Re: Northeastern Huskies 2018-19: New Breed, Old Snarl
Went to yesterday's game, 8 hours on the road total but worth it. Alfond is great. I get the hype. Unfortuantely students were on break but the band was legit the best I've seen or heard in the NCAA. The fanbase is clearly passionate, to fault honestly. And I love all the history displays they have- championships, all americans, olympians, big significant wins in the history of the team and the arena. This is stuff I wish NU would do and have been asking for for about 5 years on the walls of the Matthews staircases and concourse.
Maine has some dudes with hockey skill, but mostly of the team is composed of big dudes who don't have nearly enough skill to keep up with NU or upper-tier Hockey East teams. They have some good players- Tralmaks, JSS, Dawe, Keeper, Pearson...but they aren't in a system that allows them and their skills to shine.Huskies dominated long stretches of play both nights. Maine came out aggressive night 1 but NU took that punch and capitalized on the three goal chances as TMM spoke about above. The two goals that NU gave up I didn't think were too bad, the second being a broken scramble in front. NU withstood the pressure and deserved to come out on top. Heavily out-shot Maine as well.
The second night, Maine came out similarly aggressive and the first period had good chances going both ways, but after the second period started, NU looked like a team worlds ahead of Maine. That first goal that Solow scored, Maine players stopped playing because they thought it was offside. Solow picked up the puck and snuck it through an unprepared goalie, which is a microcosm of both teams- NU playing until a whistle is heard, alert and playing heads up, whereas Maine took a couple seconds off and it cost them. Followed that with a beautiful 3-on-2 rush where Kislin fed Pec for a lovely bardown goal (must have felt good to score against Maine for him) and a Hawkins bomb on the powerplay (more of that please Jim), and that's when the game was pretty out of doubt for me. Maine fans around me started getting disgusted after the Hawkins goal, and that continued with how Maine played the rest of the way. Hawkins' second goal was lovely too, snapping one home from in close.
Unfortunately, the end of the game was marred by some goonish tactics from Maine, and the Huskies were vilified for protecting their own players (Davies protecting Primeau, Lerario protecting multiple guys in the last minute). Hawkins' elbowing penalty was in no way intentional to the head of Dawe, and was in no way worthy of a major penalty, but considering tempers and the state of the game, can't blame the officials taking charge. They missed a cross-check to a prone Lerario's back (which Jim was ripping into them for), and I, like many folks probably, just wanted the game to end at that point. Pretty crappy move by the Maine backup goalie going after Lerario in the handshake line too.
Hawkins penalty:
https://twitter.com/NUHockeyBlog/status/1084469691467350016
McGovern going after Lerario:
https://twitter.com/NUHockeyBlog/status/1084281586248548352
First sweep in Orono since 2008, and Primeau is now T-3 in shutouts (7) with Keni Gibson. Incredible what he's done in net.
