Re: St. Lawrence University 2013-2014: Carey, Carey, carry us to Placid ... And beyon
Wick? IMHO he's been the glue that's held us together the last few games.
Carey? Midway through the second I told my daughter I thought he was looking for penalties. He gets hit with one a bit later, and bam, it's 1-1 soon after.
D'men? 2nd period. Baker sticks handles the puck in behind the D'mouth net, SLU shrinks onto the net for the big score to finish off the highlight reel individual play, D'mouth isn't impressed with the show so it takes the puck away, clears it towards the blue line where a man in green skates away from all the spectators on the ice dressed in white to go one on one with Wennie. Score! I am not impressed and it'll be a D'mouth highlight, not ours. It also bothers me that so much of our scoring is coming from Baker and Bayreuther. Where's the offense? If the D is doing so much scoring, who's minding the D shop?
Team sport? Ask Chris Martin what team means-he's giving all in a position he's not used to playing, and doing it well.
Inconsistent, confused, undisciplined.
My question for those of you who know much more about the game than I do, shouldn't we have a fairly well established line up by now? I almost choked when I saw the 1st team last night. This was a critical game to get into home ice position, and we seem to have found a line up that worker. Where did it go and why? I hate even thinking this doing this, but how much of this is coaching? He is the person who sets the lines, why hasn't he settled anything?
I was texting with Critsports last night and said the one guy from this senior class I am going to miss is Wick. He is the one guy that reliably gives a solid effort. He does take penalties, but usually they are from playing very physical hockey. Some of his hits over the last 4 years are the kind that leave a mark.
I understand the lineup changes. G. Carey is not scoring late and we need him to score so it's time to change it up and see if we can get more balanced scoring and shake the goal scoring out of him and others. Unfortunately, it didn't work last night. It's also important at this point in the season to try to find some chemistry between the younger guys so we can find some working chemistry for future years. Also, we have injuries. Both Graham and McGovern are out so the lines have to change.
It is not a problem that Bayreuther and Baker have so many goals. Have the D dynamically involved in the offense is what makes us a very good offensive team. Unfortunately, some nights it is also what makes us a bad defensive team. The difference between last night and last Saturday was last Saturday we had all 6 guys involved in both the offense and the defense and playing a disciplined game in our own end and winning battles in their end. Last night it was the opposite. All six guys were not involved in defense for sure, they did not win battles and five guys trying to do it alone on offense are 50 times less effective than the same five guys playing together.
Martin was not as noticeable last night but that's not a knock because he has been very noticeable and very good in most recent games. I agree that he is doing his part. He has blazing speed which never hurts.
Greg Carey was showing signs of frustration. I think he was lucky to only get two penalties in the game. The flip side of that though is Dartmouth took some liberties against him and those also were not called . He was cross checked from behind, interfered with, etc. ECAC refs are just clueless. Not to mention they miss things like offsides. SLU had a good rush last night called offside that wasn't. They should let Greg Lapinski ref the games from the booth, he sees 10 times more than all four refs combined.
Others have mentioned Baker's rush and he is very good offensively and at rushing and handling the puck, but technically that breakaway goal was on the left wing or one of the forwards who failed to cover his point and converged on the puck in an effort to get possession. He should have hauled *** to get back in position after he lost the puck and his point should have been covered, two mistakes and a goal against from that play.
No one could or would argue that we don't have a number of very talented guys. But no matter how much talent there is individually, you will rarely be successful in a team sport in hockey. Not sure whether they guys partied last week and focused on watching Olympic hockey and Labatts at the Hoot or what, but whatever the hell happened that's about as opposite from two weeks ago against Union as it gets.
