Re: Official 2009-2010 Northeastern University Huskies Season Thread - Life Post Thiessen
Re: Official 2009-2010 Northeastern University Huskies Season Thread - Life Post Thiessen
Disclaimer, this is a rant.
Ok so I ask you NU fans, which year was the fluke? This year's 9th place finish or last year's run to the ncaa's? Was it just one incredible class that came through here or are we really building something?
All the talk at the end of last year was, man this freshman (currently sophmore) sure is talented, I can't wait to see them develop. Unless I'm blind, they all regressed, everyone of them (naturally Quailer gets a pass). Highest scoring sophmore was tuckerman with 12 points and 66 penalty minutes. He was practically invisible for the 2nd half of the season. Weren't we talking about 20 point seasons for guys like him and hoping Mclaughlin develops into a consistent producer (he came on late but for the first 3/4th of the season he was utterly useless).
We didn't get one consistent contributor all year. Not. One. Guys like Macleod came on late as did McNeely but where were they earlier in the year when we were anemic offensively?
Then there is our style of play. I don't know if it's working. This whole allow a ton of shots and try and take advantage of odd man rushes thing works when you have a stud goalie, but quite frankly it is insane to think that you can win with that style with a freshman goalie. I'm not hating on Rawlings, I like what he did FOR A FRESHMAN, but honestly I think a lot of his saves sometimes are him just putting his 6'5 frame infront of a general area and him getting lucky, he reacts late to a lot of shots which shows that a lot of the time that he just doesn't have a clue as to where it is. That needs to improve as well as his lateral movement, which I feel I don't need to harp on. But again, FOR A FRESHMAN, I'm fine with him. I also think that we are getting far too much offensive talent to continue this trap style, soon we should be able to run a high enough octaned offense (our team is fast) to get away from this trap stuff. We have too much offensive talent not to be scoring 4-5 goals a game, some of that this year was lines getting used to each other, and I get that, but we really need to put more pucks in the net next year.
I think our freshman are good this year, but they better not just flame out like last year's freshman, they were truly disappointing this year, all of them. The only one I like is Mclaughlin, kid has heart, but who's to say he just doesn't take the first half off this coming year only to show up for the last 5-6 games?
We didn't lose all that much TALENT wise for this senior class, Driscoll is a big loss given our current defensive depth (little to none, I don't want to see Maley ever again) but I don't think we will regress next year (we will be better than PC).
I'll hold off on a prediction for next year until we know who leaves in HE, I don't think any of our best players are good enough to leave HE for the professional leagues, so I don't expect to lose anyone early.
