Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet
Minnesota was the faster team
BC was not prepared for the speed that Minnesota brings to a game.
This. I saw Skarupa beaten in foot races more times yesterday than throughout the entire regular season, even though Crowley was taking advantage of the last change to put her out against the Gopher third line. We were used to seeing BC be both the fastest and the best conditioned team on the ice, with a speed advantage that only got greater as the game went on, but Clarkson skated with us and Minnesota outskated us.
Their passes weren't connecting and their offensive drives lacked any real muster.
I don't think the big ice was the difference tonight and, contrary to an above assertion, BC's passing was not the problem. If anything, their passing was more accurate than the Gophers', but it was also less ambitious. Minnesota stretched the ice vertically in ways the Eagles didn't.
Right, and on Friday so did Clarkson. Again, during the year those cross-ice passes at speed were a hallmark of BC’s game and throughout the weekend I’m not sure I saw one, while both Minnesota and Clarkson did those three-sides-of-a-square passing plays repeatedly. Those teams were able to use their passing to keep possession and get a breathing space. It seemed that even when BC had possession it was having to work harder to keep it than its opponents were. This could have been simply excellent defense by the other teams, but it felt like those passing plays were in their game plan and not in BC’s.
1) Minnesota was deeper. The Piazza/Williamson/Skarzynski line saw a lot more action, and in more crucial situations, than the Capizzano/Sullivan/Grieves line, and as the game went on, that became more important as BC's top two lines got worn down
We played our top line a ton, they were out after every media timeout and it sometimes seemed after every single stoppage in play. And they were -2 on the game. Grieves has the speed to get the puck into the zone even against Minnesota, and Sullivan and Capizzano are solid forecheckers, so more time for them could have at least given Minnesota something to think about while the top line got their breath back. But, yes, as noted above, the speed on Minnesota’s third line was striking and the team as a whole looked more dangerous more of the time.
I thought BC's top line had lots of skill, but no burners that could really terrorize the defense in transition. There have been comments on these boards that the Eagles didn't play with passion, but I don't think that's right. It was more that, over the second half of the game, BC seemed to become risk averse, worried about what would happen if they got caught in the offensive zone.
I don't think I saw BC put more than one or two legitimately decent shots on net. Everything was either straight into the goalie's pads or glove, or never made it thru the crease from being stopped by Minnesota sticks.
It seemed that BC’s plan in the offensive zone, at least for the top line, was to stop near the point, spin towards the boards, and then look to see if the play could be set up. That gave Minnesota time to set up their D, and they packed the D more densely than we did. There were a couple of times where Carpenter or Kent took it in deeper and tried to set up the cross-ice pass to Skarupa that won the semi-final, but that pass never got off quick enough. Both Carpenter and Skarupa seemed to throw away momentum when they crossed the blue line, and there were too many times when the puck carrier would go sideways and give up an offside. So we never really got a good set of transition breakouts. Maybe this was lack of big game experience. We were able to slow Minnesota down on the boards a ton of times, but it seemed like they were able to get in position offensively while we were still in disarray a ton more than we gcould do it to them.
Picking up on the comment about depth above, the Capizzano / Sullivan / Grieves line’s shots on net were 0/0/1. I saw plenty of passes through the crease from that line that no-one got a stick on.
2) Both teams relied on five defensemen, but, despite all of our worries, the Gopher five was better top to bottom. Lee Stecklein was a rock, while Megan Keller made a couple of misplays that helped Minnesota score. At the other end, while I've been critical of Brooke Garzone as a defensemen, she was outstanding tonight. As a group, the Minnesota defense didn't panic in the face of an aggressive forecheck, and they covered in front of the net very well;
Till you mentioned it I hadn’t noticed that we saw very little of Toni Ann Miano, who’s a very solid stay at home D. Wonder if she was hurt? She’s on the line chart as paired with Flanagan, but Flanagan was out with Keller a ton in the second half of the game. I thought our D was pretty solid. Both Keller and Johnson made a few mistakes, but that happens when you have the puck so much, and in general they got back fast. Unfortunately two of Keller’s mistakes led immediately to goals.
I was impressed by Keller. That's the best I've seen her play.
Right, despite the turnovers she was phenomenal. I thought that perhaps we were asking her to do too much, too much of the time. Flanagan is a great puck-carrying defenceman and very fast, but on a lot of occasions she would have D-zone possession and clear ice and instead do a short backwards pass to Keller to bring it up. As the game went on we were relying on the D to generate rushes rather than passing, I thought – which is fine, it works, but it tires you out and gives you less chance to catch the other team off balance.
With [Keller] and Burt as a foundation, IMO, the Eagles will be the beast of Hockey East again next year even with all that they graduate.
4) Amanda Leveille was better than Katie Burt. The margin wasn't huge, and I don't think Burt could really be faulted on any of the Minnesota goals, but Leveille made the key stops when she had to.
Leveille was very good in the second and third periods. She gave up a ton of rebounds in the first which we couldn’t quite get our sticks on, and dominated in the second.
Keller and Burt were our best players, with an honorable mention to Newkirk who was the hungriest of our forwards (8 SOG and in position near Leveille’s pads on other players’ shots a ton of times). BC will be very dangerous in Hockey East next year, but nationally I think Minnesota and Wisconsin will be a class apart from everyone else.
