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Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries Again

Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

You're right, if Mueller and Aurard transferred out of Northeastern last summer the Huskies would still be 3rd.
I missed the part where I suggested that.

IMO, BC should have been a top-four team last year, but the players didn't perform to that level. Did I think that BC should be a top-four team this year. No, of course not. However, the first 10 games suggest that the current roster is capable of more than we've seen over the last 12. The Eagles have more talent than UConn or Providence, but they aren't playing like it. What happened to the chip on the shoulder of wanting to prove people wrong for underestimating BC? I can more easily see dropping to 8 wins in 2009-10, due to losing a goalie, but even that was a steeper drop than one would expect. BC isn't the first team to lose a lot of talent very suddenly. Several teams have gone through something similar and fought on.

As for transfers, the biggest change in recent years was UND folding and all of those players transferring. I haven't seen any other big change.
 
Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

goaliedad35
Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

Originally Posted by bceagle
or is crowley not a good coach in terms of developing player motivation and team cohesion or in game coaching ?

bingo x2!

This is what I have heard from people with first hand knowledge for what that is worth. Of course those people may have been on the unhappy side so its hard to tell. BC definitely underperforms and to lose two superstars to transfer is unusual in women's hockey. Transfers are usually those players not getting the ice time they want.
 
Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

Coach has to be feeling the heat moreso after such an unexpected start. Team needs to score goals and it’s not all on the goaltending but they have to be better going forward or the season will end quickly. It’s a young team and patience is required.
 
Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

Two of the top players in the country leave the team because they aren't happy with what lines they're being put on or whatever and everyone acts baffled why the team could possibly be having a down year.

An elite-tier player is enough to elevate a program from being outside the tournament and in it in this sport -- see Poulin, Marie-Philip and Mueller, Alina -- and we lost two of them. I'm not even counting losing 4/6 of our blueliners to graduation because that's just part of college athletics. But rosters are built over the course of years and losing two elite players (one an underclassman!!) unexpectedly doesn't just eff up your current roster but effs up the whole scholarship allocation for the years they were supposed to be on the team too.

Seriously, people expect BC to just lose players like that and keep winning like nothing happened? It's not like someone who's been riding the bench for two years is going to be able to step in and replace 1.5 goals per game. There's only a handful of players at that level in this sport. They aren't just replaced with people who weren't getting playing time.

I'm pretty tired of having to keep quiet on these players leaving with their own personal issues while people shit on our coaching staff. We lose top players to transfer ONCE in 12 years and suddenly Kinger & Kennedy don't know how to run a locker room. Please. And these are the coaches who rebuilt the locker room from the Mutch debacle to begin win. Anyone with one iota of sense can see that this has never happened with these coaches before and figure out that these players left solely and exclusively because of themselves without me needing to post a rant on a message board to explain it.

Always great when these nobodies who don't GAF about the program while they're winning come in to give their two cents about something they're clueless about when things are on a down swing.

Nice rant - but the questions stands - btw I probably know more of the players than you!
 
Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

- btw I probably know more of the players than you!

What does that mean? Does that give you some special insight to what the players are thinking - more than some one who has been around as a fan and reporter??
Is your daughter on the team, or do you just creep around Conte striking up conversations with teenage girls?
I would assume that if the former is true she is or will be a problem on the team. Can only imagine the conversation blizzard has with his player after every game. Is she not getting the play time she got when you coached her??
 
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Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

Certainly this thread has been entertaining but it's kinda gone south.

As a Gopher fan I would ask the question, how much of a difference would it make if, say Grace Zumwinkle and Taylor Heise were not in lineup.? Or the Potomak sisters. There is depth behind them but you lose 2 difference makers and it puts a strain on the team.

How about Wisconsin? Watts stays at bc and take Abby Roque away. Or give them Watts and take Shirley and Roque away. Quite a bit different lineup for Wisconsin. Would they still be pretty good? Sure, but they would probably have more losses.

The bc preseason outlook wasn't all ducks and bunnies with watt transpired but they did start out well and now are going through a rough stretch. I don't think it is unreasonable to question why it's happening but I also don't think that a coaching staff that has put bc in the top tier of WCH has suddenly lost their ability to run a program.
 
Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

The bc preseason outlook wasn't all ducks and bunnies with watt transpired but they did start out well and now are going through a rough stretch. I don't think it is unreasonable to question why it's happening but I also don't think that a coaching staff that has put bc in the top tier of WCH has suddenly lost their ability to run a program.
Reasonable!

It's also important to note that the comparison to Minnesota & Wisconsin this particular season isn't exactly the best since we were also expected to take a step back to begin with due to worse-than-usual graduation losses. But I would have to imagine that we'd still be in the field with Watts and Lonergan on the team.
 
Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

BC started out the season with 7 wins but they also had arguably the easiest schedule in all of D1 women's hockey at that point. I had BC pegged at 5th place to start the season - that's 5th place in Hockey East, not the country. They lost so much to graduation and you knew losing 2 of the top scoring forwards in the country was going to hurt their offense. I'm guessing TTT had BC at the 3 spot in his own pre-season rankings, behind NU and BU. BC's record in their last 12 games is about what I expected. The only surprise for me is that they played pretty tight games vs Minny and Wisco while almost getting swept for the season by UCONN*. They have 11 games left on their slate, including 2 Beanpot games. I'm guessing they'll go either 7-4 or 6-5 over that stretch, which should keep them in the top 4 of Hockey East but leave them with winning the Hockey East tournament as their only way into the NC$$ tournament.

*That's not meant as a slight against UCONN - they could knock off anybody in HE. Fisher is a good goalie and their line of Snodgrass, Colangelo, and Crawley is one of the best lines in the league. The truth is, in HE, there's NU who's a notch above everybody else but there's not much separation between teams 2-8 in the standings this year ... or in the quality of play for that matter. BC/BU/UConn/UNH/PC/UVM/Maine is a toss up on any given day this season.
 
Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

As a Gopher fan I would ask the question, how much of a difference would it make if, say Grace Zumwinkle and Taylor Heise were not in lineup.? Or the Potomak sisters. There is depth behind them but you lose 2 difference makers and it puts a strain on the team.
Didn't we essentially see that two years ago? The Gophers graduated Stecklein and Cameranesi, who wound up on the Olympic team, plus Schipper and Wolfe. Pannek missed the season for the Olympics, and both Potomaks were centralized. Thus, they lost their top six scorers from the previous season and the incoming player expected to make the biggest impact. Williamson battled illness and missed over half the season. It's not like we don't know what this is like. At least BC returned four players coming off 20+ point seasons. As for this year, I think that Wisconsin graduated as much talent as BC did, so the comparison of Badgers and Eagles isn't that far off before the impact of the transfers.

After years at the top and drubbing other teams repeatedly, nobody feels sorry for you. The Ohio States of the world have waited for such a season to extract some revenge, as they did versus Minnesota. The schedule has to be played, even if the roster doesn't look like we would like.
 
Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

Didn't we essentially see that two years ago? The Gophers graduated Stecklein and Cameranesi, who wound up on the Olympic team, plus Schipper and Wolfe. Pannek missed the season for the Olympics, and both Potomaks were centralized. Thus, they lost their top six scorers from the previous season and the incoming player expected to make the biggest impact. Williamson battled illness and missed over half the season. It's not like we don't know what this is like. At least BC returned four players coming off 20+ point seasons. As for this year, I think that Wisconsin graduated as much talent as BC did, so the comparison of Badgers and Eagles isn't that far off before the impact of the transfers.

After years at the top and drubbing other teams repeatedly, nobody feels sorry for you. The Ohio States of the world have waited for such a season to extract some revenge, as they did versus Minnesota. The schedule has to be played, even if the roster doesn't look like we would like.

I think your discussion with NH covered this subject pretty well. bc plays a very aggressive offensive style but it's fair to question whether that is going to have continued success if, as was talked about in your discussion, teams in the league figure that out and bc has less offensive talent to work with. That is where questioning whether or not this coaching staff is able to make adjustments comes in. Time will tell.
 
Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

Grant, What do you think is a reasonable goal for BC this season in terms of a win total? IMO, the Eagles have enough talent to get to 20 wins with their roster. It's not a slam dunk, for sure, but it is still achievable, and if they fall short, it shouldn't be by much. They should win four of the remaining five games in January. Conference games in Feb are two each versus UNH and Maine; I'd say three wins is a realistic objective. That would require two more wins combined between the Beanpot and HEA tourney. Do you agree, or is this asking too much of them?
 
Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

Grant, What do you think is a reasonable goal for BC this season in terms of a win total? IMO, the Eagles have enough talent to get to 20 wins with their roster. It's not a slam dunk, for sure, but it is still achievable, and if they fall short, it shouldn't be by much. They should win four of the remaining five games in January. Conference games in Feb are two each versus UNH and Maine; I'd say three wins is a realistic objective. That would require two more wins combined between the Beanpot and HEA tourney. Do you agree, or is this asking too much of them?
No I think that's reasonable. Going 4 for 5 leading up to the Beanpot would be a pretty strong recovery but definitely on the radar. Not getting swept in the Beanpot is, surely, not too much to ask for. I would be very disappointed if BC didn't make it to the WHEA semifinals. I think if we don't hit 20 wins, even at this stage in the season, it would be a massive disappointment. That's basically a split with UVM (1), a split with PC (1), a win over HC (1), a split with Maine (1), a split with UNH (1), not getting swept in the Beanpot (1), getting to the WHEA semis (2), and one (1) more win either among the teams they split with or in the WHEA semis or winning the Beanpot. I would be incredibly disappointed if they didn't pull that off.

I still believe in my heart of hearts that (assuming they get to the WHEA semis) they can absolutely bang out two wins to either get the Beanpot or the WHEA trophy. Given that they came away with not a damn thing last season, that would be a good argument for having improved on last year despite the roster getting nuked.
 
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Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

I think your discussion with NH covered this subject pretty well. bc plays a very aggressive offensive style but it's fair to question whether that is going to have continued success if, as was talked about in your discussion, teams in the league figure that out and bc has less offensive talent to work with. That is where questioning whether or not this coaching staff is able to make adjustments comes in. Time will tell.

The adjustments (or lack thereof) would be the thing that would bug me. I always expect the Eagles to bounce back after bad losses - to sort of rally to prove that's not the team they are and reassert themselves - and it just doesn't really happen. I find it really frustrating. It's one of those intangible things that maybe I'm putting too much stock in. This isn't a new thing this year, IMO it's been a thing for a couple of seasons. I'd like to see the team react and have it feel like a fire was lit when they drop a game they shouldn't and that's just not how things work with BC. Who knows if that actually means anything.
 
Re: Boston College Women's Hockey 2019-2020 (And Forum Common Room): Sisyphus Tries A

At least the Eagles have figured out how to score.
 
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