Re: New Hampshire vs. Boston College Fri Jan 11/Sat Jan 12
Late arriving crowd at Conte, but pleasantly surprised that the place eventually filled in, despite the students still being away on break. Surprisingly penalty-free game, with most (if not all?) of them in the first period. I thought Bunyon and Gravallese did well to let the teams play, although I suppose it was not something that favored UNH. I rarely put any stock into SOG stats, and tonight's game was an excellent example how truly meaningless SOG's can be. BC had the best of the chances - most if not all in transition - and were absolutely ruthless with their finishing. I'm not sure DeSmith could be faulted for any of the goals, and before someone comes up with the next attempt at pushing for more time for Jeff Wyer, there was really only one quality stop included in his eight 3rd period saves.
I haven't had time to read through many of the other posts, but I will say this (and I think Coach Umile reassuringly saw the same stuff I was seeing) ... I spent the game watching the UNH d-men, and for the most part, I thought they held up pretty well. But Knoedel had an absolute nightmare out there, and by my count was on the ice for four of the five BC goals. I thought his play was directly responsible for at least three of those goals. Simply put, things he probably got away with against the rest of Hockey East came home to roost tonight on big old #5. If nothing else, he got schooled, and with Coach Tortorella's guidance, hopefully he will learn and adjust from the experience. If not, then I'm afraid he is just going to be someone they can't afford to put out there against either of the top two BC forward lines. I thought Pesce overall played pretty well for a freshman on the same pairing, in his first outing against BC. Kostolansky and Agosta may have been the best UNH D pairing on the night (I guess I expected Agosta to be the "Achilles' heel" that Knoedel turned out to be, but he looked pretty good). The top pairing did not have its best game, but they battled and were routinely out there against BC's best. I was a little disappointed in TVR, who seemed to get a little selfish with the puck in the latter stages of the game, but by then I'm sure there was some level of frustration settling in.
The Correale/Willows/Camper line was a bright spot for UNH, but that probably seems to have been a by-product of them skating against BC's unimpressive 3rd and 4th lines most of the night. I thought BC made a bunch of mistakes in their own end, and UNH only took advantage of the first one for their first goal, while others just didn't get punished. But that's the mark of any really good team ... finding a way to win when you're not playing your best. And you can disagree with me if you'd like, but I really don't think BC played all that well tonight. They have played better I'm sure, and by history you know they will play better down the stretch run of the season. Likewise, I don't think UNH as a whole played all that poorly. But in certain areas (see above) they came up very short - throw in forwards not up to their usual backchecking standards from earlier in the season. And if those issues don't get fixed, it's hard to see how UNH gets past March again this year.
Not going to be able to get to tomorrow night's game, but it will be interesting to see how UNH reacts to this loss. At some point later in the season, UNH is going to have to beat BC or someone of their ilk to extend their season, or even win a title (HEA or otherwise - I know, dare to dream). But they're going to have to play with more focus, discipline and conviction than they did tonight. Tomorrow night gives them a chance to convince themselves it can be done. We'll see.
One last note ... the #johnnyhockey stuff was embarrassingly overdone, and it's obviously unoriginal. I'm guessing he doesn't want OR need the added attention, as he's got to be on a very short list of top Hobey candidates anyway without all the extra media blitz and hoopla. JMHO.
