Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season
Here's my thoughts on tonight's game:
Defense looks slow. They are getting caught flat footed and are giving up breakaways like its their job. And its everyone. There's no strong point at the point. Hopefully it's just BC being faster than the teams we've played and we just need to adjust. Hopefully.
Manson is a disaster. He's dirty, in a bad way. He may be the flattest footed of the Dmen. He gave up a stupid penalty at the boards when all he saw was numbers, thought about it, and still drille the guy into the boards, in the 2nd that directly led to a PPG.
Practices should only cover PK. Its all we'll do in HEA. We lead the conference in penalties(I wonder if you take out all the 10 mins the Ferierros gave us if we're lower). The good news is that our PK is actually good. The bad news is that we're close to spending half the game there.
You can clearly see the skill difference between the teams. But its nothing hustle can't overcome. Are we the bottom of HEA? No. Are we the top? No. Would we make the playoffs if this was HEA in 2010? Yes.
The good news.
Clay Witt is the starting goalie on this team. He's won the job in my eyes. I don't want to see DRoy out there for any game against the top half of the conference.
The one clear thing that Madigan has done with this team so far... Conditioning. We play our best in the last 10 minutes of the game. This now is the 3rd game in a row where the other team is absolutely gassed by the end.
This team has an image. We know it. And its only a matter of time until the rest of the conference does too. We are everything that makes NU NU. This is a hard working, tough, no frills team. We'll get in your face, and we're not afraid to start the fight. Scrappy hard nosed team.
...Just got to stay out of the box while doing it.
Overall this was a good loss. Yes, a tie is better. Yes, you always want to win. But this was a learning loss. We learned that we can hang with a top team in the nation. We learned that Hockey East is much faster than the crap we played. We learned that Witt is our #1.
I'm not happy, but I'm not going to bed mad or upset.
Defense looks slow because it is slow. And the majority of them cannot make a simple pass either. Roy passes better on his backhand under pressure then most of our dmen can do on their forehand
with no pressure. The amount of pucks into skates or out of reach of our forwards is mind boggling. One of them cannot even wrap the puck around the boards!
Manson took one dumb penalty last night. But other teams know he is out there after all the open ice hits he delivered last year. He also double shifts consistently, due to lack of talent on the blue line.
Benning had a tough night, but will get better.
Hustle will not win many games. Skill > Hustle the majority of the time. Really, look at the forwards outside of 15 and 19 we have little to no skill up front. The rest of the guys are grinders who will only score within 4 feet of the net. If they can get the puck there.
I said in another thread that once we got past the weak teams on our schedule, the NHL 94 goals this team was scoring, were going to dry up. They did, as every time they tried to skate off the boards and into the middle for a shot, they either lost the puck or their shots got blocked. Learning lesson.
Witt was good last night and should start again tonight, but he flops, gives up rebounds, and really over commits at times where if the puck goes wide and back to the other side he leaves the whole net open.
Conditioning being better? About the same. Cannot compare it to last season due to them only playing about 6 forwards and 4 dmen by the end of the season due to injuries, that team was gassed. Also, we will look more conditioned when attacking at the end of the game due to being down then sitting back and protecting a lead like BC was last night.
No such thing as a good loss. Well, not entirely true, we did keep them under 7 goals at home for the first time this season. Hopefully at home tonight gives us a bit extra tonight so that come the third period, we are still in the game with a shot at some points. Rather not lose out on all 4 HE points on the weekend, with UML up next.
), you are a known quantity.
