Re: UNH 2018 Offseason- Out with the old , in with the semi new?
Now that we are on the cusp of fall, figured it was time to chime in again. Just a few random thoughts on what has been recently posted:
No matter how you slice it, Danny Tirone was not a good goalie. UNH has been fortunate to have a lot of good ones over the years, some better than others, but almost all of them were better than Tirone.
Chuck, Stempniak is all done. If you recall, he was with the Bruins a few years ago and was totally underwhelming. Winnik still brings something to the table, especially defensively. I get a kick out of people dissing him compared to JVR. Well, duh, JVR has his role in the NHL and Winnik his. The fact that he has hung around as long as he has despite mediocre offensive numbers says something.
Re: Jay Miller. There is no way that Shane Eiserman is comparable to Miller. Before he got hurt his sophomore year, he was considered a stud, a guy with true power forward potential. The fact is that, despite his bad wheel, he made it to the NHL and stuck there for quite a number of seasons. BTW, I was there the night he got hurt at McHugh Forum. He was charging to the net on a 3 on 2 when he got checked from behind and rammed into the goal post. This is back in the day when the posts did not dislodge if hit and, unfortunate for him, he got whacked.
And who cares who the captain is. I just need to see some the guys get better and get better in a hurry.
Welcome back, Greg. Always nice to have folks risking opinions. We need more of that around here.
I'll stick to the position that Tirone took an unfair amount of the blame as the program circled the drain in recent seasons. He really never got pushed, true, and that's not really his fault. The former head coach pulled him on several occasions, but every time he did, the guy who stepped in for him pretty much spit the bit, so it was right back to DT for the next game. He had the worst UNH teams in well over a generation skating in front of him for his last 3 years. When he played behind a better team (as a frosh), he didn't get in their way, so has to get at least some of the credit for their (albeit modest) accomplishments. I think time will prove he was an average D-1 goalie - nothing more, nothing less.
I'm just as interested as the rest of you folks to see how Ty Taylor fares this season. I honestly think he's got his work cut out for him, but with Gildon and Maass a year older, ditto Wyse, and the McKinnon kid from Denver now in the fold, I'm hoping for them to surprise. But the program is all about negative momentum now, and that's always tougher to reverse than it looks.
Now … if Stempniak was "all done" based on his short end-of-season stint in Boston, he clearly did no get the memo, since he posted a 16G/24A/40 point line in Carolina the very next season - production that pretty much bests Winnik's best-ever season long stats over his entire career. Both are obviously nearing the end of the road for the NHL stage of their respective careers.
And (no shock), JvR has been better than both. I wasn't making that a big issue - any issue that arose was when someone got their knickers in a twist when I said Winnik and Rod Langway didn't belong in the same conversation, which I suspect you'd agree with, but I guess you didn't read back that far. Your loss.
Totally agree, Eiserman could only dream of becoming Jay Miller. Not even close.
You can shrug off the captaincy decision, and that's your right to do so. But my experience has always been, when a coach recognizes the right leaders, teams tend to at least meet, and more often exceed expectations … and when a coach gets it wrong, teams almost always disappoint. Coach Souza is going to have a real challenge, with a roster with limited returning talent (by D-1 standards), and he's going to have to nail a lot of things to maximize the result from the roster he'll be starting his HC career with. Coaching up the talent is obviously going to be a big part of that. But he can't afford to be cavalier about captaincy/leadership decisions. And so far, I like the way he hasn't just "gone through the motions", and is presumably going to make a decision on his own, based on some degree of merit.
Finally … I want to see Coach Souza put his imprint on how the program is going to play, style-wise. I'll touch on that more at the appropriate time, but let's just say I'm tired of the "SMT" mentality that's been wafting around this program for the better part of the Coach Umile era. I want that to change, and I want it to change NOW, and I want it to change for the long term.
Now, back to our regular UNH-related content ...
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