Re: UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread (Part 2)
Okay. There's one and counting.....DeSmith stood on his head!
Agreed. All that matters at the end of the night is the 'Cats found a way to win. It was not pretty - especially at the end, holding on for dear life, against a team at the bottom of the league which is still looking for their first road win - but a win is a win is a win, and style points mean zippo, zilch, nada in comparison to 2 points in the race for HE GF home ice - or at least avoiding the play-in round. And yes - the game was another perfect example of the importance of playing with a lead trumping any SOG data.
But they are going to have to play MUCH better tomorrow night down at Agganis, let's not kid ourselves. It will be Coach Parker's big night in "The House that Jack Built", and I'm sure his former recruits will want to honor his presence with a strong performance. If the game tomorrow night continues in the same way the last two periods were played tonight, it could be a long night for UNH, unless they find a way to get off to another multi-goal lead early on. And for intangibles ... let's just say that BU suffers nowadays from not having Coach Parker behind the bench, if for no other reason than they simply do not get the balance of the officiating calls they used to. So with Papa Jack in the house tomorrow night, the officials may suffer a severe case of "muscle memory" in favor of his former team. I'm hoping that NO ONE on the bus ride down to Agganis tomorrow is under any illusions about what they're likely going to be up against.
My measure of what constitutes a successful 2013/2014 season for UNH
Very simply, for this season to be deemed a success, I truly believe the one threshold goal is for this team to advance to Boston for the Hockey East semifinals. That's it - that's the "bright line test". Anything more than that is a happy bonus, and anything short of that is a failure. I don't care if they get to the TD Garden, draw BC in the semis, and get rolled 85-1. Success. And likewise, I'll see zero redeeming value in a *valiant* 2-1 QF loss to the likes of UMaine, Providence, Northeastern or UVM, even if the 3rd game ends up going to quadruple OT, where there is some fluky goal or UNH gets undone by a bad call. Failure.
After tonight's results, the good news is that Notre Dame isn't going to overtake UNH, as they can only max out at .500 in the league. Providence is still stuck in neutral, and UVM has another meeting with BC tomorrow, and has two more on the final weekend against the hottest team in the league (UMass Lowell). Northeastern has a tricky road game tomorrow at UMass Amherst, which has "letdown" writtten all over it, after the excitement of last Monday night's Beanpot Finals. And UNH sits alone right now (for now) in 4th place.
As far as the NCAA's ... again, to me that's "happy bonus" land. I don't give a rat's behind about PWR, RPI, KRACH, SOG, OMG, ***, Corsi or his equally irrelevant twin brother Corso. Just win what's in front of you, compete like he11 and let nature take its course. If it happens ... great. If it doesn't ... c'est la vie. This is not a D-1 title contender by any stretch of the imagination, and while I'm first on board with the idea that playing regularly in the big games is the only way to have success in those big games ... this team has been in the NCAA's recently, but they haven't been to Boston for the HE Semis for three (3) years now. And that has to change. Now. JMHO.
