I would say seeing Santa in net both nights is 99% or greater. There's been too much line shuffling for my liking but certainly J Priv and Mario are going to get points. Petruzzelli has been good lately and can score. Coughlin,a frosh, is good and has been getting some points, albeit he is benefiting from playing a lot of minutes with Mario. A couple of the other Frosh can be dangerous at times, Puffer and O'neil are playing well, but hit or miss scoring wise. They have created some good chances though. Our Offensive is on the younger side, but there is some good forwards in the group. I'd say the future looks bright for UVM offensively, which is almost never the case.
The D is definitely costing us games right now. Too many guys getting burned, no one clearing pucks, no one making it hard for the other teams forwards in front of the net. It's not rampant throughout the game, but there are several breakdowns a game and good teams like ND and UNO really took advantage of those breakdowns. This is perhaps the biggest surprise for me, this it typically and should be a strong suit for the Cats, but it hasn't been thus far. The saving grace, defense is Sneddon's strength and I am confident he will get the guys where they need to be. The question is when... if they were playing up to par that last few weeks There would be 1-2 more in the wins column.
Santa's been good, not great. But, when the other team is getting plenty of cross ice passes through the slot and 4-5 tries at rebounds it's hard to be great. He's prone to a softy here and there, but they are relatively rare.
Lowell has a good team and are clearly playing well. The weekend will really come down to, IMO, how the UVM defense plays. If they have fixed something over the week I can see them holding Lowell to 1-2 goals per game. If I had to say there was a weakness with Lowell it be Offense, but that's from looking at box scores without first hand knowledge. Offensively I see UVM putting up 2-3 GPG. So basically if the UVM D is playing well they have a very good chance of taking some points. If the D continues to play as they have been UML will be putting up 3+GPG and UVM will be lucky to take some points.
If I were a betting man, and I am... the smart money would be a split. Maybe 50% split, 35% Lowell sweep, 15% UVM sweep. At least that is my serious take on it.
My flaming stance is that UVM sweeps and it's not even close. ScottK goes through at least two boxes of tissues and him and PuckHawk spend an uncomfortable moment consoling each other.
Don't see us sweeping, but would certainly take it if we did.