Have been attending UMass games for five years now (after 25 at RPI), so I know a bit about good, bad, great and Potemkin. UMass, at their best is solid, methodical,talented, well-coached, and pretty fast. At their worst, they get a little out of synch, get running around (creating "bad gaps") and give up goals like any other team. The thing that has impressed me most, however, is their ability to weather the bad patches, and play on through it until they get the mojo back. Like this year's Patriots, they don't win by dominating, they just keep on doing what they do, trying to do it better, sticking with the plan until something clicks and they're skatin' and possessing like the Red Army. In Friday's game, they owned the possession in the first half by a wide margin, and found themselves behind 3-0 on 3 isolated breakdowns (2 high, 1 low). Cue dramatic music for goaltender controversy: There is none. Coach Carvel has stated repeatedly in press conferences, in his no-bull****, direct, businesslike manner, that all his goalies know that in any situation, "you can give up two; if you give up three, you're coming out." End of controversy. So Filly comes in, holds the fort, my favorite Long Island rink-rat gets the Minutemen rolling and from there, it was just a matter of "Do we have enough time? Did we leave it too long? Can we solve this Robinson-turned-Hasek?" And then the cream rose to the top. Enough with the schadenfreude; no sensible person thinks that any game in March is a walkover, especially at the Garden...
