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UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

Congratulations to the team on a fine season. Getting back to the NCAA tourney was huge after the near miss last season. Thanks to the seniors class. They won 100 games and played in 4 HE championship games, winning 2, and made the NCAA tourney 3 times including a Frozen Four.
 
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Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

Not my style to root for HE teams but I was really pulling for you guys. Would have been great to meet up in Tampa. How are you guys looking for next year in terms of departures/arrivals?
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

Which is interesting since expectations coming in were Boyle and the young d might struggle but we were gonna score a lot... Not over yet though

Third goal was a perfect shot. Kid from Q shot it from the goal line and beat Boyle above the shoulder short side. Impressive shot. Only thing Boyle could have done was come out to the top of the crease more and make himself bigger. But it was a prefect shot that just beat him.
 
Congratulations to the team on a fine season. Getting back to the NCAA tourney was huge after the near miss last season. Thanks to the seniors class. They won 100 games and played in 4 HE championship games, winning 2, and made the NCAA tourney 3 times.
True, that's a pretty impressive run. Could add an NCAA Frozen Four in there too! Congrats on another strong season!
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

Third goal was a perfect shot. Kid from Q shot it from the goal line and beat Boyle above the shoulder short side. Impressive shot. Only thing Boyle could have done was come out to the top of the crease more and make himself bigger. But it was a prefect shot that just beat him.

The defenseman was indecisive. He should have taken Anas and kept him from shooting or passing. Inexcusable mistake.
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

The defenseman was indecisive. He should have taken Anas and kept him from shooting or passing. Inexcusable mistake.

Well yes i agree with you. But at the same time if the defenseman makes the move and its the wrong one and anas makes a move or a perfect pass he can still beat you. I thought he did a good job of bringing anas down go to the goal line. Like i said I thought Boyle could get over to the post more or come out and challenge more but it was a great shot. The second goal against Boyle im still trying to figure out what happened there.
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

I've been to a thousand or so games in my boring life, but have never heard a band as good as UML's. Their rendition of the national anthem was the best I've ever heard. I'd go to the games just to listen to them! Heck, if they were putting on a concert, I'd pay to attend. The other 3 were nowhere near as good, and Yale's stunk (as did their play).

From an impartial attendee ... go Hawks!
Agreed. They are amazing. The quality of sound is something else. And who the efff buys a ticket to the Regionals to taunt a band leader? there were about 6 bozos from the Q that spent the entire game taunting the band director and once in awhile remembering to pay attention to the game. Seriously? I don't get it. When they did pay attention it wasn't with much class. Thankfully have met Q fans that have way more class and these kids were outliers.

Amazing season for the team. Lottsa guts.
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

That was the 2nd goal. Third was Davidson's shot from the bottom of the circle that had to graze Boyle's ear to get in.

That was a sick goal. From where I was sitting initially it looked like he shot from almost behind the net. Not really but my eyes were slower than my brain.

Good Luck to you guys. You are the real deal.
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

The defenseman was indecisive. He should have taken Anas and kept him from shooting or passing. Inexcusable mistake.

It was a 2x1. If the D man plays Anas too strong he would have just passed to his partner. The D man played it perfect. Anas is a right shot coming down his left side. The D wants to force him to his backhand which he did. Just a great play by Anas. If anything, Boyle was too aggressive for the angle Anas was at.
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

It was a 2x1. If the D man plays Anas too strong he would have just passed to his partner. The D man played it perfect. Anas is a right shot coming down his left side. The D wants to force him to his backhand which he did. Just a great play by Anas. If anything, Boyle was too aggressive for the angle Anas was at.

Right, and according to the USCHO recap Anas said following the game, “We had been talking that the goalie likes to challenge and I gave a little fake shot and put it to my backhand and was able to get it past him.” Props to Anas and the Q coaching staff for their scouting and execution.
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

It was a 2x1. If the D man plays Anas too strong he would have just passed to his partner. The D man played it perfect. Anas is a right shot coming down his left side. The D wants to force him to his backhand which he did. Just a great play by Anas. If anything, Boyle was too aggressive for the angle Anas was at.

Yeah I mean you can't fault the D-man in this situation. In a 2-on-1 your main goals are to stay out of the goalie's line of sight to the puck and to be in position to cut off a pass. The goalie takes the man with the puck.
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

Not my style to root for HE teams but I was really pulling for you guys. Would have been great to meet up in Tampa. How are you guys looking for next year in terms of departures/arrivals?

Someone else may go into a deeper dive in either the recruiting thread, or an off-season thread, but I think it goes without saying Boyle graduating is a big loss for the team. He played nearly every start this season which indicates his freshmen backups were not ready to share/steal time. They have Garrett Metcalf coming in who was drafted by Anaheim, but he was also one of the worst goalies in the USHL this year, so I'm not sure he'll be ready to take over that role next fall.

Lowell has much more scoring to replace next season year with Adam Chapie and AJ White graduating. Not to mention flight risks such as CJ Smith, Evan Campbell and possibly even Joe Gambardella. They have some decent (by Lowell standards) forwards coming in that have put up good numbers in the USHL.

Unless the incoming Freshmen exceed expectations, I think the team may take a step back next season and could be more of a mid pack team than a top 4 team.
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

Since Norm has been around, I feel like the statement "they may fall off next year" gets said after every season. At this point, they are a very system based team and are built/recruit around a broad team perspective. The last Frozen 4 team dressed 6 FR plus had Helly leading the way at the end of the year. Every year, new guys come in and just fill into those roles. Wilson leaves, CJ Smith comes in. Ruhwedel leaves, Kamrass fills in. Kamrass graduates, Zink/Kapla fill into that role. Pendenza graduates and Gambardella fills into that spot. Carr-Helly-Boyle. The list goes on. The staff does a very good job of progressing players into those roles.

Just from watching them over the past 5 years, I think the bigger issue would be how do they get over the proverbial "hump". Obviously if you said before Norm came that Lowell would be this successful, you would have been called crazy. But being in the hunt the past 5 years, I am starting to notice that they generally are falling to similar teams, granted all very good teams. Teams that play a similar style hockey, but are ultimately just more talented/faster. Yale, QPac, Providence come to mind in the past few years. Lowell has a very workmanlike approach and Norm gets the most out of his players, but I think they do need to bring in more talent to really make that push. They play a rather structured/unexciting game up front so that may stifle recruiting on the offensive side a bit, but it would be nice to see more talented guys come in as those role players and get more scoring depth. Obviously they have been wildly successful, just something I noticed over the past few years.
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

Since Norm has been around, I feel like the statement "they may fall off next year" gets said after every season. At this point, they are a very system based team and are built/recruit around a broad team perspective. The last Frozen 4 team dressed 6 FR plus had Helly leading the way at the end of the year. Every year, new guys come in and just fill into those roles. Wilson leaves, CJ Smith comes in. Ruhwedel leaves, Kamrass fills in. Kamrass graduates, Zink/Kapla fill into that role. Pendenza graduates and Gambardella fills into that spot. Carr-Helly-Boyle. The list goes on. The staff does a very good job of progressing players into those roles.

Just from watching them over the past 5 years, I think the bigger issue would be how do they get over the proverbial "hump". Obviously if you said before Norm came that Lowell would be this successful, you would have been called crazy. But being in the hunt the past 5 years, I am starting to notice that they generally are falling to similar teams, granted all very good teams. Teams that play a similar style hockey, but are ultimately just more talented/faster. Yale, QPac, Providence come to mind in the past few years. Lowell has a very workmanlike approach and Norm gets the most out of his players, but I think they do need to bring in more talent to really make that push. They play a rather structured/unexciting game up front so that may stifle recruiting on the offensive side a bit, but it would be nice to see more talented guys come in as those role players and get more scoring depth. Obviously they have been wildly successful, just something I noticed over the past few years.

+1 Excellent analogy of current team, coaches recruiting strategy, and what is needed/necessary to take the next step on the national stage. The work ethic of the team has been established as the culture of the program. You guys are definitely on the right track!
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

Message to fans from Kevin Boyle:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Forever a Riverhawk. <a href="https://twitter.com/RiverHawkNation">@RiverHawkNation</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/RiverHawkHockey">@RiverHawkHockey</a> <a href="https://t.co/waR8mTjhWa">pic.twitter.com/waR8mTjhWa</a></p>— Kevin Boyle (@Boyle33) <a href="https://twitter.com/Boyle33/status/714527663881392128">March 28, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

I ran into Boyle dad who is a great guy and very humble. But i had a quick question for the UML faithful....Was rebound control a problem for Boyle all year? i noticed in both games this past weekend he lets out a ton of rebounds. I was very surprised that QU shot every puck so high in the their game against UML. A ton of them hit the glass.
 
Re: UMass Lowell 2015-2016 Season Thread II

Has anyone started an exodus thread? Usually by now there is a thread listing the guys on the teams eliminated who have left for the pros. Can't find one this yr.
 
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