Re: UMass Lowell '12/'13 Season Thread
Synitsyn hasn't played competitive hockey in a year and a half and it showed last night. I want to say he has at least 5 giveaways, attempted to coast to an icing call and got beat, and seemed out of place.
Wilson hit anything that moved last night, which was nice to see. You generally don't see your top quality goal scorers be that physical.
I'm still wondering why Houk got the 5 minutes. He hit the guy hard, really hard, but there was no contact to the head, he never left his feet, he hit with his shoulder (may have led with his elbow which is why I would have been fine with 2 minutes), but nothing that should have resulted in a 5. It was one of those old Bobby Robins or Ben Holmstrom penalties for hitting too hard.
The reason Lowell tied Vermont was because they couldn't finish. Out of the 39 shots, at least 27 of them came from bad angles or from just over the blue line. They weren't able to get any puck movement around the net to create chances. When they did get their chances, they couldn't put them home. They had 3 or 4 2-on-1s but weren't able to capitalize on any of them.
Overall it was a very frustrating night. On to Colorado next week for hopefully some better results. Wouldn't be surprised to see Eiserman in the line-up to put a little more D1 experience on the blue line.