Re: BU 2013-14 (Part II): Crash before the Phoenix
Penalties early in the game killing the team. Box scores tell some of the problem. In games where BU has more than or equal penalty time vs opponents 2-7-2.
In games where they have less penalty time vs opponents 5-4. Two of the losses were yesterday in the pool, and Wed. when two top six were out.
Sounds simple, stay out of box more than your opponent and you have a chance to win. Your at least over 500.
I really don't think the PK or committing too many penalties is the problem. They only have 7 more penalties than opposing teams on the season and have 25 fewer penalty minutes. I think what the stats you are showing indicate is that when they are outmatched, they take lots of penalties instead of trying to actually work hard. The penalty kill is at 82% (not great but it's not that bad), the powerplay is at 22% (the best in the league) and BU is only taking about 10 penalty minutes/game and just barely more penalties per game than their opponents. Yet their -4 on special teams. The problem is they have given up 7 shorthanded goals. And how many of those have come late in a close game?
3-0 now, terrible line change. 4-0 Maine on the PP
I don't think I've seen a team make worse line changes over the last few seasons than BU. They pick the worst times to change and the players don't skate to the bench, they glide from all the way across the ice. It's as if they're tired from all of the hard work they're not doing on the ice. One particularly bad change I remember was the beanpot a few years back vs BC when a BC player was driving up the ice with about 10 seconds left in OT and the defender who was on him decided to change (presumably because he couldn't possibly skate for 10 more seconds to finish OT against BU's biggest rival in the Beanpot championship). The BC player then stopped and wound up for a slapshot with no pressure and won the game.
NESN is all about happy, positive talk. So expecting any critical discussion of the outrageous playing conditions, and horrible conditions for the fans, was never going to happen.Not to mention the poor site-lines for baseball that are much worse for hockey. How many people could actually follow the puck from the lower seats?
Unless people were tanked up, they could not have been comfortable yesterday.
I actually had a great time. Most of the fans were in the grandstand (which is covered). It was fairly warm so it was pretty comfortable from a weather standpoint. As far as the play, at this point I've just resorted to rooting for small (seemingly easy) victories like 10 shots in a period, faceoff wins, maybe checking someone, pretty much standard things for most teams, but things this team only does on rare occasion.
Maybe with JP, his style of coaching got more out of them than Quinn's style this season. JP definitely brought in the fear factor if you didn't pull your weight.
I'm just how surprised BU has sunk and it is not just losing a good player like Matt Nieto.
But vets like Rodrigues has mysteriously not transitioned to the Quinn era and totally regressed so far. It was only last March BU knocked BC out of the HE Tournament decisively and returned a number of the same roster this fall.
Agreed. I really don't understand this theory some people have that it's fine for Quinn to just not do anything because these players aren't his recruits so it's not his fault they suck. You don't come in as an unproven new head coach and throw the team in the trash so you can play your way (since no one has any idea what that way is or if it will be any good). Someone like York who had won a national championship (or at least been a head coach before) and knew he could implement his system and that his system worked is allowed to have a few rough seasons while he implements his system. I expected Quinn to improve on the problems this team was having, not ignore them and let the team fall apart. Especially since the problems this team was having wasn't with on-ice strategy and style (or even talent), it was with toughness, consistency, and desire to win. Getting beaten to pucks, not throwing a check for an entire game, and losing one-on-one battles isn't the result of a change in strategy, it's the result of a team that either doesn't care or just has no idea what to do. No one on this team has any awareness or hockey sense and none of the players are improving any of their skills. And are we really saying that these players can't execute a strategy? They've had 3 months to figure it out. Many of these players were highly regarded recruits or have proven themselves to be productive in the past. Not one player on this team is on pace to score more than 10 goals. Last year three of these same players had 10 or more goals. And again two of the top three players in total shots are defensemen so it doesn't seem like the strategy is changing too much to me (of course we could talk about how many of the forwards could be leading in shots attempted, but it doesn't show up in the shot totals because none of them can hit the net even from 3 feet away). As far as not having any talent on this team goes, I just don't agree. They certainly aren't the most talented team in the league, but certainly these players should be able to compete with Dartmouth and Bentley. Baillargeon, Rodrigues, Hohmann, Roberto, O'Regan, and Oksanen, have all shown high skill levels at times. Last year O'Regan was 8th in the league in points per game (ahead of Nieto) and Rodrigues and Hohmann were 13th and 14th. Yet we can't make 2 competitive lines with those 3 plus Lane, Kurker Roberto, and Baillargeon? Everyone is so excited for Eichel, but wasn't Kurker supposed to be some phenom as well? Lane was also supposed to be really good. This team has the talent to be 5th in this league easily. Watching the game, it really just looks like they don't practice. How about fixing a few things that have been a problem all season.
1. Shoot the puck at the net (forwards)
2. Skate faster (everyone)
3. Somebody hit somebody
Bonus: Learn how to keep the puck in the offensive zone at the blue line (defensemen)
