First, Whitehead is a bad coach. I'm not a Maine fan but if I was I'd be on the Fire Whitehead bandwagon too. He's had plenty of talent over the years but doesn't know what to do with it. They usually have good defense team but are boring and unproductive offensively. He gives them nothing to work with offensively. The strategy -- cross the blue line and take a slap shot, hope for a rebound. The championship game in Boston is a perfect example of how inept his offensive coaching is. They have a two man advantage in the last minutes of the game and can't score.
I watched both games this weekend and saw a sloppy team that showed weak fundamentals in passing, skating, carrying the puck, shooting. That's on the coach. The talent is there but the discipline is not. Defense was terrible Friday night giving UNH three or four wide open goals. The goalie was weak but he didn't have much help on most of those goals.
Maine played better tonight but there were still lots of missed passes, unforced turnovers, and sloppy play. They at least scored some even handed goals tonight. The fourth was even a well executed breakaway. But how many shots were from way out beyond the faceoff circle?
Second, Maine CAN'T beat any team on any given night. Look at the record. They had two wins against North Dakota in October and beat BC at home. That's it for quality wins. 1 point from BU, 2 points from BC, 0 points from UNH, 0 points from Merrimack so far with two games to play. The rest of Hockey East is bad. There's no parity this year.
Maine has got progressively worse since Whitehead took over. Good coaches take what they have and make them better. BC, BU seem to always improve as the year goes on. UNH has a well disciplined team that score goals. Those three teams are consistent year after year because of the coaches. If a team isn't producing, it's up to the coach to make it happen. The buck stops there.