Welp made it interesting at the end (but what was that PP?!?) Long ride home for the 'Cats. MS7 did not look happy after the handshake.
Looking at it from MS7's standpoint ... I'd be pretty PO'ed with my own guys, coming up small in something at least approaching "big" games. And after going out on a limb and pronouncing his Captain as "the best defensive defenseman in Hockey East", he got a clown show performance from a guy who is your purported team leader. It was WAY too familiar a (non) performance that us old-timers have too often seen from UNH.
Season is FAR from over, but the path to the goals some of us (myself included) were predicting just got SO much harder. It IS an opportunity for MS7 to practice the boys hard, and perhaps have some private discussions with team "leaders" (sorry to use the quotation marks this time) about what true leadership looks like ... IF MS7 even knows himself? Next weekend offers a great bounceback opportunity where little will be expected of UNH from outside their own room. Maybe it will be BU's turn to mail in a bad weekend of overconfidence??
I also wonder if MS7's sourpuss appearance after Luce's handshake had anything to do with challenging the 2 minute call against his Captain? Challenging a similar call against Fitzy the night before was arguably different, as (1) it wasn't his Captain, and (2) it was disallowed. Going to the well a second time, with #28 in his crosshairs,
maybe MS7 took that personally? I'm not here to debate "right or wrong" - Luce's job is to help his own guys win, and his challenge against Gagne was confirmed, so by the book he made the right decision. But this is a guy who has been a two year Captain, someone he's vouched for publicly, and at the heart of MS7's turnaround (however that turns out) ... and the guy you go golfing with (along with UConn hoops legend Geno Auriemma; sp?) in the offseason, decides to kneecap your guy in a very public way, I'm not sure that this coming summer's golf outing won't be a little frostier, unless MS7 gets a chance for payback between now and then?
Speaking of unhappy looks ... I mentioned to HR during Friday night's game that in between the 2nd and 3rd periods, I was passed by a very unhappy looking UNH Director of Hockey Ops, who seemed to be en route from the press area to the room downstairs. I didn't follow him to see where he eventually went - nature was calling, so I had other priorities! - but I can't imagine he was happy with the on-ice performances. I'm not sure if his (new) position is as a subordinate, equal or superior to that of the Head Hockey Coach, but one would think MS7's future will be in part decided this time around with some feedback from JT. Food for thought.
Random observation ... I haven't been to the Toscano Family Ice Hut yet, but listening to "Brass Bonanza" booming out after home team goals is a nice throwback to the long-departed Whalers. Shame it had to be played one more time yesterday than UNH scored their own goals. It's possible I could even begin to like UConn in the future ... contingent upon the removal of one element in particular in their nascent program ...
... which finally brings me back to address (to the extent I can or will) the speculation of what lies beneath my contempt for the beady-eyed little weasel known far and beyond as Luce ... and yes, as Snives has pointed out, a good slice of it has to do with his self-pronouncements of (stolen) greatness as an assistant to Coach York, which have continued to trickle out (albeit way less frequently than before) from time to time, but now that his self-promotion has failed to land him his desired return to The Heights, maybe that will quiet down entirely? But more than that, there were/are a lot of unflattering things that go beyond being a York wannabe that have come to my attention from various credible sources over a LONG period of time, which serve as the crux of my ... uhh, profound lack of admiration for Luce. Multiple verified source stuff, some fairly innocuous "everyone does it" stuff from the recruiting trails, and other more serious things, all of which were disclosed to me on condition of anonymity, privacy, etc. And there is no statute of limitations (to me anyway) on keeping those promises. Some (not all) of it had to do with the aftermath of an infamous, grisly in-game HEA incident that now goes back almost 22 years ago. I'll just leave it at that ...
