. Caister transferred last year from Wayne State and got a lot of PP time and I assume he will be a fixture on the PP.

Other than that our main asset will be depth (not a lot of difference between lines 1 and 4). We lost our big #1 scoring line to graduation other than #11, and the other main asset should be hard work and overall team speed. Guys like #32 Bogosian are solid two way players and guys like #19 Cunningham and #12 Mobley will fly.
Our other main asset is our coaching staff....we have a great head coach and staff and I think their patience will be tested this year. Our season will hinge on.......
-How quickly the young D recruits can step in
-Goaltending (like always)
-Where the scoring will come from....as Tim U said in an earlier post we lost a ton of scoring and the % of goals from our 4 graduated D Men (who played together for 4 years) will be sorely missed.

I think we will be competitive and my hope and prediction would be for a weekend split.

 

[UMLFan]

Re: 2009 Icebreaker: UNO, Army, St. Lawrence, Lowell @ Qwest Center Omaha

This tournament obviously has gathered a lot of excitement on this board.

No big surprises, UML vs UNO for the Final tonight. I'm assuming Lowell will have about 14k hostile fans to play against tonight?

 

[MavBarb]

Re: 2009 Icebreaker: UNO, Army, St. Lawrence, Lowell @ Qwest Center Omaha

The UNO Mavericks fought back from a 2-0 deficit to win last night. I really liked the tenacity this team displayed. Congrats to UNO.

This could be an interesting and exciting season. Lots of offense could mean good things for the team. And it's lots of fun for the fan experience as well.

Go Mavs!

 

[MAVFANJEFF]

Re: 2009 Icebreaker: UNO, Army, St. Lawrence, Lowell @ Qwest Center Omaha

Great Tournament!!!