I thought Rousseau should have started the second game against Vermont last weekend. Develop some competition and push each other. Particularly with Boija struggling at times.
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UMaine 25-26: Marques My Word: Back to the Big Time
- Thread starter UncleRay
- Start date
I'm fine with the idea of bringing Nobes and Motew back into the lineup. I thought Motew was actually playing really well earlier, I mentioned at one point he was surprising to me because I had him pegged as more of a depth piece but he was playing like a starter. The problem is deciding who to take out, not because they're all playing well but on the contrary, almost all of them were bad tonight so picking only two to replace might be a challenge. I feel like you could throw two darts at the D corps (except Brandon Holt, the only one I didn't think was bad tonight, and maybe Langlois, since I saw him make a few good plays too) and it would land on two guys who could be replaced. I saw Djurasevic hesitate on a puck a couple different times which put him in a bad spot, and I saw Userau get beat kinda badly too. And of course Peterson's defensive instincts are not great, as we know.
Regarding Boija, I suppose its possible it could be a physical injury, but I think more likely its something in his head. After almost every goal tonight I saw him either yell at himself, or yell at the ref, or shake his head, all of which was very rare for him last year, when he was very collected nearly all the time. I also saw him take a swipe at a BC player's legs tonight at one point with his stick, and the only time I can really remember him doing that last year was against PSU as we saw the season get incinerated in front of our eyes. Even when he's stopping the puck, he's making it look awkward and like he's fighting everything off. I also saw him scream at the team at the bench during Saturday's loss against Vermont. They should maybe look into having him see a sports psychiatrist of some kind, if they haven't already.
Regarding Boija, I suppose its possible it could be a physical injury, but I think more likely its something in his head. After almost every goal tonight I saw him either yell at himself, or yell at the ref, or shake his head, all of which was very rare for him last year, when he was very collected nearly all the time. I also saw him take a swipe at a BC player's legs tonight at one point with his stick, and the only time I can really remember him doing that last year was against PSU as we saw the season get incinerated in front of our eyes. Even when he's stopping the puck, he's making it look awkward and like he's fighting everything off. I also saw him scream at the team at the bench during Saturday's loss against Vermont. They should maybe look into having him see a sports psychiatrist of some kind, if they haven't already.
Ok - BC is really good. Top to bottom in top form, I don’t think as good as Maine. But some excellent silky- turn on the jets-type talent. The last couple bunch of BC teams, I’ve always thought of like the jock villain team from Mighty Ducks D3. Does anyone else hate Conmy just because? Idk why but it’s just a really unlikable group to me. Also, Conte looked seriously rockin, which was genuinely awesome to see honestly. High intensity game
The Good:
Maine is sick. This team is stacked and deep and can be extremely extremely good down the stretch. It is a bummer how long it’s taking…. but maybe they’ll avoid the end of season slump? Barr has gotten them (Besides Frank….), seriously worked and disciplined which I think was the biggest question mark. They are a serious bunch of hockey players holy shit. Also the offensive zone passing and poise and reaction and hands? Ok enough can we stop pretending please? The talent and playmaking ability on this team is ELITE. Like arguably a top three roster in the country. It is UGLY sometimes but this is an all time Maine team to watch. There are 6 All Americans (for the East) and Holt should be one, and Boija was last year. Which doesn’t even scratch the surface because we know Maine has two players that were the top three in the Q in goalscoring per game, and in points by a dman per game, respectively, in each of the last two yrs they played- as well as the second highest scoring dman in the USHL. And that’s not evening mention Josh, or Chabrier’s development, or the high flying 4th line, or Frank, or any of the other draft picks that are contributing right away.
It’s really finally clicking for me now. I am not speaking too soon, because we’ve been here. Maine hockey is BACK. Actually back. We’re in it. This is not a fluke or a tiny little phase. Maine hockey is back. Maine hockey will pull money and talent and more and more exposure. Maine hockey will win. No matter what happens with anyone that currently exists in the organization. What, Maine has gotten 3 games on NESN in the last 4 weeks? Has anyone else? Tonight there was even appropriate praise. The Alfond noise is getting hype and exposure through media channels like never before. The renovation is awesome and everyone in hockey knows about it. Will Smith saying on a podcast after a year w the Sharks that it’s the most fun place he’s ever played. Everything College Hockey coming twice since February (have they come anywhere else twice?? I genuinely don’t know). I saw a guy wearing a Maine jersey at a bar in Chicago two weekends ago. He was from MN and went to OSU and just *liked* Maine
Things are good. I’m very happy. Tomorrow I’m going to circle back with my game thoughts. (Spoiler - we’re having some goalie issues) (yes I know that’s not all).
The Good:
Maine is sick. This team is stacked and deep and can be extremely extremely good down the stretch. It is a bummer how long it’s taking…. but maybe they’ll avoid the end of season slump? Barr has gotten them (Besides Frank….), seriously worked and disciplined which I think was the biggest question mark. They are a serious bunch of hockey players holy shit. Also the offensive zone passing and poise and reaction and hands? Ok enough can we stop pretending please? The talent and playmaking ability on this team is ELITE. Like arguably a top three roster in the country. It is UGLY sometimes but this is an all time Maine team to watch. There are 6 All Americans (for the East) and Holt should be one, and Boija was last year. Which doesn’t even scratch the surface because we know Maine has two players that were the top three in the Q in goalscoring per game, and in points by a dman per game, respectively, in each of the last two yrs they played- as well as the second highest scoring dman in the USHL. And that’s not evening mention Josh, or Chabrier’s development, or the high flying 4th line, or Frank, or any of the other draft picks that are contributing right away.
It’s really finally clicking for me now. I am not speaking too soon, because we’ve been here. Maine hockey is BACK. Actually back. We’re in it. This is not a fluke or a tiny little phase. Maine hockey is back. Maine hockey will pull money and talent and more and more exposure. Maine hockey will win. No matter what happens with anyone that currently exists in the organization. What, Maine has gotten 3 games on NESN in the last 4 weeks? Has anyone else? Tonight there was even appropriate praise. The Alfond noise is getting hype and exposure through media channels like never before. The renovation is awesome and everyone in hockey knows about it. Will Smith saying on a podcast after a year w the Sharks that it’s the most fun place he’s ever played. Everything College Hockey coming twice since February (have they come anywhere else twice?? I genuinely don’t know). I saw a guy wearing a Maine jersey at a bar in Chicago two weekends ago. He was from MN and went to OSU and just *liked* Maine
Things are good. I’m very happy. Tomorrow I’m going to circle back with my game thoughts. (Spoiler - we’re having some goalie issues) (yes I know that’s not all).
walrus
Wind up workin' in a gas station
This so over the top I can't tell if its really your opinion or sarcasm?
I realize the rules of recruiting have changed but I believe bringing in 13 players disrupts the flow of what Barr is trying to do. I've been saying all along that this team would take time. Whats up Frank and Boija?
Sparkee
Blackbear
13 left. If you only bring in 7 then you have only 22 players on the team. Of course he had to bring in 13. Some guys transferred out. And I didn’t hear many people upset over guys transferring out because most of those couldn’t crack the line up. The ones that might have played would be Neimo and Antonucci. Not sure they would have made much impact on this team anyways.
So not bringing in 13 new guys wasn’t an option. The only thing that might have changed is more transfers instead of so many guys from juniors. But I think loading up on CHL to establish recruiting pipeline was a good move for the long haul.
At the end of the day even in Maine’s hay days they had years where there were heavy losses and it took time to build up the team again. Walsh was famous for figuring it out just in time. Back then the formula included record in the last 20 games or something so end of the season counted more and there were a few seasons Maine benefited by that.
This team is good, but as Barr said makes mistakes. Like last night Nadeau just blindly throwing it up the boards to the point with a BC guy between him and our point man who then was obliged to pinch or retreat. He pinched, guy chipped it off the boards, our d in now going wrong direction, bc brings it down the ice on the rush and it winds up being a scoring chance. I think that was when Frank didn’t touch the guy, gives Conmy the far post drive, then does something silly and flips to the backside and high sticks Conmy’s face for a penalty, which BC promptly scored on.
That is an example of lack of hockey sense. Better hockey sense would dictate Nadeau not being risky and then chipping the puck down low. Maine did fine cycling down low and was wearing on BC early in the game and giving them fits. So not sure why that style goes out the window and guys decide to make risky plays. Lots of D-to-D passing up high that gets picked off and goes the other way for transition. This team refuses to play Barr’s style of get it low and cycle.
The get it down low and cycle isn’t sexy. So these guys like Nadeau, Petersen, Russell, Marques, Poirier all opt for riskier plays rather than safe chips down low and going to work. It is fun and exciting hockey when they click, but ugly when they turn pucks over for transitions the other way.
Wanna be consistent, play the body sound defense, and win hockey games in front of and all star goalie then do less risky passing and pinching. Want more points, more goals given up, less consistency and more losses then just keep passing risky and pinching too aggressively.
In my opinion Djuresevic needs to sit until he demonstrates in practice he can play the body, and battle in front of the net. And Boija should be in a rotation until he has several games in a row without the softies, flopping, and rebounds. His skating isn’t where it was last year. He is slow to get lateral and slow to recover. I’m not sure what the Bruins camp did to him over the summer, but it wasn’t good whatever it was.
I think a lot of the problems come down to Maine working much harder offensively than defensively. I was very impressed with BC’s effort in their own zone. They blocked a ton of shots and really put themselves about.
I was surprised at the start of the game when they showed Boija’s numbers. He obviously hasn’t been anywhere close to his best but his overall numbers going into last night weren’t that bad. And to be honest not sure how much blame you can put on him on any of the individual goals. The defending just wasn’t good enough.
This is an extremely minor thing and didn’t impact the outcome of the game, but I really didn’t get pulling Boija and letting BC get a seventh goal. Maybe Barr was trying to send a message or something but seemed a strange one to me.
I was surprised at the start of the game when they showed Boija’s numbers. He obviously hasn’t been anywhere close to his best but his overall numbers going into last night weren’t that bad. And to be honest not sure how much blame you can put on him on any of the individual goals. The defending just wasn’t good enough.
This is an extremely minor thing and didn’t impact the outcome of the game, but I really didn’t get pulling Boija and letting BC get a seventh goal. Maybe Barr was trying to send a message or something but seemed a strange one to me.
Sparkee
Blackbear
Barr isn’t going to ever give up out of principle alone. Boija normally stops that face off shot by Letourneau. Boija usually has lateral quickness to get over and block that one timer from the right circle. Boija normally controls that rebound that dribbled under his pad and got tapped in when he fumbled it and lost the puck. All 3 of those are ones he stops at an extremely high rate. Seeing him give up 1 of those in a game seems ok. But seeing him give up 3 of those in one game is extremely rare for the level he is at. He was the 2nd best goalie in the country last year. This is an elite goalie, not some marginal D1 goalie. Seeing him do that is not normal.
I think many of the Maine fans here are being too harsh on Boija for last night's result. Only the Stiga goal was a second chance goal and Stiga was well positioned to take advantage of it. The others were lasers mostly. The Letourneau and Hagens PP goals were not his fault; they were sharply placed. Maine needed to score more to beat a team shooting that well. Two of their three goals were directly due to BC defensive mistakes. The PP goal was a great shot that clearly had eyes for the back of the net. I doubt BC hits as many goals tonight but for Maine to defeat BC they will need to have more than 1 sharp goal.
BlackBearFan19
Active member
I know Barr says it’s a coaching issue but I just don’t see it. You can yell and scream and guys to try to make them want to do the little things but at the end of the day they have to care about it. I have no doubts about the coaching staff trying to drill this into the guys but so it’s just not being received.
Everyone is trying to fly the zone and make the cute play. Keep it and simple and play a physical game, your talent will take over from there. This team refuses to play 60 minutes and they’re getting killed because of it.
Everyone is trying to fly the zone and make the cute play. Keep it and simple and play a physical game, your talent will take over from there. This team refuses to play 60 minutes and they’re getting killed because of it.
I dont know if they showed it on TV, but the view from the camera in the net on the second goal looks really bad for Boija. He almost just tried to fall at it with his glove stuck out and kinda just missed it. I know it was a cross-ice pass on the PP, but that view in particular makes it look like one he could have stopped. I won't be too hard on him about the 4th goal (breakaway) or even the first goal (absolutely perfect shot by Letourneau), but the others, especially the 6th goal, were varying degrees of soft.
I agree with what others have said, that this is a very talented team we have. But a lot of that talent is young, ergo raw. Before the season I saw a lot of people say it could be a tough season, and now I realize how they meant it, and at this point I agree. I think a year of experience will be huge for these guys. If they can convince Poirier and/or Carolina to have him stay another year that would be huge. You only have four impact seniors, two up front and two on D, and the base of talent is there.
I agree with what others have said, that this is a very talented team we have. But a lot of that talent is young, ergo raw. Before the season I saw a lot of people say it could be a tough season, and now I realize how they meant it, and at this point I agree. I think a year of experience will be huge for these guys. If they can convince Poirier and/or Carolina to have him stay another year that would be huge. You only have four impact seniors, two up front and two on D, and the base of talent is there.
Goes without saying, but BC deserves a ton of credit for their performance last night. They executed flawlessly on almost all of their offensive chances and made the right plays to put themselves in a position for success. I hadn't really watched them play before yesterday but I saw a team humming pretty efficiently last night.
Meh, Booyaah should be out there tonight. He's a fierce competitor and needs to work through his slump and get his mojo back, so my guess is he's dying to redeem for last night. Normally maybe Rousseau but not tonight.....no house money to play with. We need points and Booyaa needs to help get 'em.
Ineverquit
Born a Mainer
I agree, at this point I don't forsee Maine winning Hockey East with all the minor mistakes that keep happening.
Maine would have to get on a decent winning streak if they realistically want to win Hockey East or make the NCAA tournament at this point.
The margin of error keeps getting lower and lower for getting an at large bid. Based on what I can estimate, Maine would probably need the equivalent of 15 or 16 wins in the next 22 games or better if they want an at large bid (around 70% win percentage). Based on how the season has gone so far I think it's possible with their talent but unlikely. They'll need to clean up a lot of the mistakes if they want a chance of winning Hockey East or an NCAA at large bid happening.
BlackBearHockeyFan
New member
Football trails 27-7 @ the half in UNH. Time to tear down the field for a parking lot. Just throwing away money with a Football team not even Division 1. Need that money for Mens Hockey that is being wasted on Football.
If:
1. Boija was elite rn
2. There was better hockey sense and decision making to be more discerning about when choosing to double team aggressively on forecheck, or when to shoot/pass given clogged lanes
This style might win them a championship. If those two above things were happening. Second point comes w time and first point is a MAJOR surprise
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Barr has to be influencing/designing their style of play. It looks to me like they’re learning a new system and everyone is sometimes paralyzed re: which move to make is best (ex. Their iq/processing speed w the system isn’t quick enough yet)
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It really looks to me like they’re working very hard to learn a new system and don’t yet have the hockey iq to make the right decisions. Usually Boija would be there as a safety net during this period, but he’s the opposite.
I just hope the boys don’t get punished or overworked for not learning it quick enough