Re: Brown Hockey 2012-2013:Climbing the ECAC Ladder
Jesus. This is just absurd now.
Borelli is out tonight with the flu, so Marco DeFilippo will be essentially playing through the pain of whatever knee injury he has sustained so that we don't have to start our club team third-stringer. Chris Zaires is out for the game because of a lower body injury that occurred in practice yesterday. Crowley will play, contrary to previous information, but will do so battling an upper body injury.
We could be in heaps of trouble against a really terrific Dartmouth team.
I think Brown is showing some extreme resilience the likes of which we've never seen. Yes, they lost last night, but I think when you look at this team, Brendan is doing his best job of coaching these guys up that any of us might see in recent past or future history. He has virtually no skaters left that are healthy, and he's getting the most out of his team. Consider this:
1) Before the season started, this team was supposed to have Wonder Boy playing alongside Quick, Lidman, and Baby Wonder Boy in net. They were supposed to enter the season with 3 goalies, a solid slate of defense, and at least three lines of decent skaters. Brandon Pfeil was maybe going to crack the second d-pairing, but for the most part he would be expected to play third pairing or just sit back and cycle in when needed, otherwise playing in a rotation with Panziris and Crowley or De Concilis. Because of everything that's happened, Pfeil is a top pairing guy because Wahl is out. The fact that Brown's defense is as patchworked as it is means they have to play completely disciplined and not make ANY mistakes. At some point, the lack of horses haunts them, but the fact that they're not as bad as some of the results plaguing teams like AIC or Alabama-Huntsville is a testament to the coaches coaching the players they brought in.
2) If anyone's worried about playing time, I don't think they have to worry about it anymore.
3) How's this for stats - against Dartmouth, Brown took 2 minor penalties. Against SLU, they took 6. Against Clarkson - zero. In all three games, the other team has been penalized more than Brown. That's some MAJOR discipline that not only do they not take DUMB penalties, they simply don't take any penalties. Does that mean Bruno's playing ultra-conservative? Probably. I'm willing to bet there are a couple bangers on this team that can't bang because they can't run the risk of a penalty. But the adjustment in play is, for what it's worth, pretty good.
4) When I think of Brown this year, I think of Jack Lengyll's theory regarding Marshall football when he was training a bunch of freshmen, basketball players, baseball players, and never-would-be's on his football team. Obviously I'm not comparing Brown's injuries to the tragedy of the Marshall plane crash, but this is what I mean. When Coach Lengyll asssembled his team, he wanted to run the offense of the times - a Power I, 3 yards and a cloud of dust offense. He realized that his offensive linemen could be manhandled by the coaching staff and realized the Power I wasn't going to work. The movie We are Marshall depicts something that actually happened - he took his playbook and stood in front of a chalk board and said, "Well Power I - can't run it, can't do it. Gotta change our thinking" and drops the playbook in the trash. He goes up to WVU and learns an entire new offense over 2 days. I'm willing to bet Brendan Whittet looked at his team, took his playbook, put it in drawer of his desk, and said, "Ok. Now what." It's tough to do, and Brown's going to LOSE A LOT. But at the same time, the fact that they're competitive is a testament to how hard this team is working to begin with.
