Re: RPI 2010-11: Houston, We've had a Facelift!
A few thoughts from the game last night...would have posted earlier but didn't make it back to the CD until 3am.
Alex Angers-Goulet showed some bursts of speed I didn't know he had. Early in the game he went on a tear down the near side boards and at that moment there wasn't a guy on either team that could have kept up with him. Too bad his shot went way wide.
I swear Bailen played half the game or more. He was out there constantly. Had a rocket slapshot on a rush down ice in the 2nd period, but was very tentative on the power play. Appert lined 3 guys up along the blue line for most of the PPs, with Bailen in the middle, and he took very few shots from that position. Weird for him to have no hesitation at all on the rush, but unwilling to take shots on the PP. Lebeouf looked good on the ice with Bailen for the most part.
Josh Rabbani saw a lot of ice time last night and I think he made the most of it. He played big, won a lot of puck battles and had several instances where he held on to the puck in the NU zone with 2-3 guys trying to take it from him. Very nice to see him step up his game and earn the extra ice time.
Burgdoerfer took a couple bad penalties, but I'm convinced it was just so he could listen to the announcer butcher his name with his Boston accent.
The first 5-and-game for hitting from behind was definitely legit - the second one I only caught the follow through and a few folks around us said the hit was more from the side and our guy went down awkwardly which drew the call. If the hit wasn't at the benches, with the low boards posing more of an injury risk, this one is probably 2 for boarding.
Too many men on the first major was absolutely boneheaded. York cleared the puck right at our bench where we had no fewer than 8 skaters on the ice on a very sloppy change. Either we tighten up the change or York holds on to the puck a couple extra seconds, but there was no reason to take that penalty.
Agree with burgie about the crease thing. Brutlag was BARELY touching the edge of the crease and it cost us the momentum on a couple of power play opportunities. Bad judgement by the refs or not, was glad to see Appert pull Brutlag off the ice after the second or third time it happened, as it was clear they were going to keep calling it if he stayed on the ice at that point. Similar to Pirri last season where once he started getting tossed from faceoffs he kept getting tossed from faceoffs. Frustrated mainly that the same call never once went the other way. There was also a mystery whistle on one of our power plays (maybe a 5-on-3) which took us out of the zone and killed the PP momentum, with the officials giving no explanation to anyone on why the blew play dead.
York looked sharp and made a few very good saves. I think he might have been screened on the goal that beat him right off the faceoff, as he zigged and the puck zagged right past him. Noticed on one or two breakaway opportunities he came way out to cut down the angle and it seemed to throw the NU players a bit having a goalie play the breakaway that aggressively.
I liked Matthews a lot, definitely shows its age but EVERYONE is right on top of the ice and the noise can get substantial when the crowd gets going. Unfortunately, basically the only 2 areas that were more than half full were the student sections on either end of the upper deck. I bet it could be deafening if the place were actually full.
All in all, a pretty solid effort from the guys but we NEED to play more disciplined and stay out of the box. When you're handed two majors and game misconducts to work with and don't score on either of them because you're too busy taking stupid penalties and doing the opponents' PK for them, it's not a recipe for success. We're fortunate that NU wasn't stronger on the PP as well or I think we would have seen a different result last night.
Credit to Brutlag that he's willing to fill the void we lost when Paul Kerins graduated. I don't know how much you got to see the 2nd power play unit, but did anyone on that line have the bollocks to work in front of the net and grab rebounds similar to Brutlag? He got rewarded for that tough play tonight with a tip in on a PPG. Coach has been saying that those are the goals we need to get. If we can get a few more of those, along with our one-timer strangth from Bergin and Bailen, we'll be tough to beat.
