We will see how JB’s loop gets closed when the Big Green visits the Whitt on Saturday, October 28th.
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UNH Hockey 2023-2024 Season Thread - End Of The Cellar-Dweller Era??
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We will see how JB’s loop gets closed when the Big Green visits the Whitt on Saturday, October 28th.
Last week’s high scoring, early season win reminded me of another early in the year thriller over a highly-ranked (#1-Ranked ??) Boston University club...
The Wildcats won the first game in the history of Whittemore Center Arena over the defending National Champion Terriers (6-5 in OT) on a Tom Nolan goal, before skating to a 12-18-4 record on the year.
BU finished the season 30-7-3 with a second straight trip to the Frozen Four.
It was a fun season opening win, but I wouldn’t read too much into early-season one off results…
The Wildcats won the first game in the history of Whittemore Center Arena over the defending National Champion Terriers (6-5 in OT) on a Tom Nolan goal, before skating to a 12-18-4 record on the year.
BU finished the season 30-7-3 with a second straight trip to the Frozen Four.
It was a fun season opening win, but I wouldn’t read too much into early-season one off results…
This is actually my point.
BU is clearly not really good right now. Could continue, or they could right the ship.
I was really happy to see UNH score down low. I am concerned that it was because BU is a mess at the moment.
I am concerned UNH gave up 4 goals to a team that is a mess at the moment. Honest I thought the goal tending was pretty good in the game overall which means the D was basically a disaster (both ways).
HockeyRef
Well-known member
JvR killing it at the moment in Boston...3 games...3 goals...second in scoring only to Pasta...! Just like this is an early sample, so of course, was our opener to BU.
We'll see what the 'Cats really have in this young season this weekend...
HR's most likely to be wrong predicts:
Fri QU 4 UNH 2
Sat UNH 2 QU 2
Let's go 'Cats!
We'll see what the 'Cats really have in this young season this weekend...
HR's most likely to be wrong predicts:
Fri QU 4 UNH 2
Sat UNH 2 QU 2
Let's go 'Cats!
Note to self, need to start betting with Chuck. Instant cashola.
I think it was more a question of tired legs. BU played the night before while the USNTP team had the night off. Then the USNTP played Dartmouth the next day. That was the Big Green's only game last weekend. Or perhaps one team laid an egg each night. It happens a lot.
Minor tweaks in the lineups between the 2 games (see below). What's interesting to me is that 2 of the big scorers for the US U18s against BU were their own recruits:
2 goals by younger brother Cole Hutson
3 goals, 2 assists by Cole Eiserman ... Shane's younger brother
https://goterriers.com/sports/mens-ice-hockey/stats/2023-24/us-under-18-team-exh-/boxscore/31088
https://dartmouthsports.com/sports/mens-ice-hockey/stats/2023-24/usa-hockey-ntdp/boxscore/29257
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Good call, Dan. FWIW that first season in The Whitt would be Umile's only losing record in his first two full decades as UNH Head Coach. He had another similar season in the early '10's before he finished up the "Long Goodbye" with the three straight losing seasons. Looking at the '95/'96 UNH roster, it's a mind-blowing collection of (then) kids who would have great D-1 careers, and pretty much all of them at least got a look-see at the NHL level. Fire wagon wide-open hockey back in those days. Couple of quality top pairing D-men (Hall and Murray), and two D youngsters who would still be around for the trips to the FF later in the decade. Shame was, the starting goalie (Trent Cavicchi) laid an egg that season, and his back-up was a local baseball kid who should have been a 3rd stringer (Larochelle).
QU HC Rand Pecknold was interviewed in the UL yesterday, and said he had a fondness for the wide-open play of his home state 'Cats during the early part of the Umile Era. And to his credit, Umile and McCloskey tightened up the D problems the next season with highly-touted G Sean Matile, and a couple years later Ty Conklin, which would set off a string of very good UNH goalies that lasted for most of the rest of the Umile Era.
Quick response to whoop87 (and you're free to take a swipe at my thoughts/opinions as you see fit) ... BUT did you even read my post #117, where I pointed out the back-to-back games factor, before you raised it in yours?!?
Snives, you can count me in (no surprise) as one who would see a dozen-win season as an accomplishment - but to be clear, not enough to save MS7's job - but where we are swooning over the "Champions of October" I figure it's time for two appropriate over-the-top predictions for the next two nights' results (whoop87 this is j/k OK?):
Friday Night: UNH 5 Quinnipac 1
Saturday Night: UNH 4 Quinnipac 3 (OT)
After the game, HC Pecknold throws down with AC Joe "Doo-Doo" Dumais, who was harboring hopes of taking over the UNH head coaching job next season, but apparently learned after regulation time that MS7 and UNH AD Allison ("Ray") Rich had come to an agreement on a three-year extension of his deal, given UNH's early season run for the mythical "Champions of October" national championship. Dumais accused Pecknold of throwing the early season series to his home state's State U to ensure that MS7 kept his job, and "Doo-Doo" would be stuck in the leafy suburb of New Haven than is Hamden CT for the foreseeable future. Pecknold's answer was purportedly, "Yeah, so what'cha gonna do about it now, Doo-Doo?" thus leading to fisticuffs. While the two grown-ups were observed wrestling in the runway towards the visitor's locker room, NCAA D-1 early season Penrose COTY favorite Mike Souza put on his skates, and toured The Whitt's shrunken ice surface with a cardboard cutout of the Lamoriello Trophy.
Similar scenes follow next week, when home ice wins over Northeastern and Dartmouth move UNH to 5-0-0 and tops in the October USCHO Coaches' Poll. Rumors abound that AD Ray-Rich is now considering offering up the ultimate prize in UNH Hockey coaching, which is the Richard Umile '72 Endowed Head Hockey Coach and Demi-God position, complete with a lifetime contract, memberships to Mount Hood GC, Pease GC and Aloha Mini Glow GC, unlimited freebie trips to the nearest Golden Corral, and a radio gig with the Effingwoods Hockey Almanac/WIS team.
The calendar turns to November. UNH subsequently loses the next twenty-thirty games of the season. AD Ray-Rich leaves the country, and issues a press release from her vacation hideaway in Madagascar that rumors of the "lifetime contract" etc. are not accurate, but she's looking forward to "at least three more super-exciting Octobers with Coach Souza and his returning-intact staff". Speaking of which, MS7 and his staff were last seen arguing over whether to go Glow Golfing in Manchester or Peabody the next time it rained, and which of the guys would have to deal with the icky recruiting thingie they're supposed to be doing to make the program better.
JvR just 6 points away from his next round number (NRR) of 600 NHL points.
TapedAnkles
New member
Absolutely brutal finish there with a tough bounce and garbage time score inflation. Quinnipiac looks very very solid and thought it was a tight game for 55 minutes. Very encouraged in this group, let’s do it again tomorrow.
d.gerry
Five for Fighting
Agree, the finish was tough. To me though the game had a feeling of inevitability. Too many bad passes and horrible puck control at the end. Conmy was a bright spot, but UNH still lacks a pure goal scorer. We continue to miss on way too many of our opportunities.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
I'm guessing you don't mean "gack up a close game in the closing minutes (again) tomorrow", right?
Not to pick on you, as it's great to have some newbies on board, and getting more involvement is something we all want ... but I'm not sure we will want to be encouraged by moral "victories" at this point in the Souza regime. As you probably know, there's been a lot (too much) of that going around for the last decade or so ... at some point, encouraging more of the same is just enabling a poor D-1 coach, and slowing things down on a legit rebuild. At this point, they can't even pull off a "Champions of October" cameo, what else is there to root for??
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
JB is looking pretty darned prescient right now, as Northern Indiana Community College waxed BU 4-1 tonight.
Oh, and UNH "won" the SOG's tonight, and shots in the 3rd period (which UNH entered with a 2-1 lead) were at 9 apiece.
Wondering if MS7 is gonna let the NoDak kid play in goal tomorrow night?
d.gerry;at n3835375 said:
I think that hanging onto a 2-1 lead for over 20 minutes into the third and then a 2-2 tie until less than two minutes remaining against the national champions is encouraging.
Regarding lack of a “pure goal scorer,” who was our last one of those? Past ~15 years: T Kelleher? Poturalski? P Thompson? Butler? Or farther back, 15-20 years: Callendar? Saviano? S Collins? Gare? C Hemingway? Or even farther back, >20 years: Haydar? Krog? Nikulas? Mowers? Boguniecki?
HockeyRef
Well-known member
You forgot Goumas
And yeah..we were in that game (til we weren't.) Looking forward to tomorrow. Nice first goal for Comny..is he our elusive pure goal scorer?
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d.gerry
Five for Fighting
Sorry Snives, I’m not down with “encouraging”, it’s time for actual results. If it had been three or four disappointing years, encouraging results would be one thing. Problem is, it’s going on decades now and our bright spots either don’t pan out or they enter the portal and get out of town. Been hoping and looking for positives for too long. So we hung with them, great, but good teams find ways to pull out the win, we didn’t.
As far as “pure” goal scorer, Gare and Hemingway are probably the last to fit that bill the best.
HockeyRef
Well-known member
...and if we had won the game it would have been seen as a 'down night' for QU or some 'fluke'. I think the 'Cats (and mr.HR agreed) that the 'Cats
looked so much better in so many ways out there. Yeah I get it that these things don't matter when the final whistle blows and the score says differently etc etc
but I think Snive's term 'encouraging' is a good view of things, at this early part of the juncture.
How they respond tonight is more important than last night's loss. So Blaisdell...he must be injured?
Ps...one of the best takes I saw of the end of this game was this twitter, er, X post:
Good effort, but not nearly physical enough on the forecheck & Dzone. Allowed Quinnipiac to make it a track meet.
looked so much better in so many ways out there. Yeah I get it that these things don't matter when the final whistle blows and the score says differently etc etc
but I think Snive's term 'encouraging' is a good view of things, at this early part of the juncture.
How they respond tonight is more important than last night's loss. So Blaisdell...he must be injured?
Ps...one of the best takes I saw of the end of this game was this twitter, er, X post:
Good effort, but not nearly physical enough on the forecheck & Dzone. Allowed Quinnipiac to make it a track meet.
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I get the need for actual results, d.gerry, and if the results last night had been against Dartmouth or Sacred Heart, I would be right with you and not down on encouraging.
HR, I left Goumas off my list when I looked up his stats and discovered that he never had a 20-goal season at UNH, which was a requirement to make my list.
EDIT: Agreed about my poor use of the word fluke after our BU win, HR, as the Terrior woes continue.
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Robert Balin
New member
I'd be interested in them Ref if still available.
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