What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

2024-2025 Season - Providence College

UMASS next up, tonight and Saturday, they have been a problem for the Friars since their coach showed up in Amherst. Figure another grind it out 2 games. Would like to see more points than last week before facing BC on Tuesday. Both games on ESPN+ but hope home fans show up for Saturday. Not sure what the students will do with a basketball game at 5pm at the AMP.

Game on Saturday is a 6pm start not the usual 7pm.

Maybe they will have the bball game on the TV in the Champions Pavilion.
 
Last edited:
Tried to sign in earlier but the fan forum site was down. Assume they were repairing another attack from hackers, too bad resources need to be diverted for things like that.

So the first game is in the books and the regulation win feels good. Bruce Irving’s son played very well in goal for UMass, Bruce was our very generous volunteer assistant goalie coach for many years. Another first shot goal for opponents and once again we dug out of an early deficit. Gritty win and playing away at Amherst is always tough. Loved seeing Sawyer’s celebration after his 2nd period goal, getting that obviously meant a lot to him and hopefully will be the first of many. That it stood up as the GWG was surprising, but after giving up the first goal early on, that was it for U Mass. Tonight will be interesting with the extra break between weekend games, expect PC will put up more goals, but our goalie will need to be good again. Hate to predict few students attending, but seems likely with a competing schedule with BB. Tough to win by throwing away the home ice advantage. Hoping for the best and then BC on Tuesday - tough scheduling for us. Go Friars!
 
After tonight's game I'm sure they'll rebound and get things together for the upcoming games. You forget about some of the skilled players on UMass with their recent offensive struggles, but Hrabal was the wall they needed tonight as well. Off-night for PC, not a bad start to the season aside from the turd tonight. Nothing seemed like it was working, and the sloppy passes made their return. These are things that can get worked out, move on from and do better.

With a couple subpar performances by Borgiel I don't think regularly rotating he and Svedeback is the answer, despite his one outstanding performance previously. Again, an off night which every team has.
 
Ditto on Happy Thanksgiving.

Haven’t posted in a couple of weeks, been away and kind of enjoyed not having great internet access, but missed the BC game. Just watched that on demand on ESPN +. Great nationally broadcast game and the Friars looked really good. Surprised there wasn’t more outrage about the 2 early whistles that cost the Friars the game. The one in the first was particularly poor, similar to UMass Lowell last year where the puck was clearly not under control and the ref blew it dead just before it crossed the goal line. Then Leonard’s blind “shot” in OT that just slowly crossed the crease, what a fluke score after another goal was just waived off which would have given PC the win instead.

Looking forward to the weekend games in Lake Placid, will watch live on ESPN + hopefully.
 
Last edited:
Clarkson got into the game after PC had a hot start, but like the resilience of this team and their very good 3 on 3 play. Even with O’Reilly out, the roster for the game was very strong. Divver said he saw O'Reilly at practice Tuesday with a red jersey so at least he is skating.

If both HE teams win today I wonder what the criteria will be to determine the tournament winner? Not a big time event, but since the game match ups were predetermined I would expect they thought this possible dilemma out? Any ideas how this could work?
 
Last edited:
I think PC should win the tournament with a record of 2 - 0 vs UMass Lowell with a record of 1 - 0 - 1? Winning the shootout is an official tie no? PC won the Clarkson game in OT but that is a win.
 
Last edited:
Well, just saw a photo of UMass Lowell getting the trophy. They did score 6 goals vs 5 for the Friars, but I expected goals scored would be a tie breaker, (but there was no tie to break). The Friars won 2 games and Lowell won 1 and tied 1.

Does anybody have insights?
 
NEW Friar said:
Well, just saw a photo of UMass Lowell getting the trophy. They did score 6 goals vs 5 for the Friars, but I expected goals scored would be a tie breaker, (but there was no tie to break). The Friars won 2 games and Lowell won 1 and tied 1.

Does anybody have insights?
Click to expand...

PC played 2 good games. Clarkson and St Lawerence were up to play PC. I was at the games, very small PC crowd. Mostly family. PC should have won the tournament as soon as Clarkson and Lowell tied. You are correct, PC won both games. I tried to find the " rules" but no luck. Bottom line is PC won 2 games and jumped over Lowell in the pairwise. Lowell can have it, bigger pieces of hardware to collect. Leaman had a chat with the 2 refs at the end of the St Lawerence game. They gave St Lawerence every break in the book. Trash ECAC refs.
 
I wasn't able to follow the PC games live this weekend so I got the replays. Seems it doesn't matter if home or away (or neutral) feels like there's always a PC goal reviewed or challenged. I thought it was only a home ice specialty! I was at the Brown game yesterday and a pretty balanced game was called, a little mix of "let them play" and "you can't do that", some more whistle-worthy than others and some they seemed to miss. As a neutral fan at the game, it was an interesting comparison to the special guys who make the decisions in HE games.
 
NEW Friar said:
Well, just saw a photo of UMass Lowell getting the trophy. They did score 6 goals vs 5 for the Friars, but I expected goals scored would be a tie breaker, (but there was no tie to break). The Friars won 2 games and Lowell won 1 and tied 1.

Does anybody have insights?
Click to expand...

The Digital Program for the Tournament had this: "The tournament winner will be determined through an overall points system."

Lowell earned 3 points for a regulation win, and 2 points for a shootout win. PC earned 2 points for an OT win and 3 points for a regulation win, which left them tied. They were also even on goal differential, but Lowell had the edge in goals scored 6-5. Had the PC goal with under 4 minutes left on Saturday not get reversed, I have no idea what the next tiebreaker was.
 
ScottK said:
The Digital Program for the Tournament had this: "The tournament winner will be determined through an overall points system."

Lowell earned 3 points for a regulation win, and 2 points for a shootout win. PC earned 2 points for an OT win and 3 points for a regulation win, which left them tied. They were also even on goal differential, but Lowell had the edge in goals scored 6-5. Had the PC goal with under 4 minutes left on Saturday not get reversed, I have no idea what the next tiebreaker was.
Click to expand...

Thanks ScottK, that explains it. The disallowed goal would have made the difference if goal differential was one of the factors as goals scored would have been tied but PC would have the advantage on goal differential. Not a well thought out criteria though as it gives no weight to the qualitative difference between an OT win and an OT tie/shoot out win leaving the tournament winner with the second best record. I think the pairwise criteria may take that into account if PC moved past UMass Lowell in that ranking after the weekend results.
 
2 big home games against Colorado College this weekend who are currently tied for 2nd in NCHC. They too have been in quite a few OT games (6). I think PC leads or is tied for lead nationwide in OT games with 7, really need to start closing out games in regulation. CC is 3 spots behind Friars in the still early PWR. Expect 2 tough games, former Friar assistant Kris Mayotte who came in with Leaman part of the staff for the Natty team I believe is their HC.

CC won their first 8, have gone 1 win, 2 losses and a tie in last 4, 9-2-1 right now.

1 common opponent, Arizona State, Friars swept at home, CC won both at home but first win was OT win...
 
Thanks for the post on the upcoming Colorado College games. Nice column in College Hockey News regarding the matchup and the friendship between the two coaches. Kris Mayotte, (and as pictured in the CHN article - Steve (killer) Miller), were also assistants on Nate Leaman’s recent 2021 gold metal winnng US World Junior team along with the 2015 National Championship squad.

Another link between the programs is that Logan Will came to PC for his final year of eligibility as a graduate transfer this year after serving as captain of the CC team for the past two seasons. He is having a nice year at PC as well.
 
Last edited:
Interesting change from Friday's game: Not once was Svedeback run over by a CC player. Nice to see the boys put up nine total goals over the weekend. Hopefully the time off doesn't lose the pace of this offense.
 
Terrific weekend for the Friars. Hung on to the lead on Friday for yet another one goal win. Then last night they expanded the lead toward the end of the third when the score went from 2-1 to 4-1 starting with a great saucer pass by Sawyer to Gamache for a tap in and soon after Mustard grabs the puck from the sideboards and takes a few steps in adding velocity and accuracy to his scoring blast. I thought whoever scored the next goal when it was 2-1 would win the game and thankfully it was PC.

8 goals in 2 games, (not counting the final ENG), against a goalie that just won national goalie of month for November is really impressive. Let’s hope this momentum continues as PK said. The second half of the season, mostly against Hockey East teams, is a minefield. Go PC!
 
Last edited:
Speaking of the saucer pass Sawyer to Gamache, their passing game was pretty strong for the sweep too. Not a ton of "highlight" type plays with pretty passes that aren't smart passes, no fancy stuff, just sticking to hockey. I believe I criticized it earlier in the season with another series with a lot of pucks jumping over sticks, but you barely saw it this time.
 
The good practice sessions the Friars had this week seem to have paid off as they moved ahead of Denver in the pairwise and are now alone in 6th place. OK, it's true that PC didn't play, but Colorado College beat Denver last night so somehow maybe we can take credit for that!

It is going to be an exciting 2nd half of the season, hopefully the two week wait for the Ledyard tournament at Dartmouth will be worth it. Guessing they will be without Connelly, assuming he gets picked for the US World Junior roster, but PC held their own during the 5 games he missed due to injury in the first half. The Ledyard tournament format has the first game winners playing each other for the championship so at least there is no chance that the winner will not have the best record!
 
Trevor Connelly made the cut for the WJC and is with team USA in Ottawa now. Hope he does well and avoids injury. The Athletic picked him as one of the top 25 players in the tournament. He was one of six US players they included while the majority (11), play for Canada. Can’t wait for the New Years Eve game between the USA and Canada. This event is a big deal, especially in Canada, and playing in front of the rabid Canadian crowd in Ottawa must be a high adrenaline and stressful experience.

All US games will be televised by the NHL network.

Go team USA and Trevor!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top