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UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread

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Re: UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread

CrazedUNHfan said:
One another note the goaltending battle seems to be in full swing. Wyer is 1-1-0 with a 1.00 GAA and Desmith is 0-2-0 with a GAA of around 3. I know that comparing Clarkson to Minnesota is foolish so we cant look at the win/loss too closely. Wyer did not seem to be tested much at all in the Friday game but looked confident and made the saves he needed to. On Saturday Desmith made some amazing saves and I thought did a lot of good things. He was tested a lot and the second goal appeared to be an own goal. We have 2 starting goalies on this roster and it will be interesting to see what happens going forward.
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Desmith didn't look comfortable at all on Saturday. The biggest concern I saw from the battle was rebound control. Desmith just can't seem to control the puck and where it gets directed to as well as Wyer can. Watching the games on the DVR seems to confirm that Desmith was leaving rebounds into the middle where the D has to bail him out, the non-goal spectacular save, was also due to his rebound heading to the middle where it then got knocked back in on him. Desmith also has had pucks squeaking through him, in the Minnesota game it cost them a goal, in the Michigan name luckily there was a quick whistle when it was about 6 inches behind him in between his pads in the open. Whats odd is I feel like Desmith has been having the same struggles since just after Thanksgiving last year. Wyer seems more comfortable in net, and Desmith seems to be fighting it a bit. Hopefully he gets back to being comfortable. Would be nice to have 2 confident goaltenders rolling at the same time.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread

jeteye1717 said:
This ... Michigan spent much of Friday night vainly attempting to keep up with a fast, determined Wildcat squad that transitioned very well out of their own end, moved quickly through center ice with short, quick passes, and was able to set up for long stretches in the offensive zone for multiple good looks on net; if any of their multiple dings off the post and/or crossbar had gone in they'd have won that game going away. They seemed to generate an odd-man rush every other shift or so, and whenever Pesche, TvR, etc. pinched in from the point, a heads-up forward quickly rotated back to fill the vacant spot. Having given up 34 and 35 shots on net in splitting on the road with Clarkson and Minnesota, they obviously needed to tighten up their team defense, and accomplished that mostly by relentless attacking pressure, out-shooting the Wolverines 27-9 over the final 45 minutes and holding Michigan to just 18 SOG overall. But Saturday was a totally different story ...

Red Berenson hasn't won 770+ games by sitting idly by and watching his team get outplayed; he and his team get major props from me for digesting all they endured on Friday and coming out on Saturday night determined to not let *that* happen again. As Aerman mentioned, the biggest change was implementing a much more aggressive forecheck; any Cat who found himself with the puck in the defensive zone was immediately confronted by one, often two, Michigan forecheckers who completely disrupted the easy transition play out of the zone they'd enjoyed the night before. The remaining Wolverines clogged the neutral zone in a close-checking clinic; the 'Cats were expending so much energy attempting to break through this moving trap that they had nothing left to give if / when they finally broke through to the Michigan zone. What's frustrating as a fan was watching how ill prepared and/or equipped the 'Cats were to adjust in turn to what Michigan was doing to them. In a nutshell, that was the story of Saturday's game: Michigan pivoted overnight to a new, offense-off-the-defense attacking style and UNH was never able to make the necessary counter-measures to open the game up more to their liking. Perhaps they tried, but Michigan's relentless pressure was so effective it was hard to discern exactly what the 'Cats were trying to do in response. This team has speed to spare, but if future opponents follow Michigan's lead - and they will - and UNH can't switch to Plan B as required, there'll unfortunately be more games like this come. Saturday's a new day in Troy - time will tell if a week of practice can give the 'Cats another arrow in their quiver to deploy when needed ...
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Basically, what you're saying here is that Umile got outcoached if I'm not mistaken. From my seat, it appeared that either Michigan is overrated or UNH is underrated because they played fairly even on Saturday anyway IMHO. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you here regarding your assessment of the game. In fact, I agree with you Michigan was relentless on the forecheck for sure. I didn't get a good look of the goal in OT because I was sitting on the other end. When it gets to OT it's anybody's game usually. I wish points were awarded in OT like they do in the NHL. UNH deserved better than one point on the weekend IMO.

On another note; GREAT WIN FOR THE FOOTBALL TEAM! What a game. CONGRATS!!
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread

Fun games to watch this weekend. Friday's game flowed nicely given all the penalties. Heavy reliance on the top 2/3 lines and 4 defenders seemed to catch up with the 'cats on Saturday. Was playing time similarly distributed in MN the previous week? It is early, but last year's inability to put the puck in the net...
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread

I think the RPI game will be available to watch online at RPI TV. Never used this feed before but it will be worth a try.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread

C-H-C said:
I think the RPI game will be available to watch online at RPI TV. Never used this feed before but it will be worth a try.
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because I'm an RPI season tix holder I've never seen the home broadcasts but I understand the quality is very, very good.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread

Darius said:
Was playing time similarly distributed in MN the previous week?
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I was paying pretty close attention this week to Quast's ice time specifically because I did not hear his name, even one time, over the course of the two games broadcast from MN. From that I have to assume the answer to your question is yes.
 
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread

C-H-C said:
I think the RPI game will be available to watch online at RPI TV. Never used this feed before but it will be worth a try.
Click to expand...

You will get a very high quality feed from the great RPI TV crew, all current RPI students who do a great job.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread

fishcore12 said:
You will get a very high quality feed from the great RPI TV crew, all current RPI students who do a great job.
Click to expand...

Have decided to make the trip out to Troy. Any recommendations for parking and dining?
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread

C-H-C said:
I think the RPI game will be available to watch online at RPI TV. Never used this feed before but it will be worth a try.
Click to expand...

Yes, WRPI_TV does a great job, and it is free. Take a look at the archived Sacred Heart game from last weekend which has been the only home game so far. The exhibition game vs. St. Marys was filmed with only a single camera as are most of the women's games. They use the WRPI (RPI's radio broadcast) for sound. Although the WRPI announcers are quite good, it suffers IMHO from the fact that radio announcers speak too much for a video broadcast.

This year RPI-TV also streams their productions to you-tube and the link will be on the game site. For an unknown to me reason the you-tube broadcast is delayed by about a minute.


turk, I am a bit surprised that you have never looked at an archived broadcast for goal replays or some disputed play. :)
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread

C-H-C said:
Have decided to make the trip out to Troy. Any recommendations for parking and dining?
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If you get there early enough, you can park for free on Burdett Avenue, down the first hill from the HFH. Since the ECAV (East Campus Athletic Village) was built, there is not enough parking at the HFH, and you have to take the free shuttle from a remote lot otherwise.

I will leave to locals suggestions for dining. You might want to ask on the thread that I started for this game http://board.uscho.com/showthread.php?105978-UNH-RPI-Saturday-10-26-13.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread

C-H-C said:
I think the RPI game will be available to watch online at RPI TV. Never used this feed before but it will be worth a try.
Click to expand...

No one has mentioned yet that on top of the HD stream, it is also free. Anyone who can't make it to the game should definitely watch online, they do an excellent job. Additionally, the youtube broadcast means you should be able to watch on pretty much any device that can play a regular youtube video. There's also a live chat on the RPITV broadcast page that several of us use, along with the usual talkative score threads here.
 
UNH goalie situation

UNH goalie situation

I don't think there's any question that the story of the UNH season early on is the emergence of the goalie competition. Maybe I'm more surprised than others, since I put a lot of stock in Coach Umile's past patterns (at least in recent years) of annointing a starter early in the season, and riding that starter with heavy minutes for most of the season. Furthermore, it's such an unusual situation, to see a virtual two-year starter like DeSmith possibly being forced to give way to a senior who hasn't seen a ton of playing time in a supporting role to DeSmith the last two seasons (understanding injuries were in part an issue for one of those seasons). The last time I can remember a two year starter being pushed this hard for the top goalie slot at UNH dates back to senior Sean Matile losing his job to sophomore transfer Ty Conklin back in the '98/'99 season. If that means UNH is heading to the Frozen Four Finals again, count me in. :)

I think most of us would agree that DeSmith's play seemed to fall off a little bit down the stretch last season, but in all honesty I also think the same could be said about most of the UNH squad last season. But I guess the first thing that raised a flag to me that there *might* be an issue in goal was the selection of Wyer as an alternate captain. Putting aside team captain Eric Knodel, there are no short of five (5) UNH seniors who were overlooked for captaincy honors (Agosta, Goumas, Silengo, Sorkin and Speelman), all of whom have pretty much been regulars for the last two seasons or more. And when you figure another junior (TvR) was selected as the other alternate ... to me, it does raise questions about the team's overall respect level for junior DeSmith in comparison with Wyer? After all, the guys on the team practice and live with each other every day - not just game day, when the rest of us get to see them perform.

Coach Umile has been able to straddle the fence so far with his game selections, splitting their time in the exhibition, and splitting the first two weekends between the two goalies. But this weekend there is only the RPI game, so unless Coach Umile is going to do what he did in the exhibition, I guess we will be getting a first true glimpse into how he sees the competition faring at this early stage of the season.

With Wyer having played better so far, and with the "A" on his jersey, to me it's hard to see DeSmith getting the nod again at least until next weekend in one of the Lowell games. And if that's indeed the case, I think it's going to be VERY interesting to see how this all plays out - can DeSmith rise to the challenge and reclaim the top spot that's been his for the better part of the last two seasons, since he beat out Matt DiGirolamo? I'm not sure I can remember ANY goalie at UNH during Coach Umile's time first losing the top job, and then reclaiming it afterwards? DiGirolamo, Matile, arguably LaRochelle and Heinke ... and although the last three did get almost an equal share of time after losing the top job, there was no question their successors were selected in the key post-season games.

There hasn't been a true goalie platoon at UNH since the Pietrasiak/Regan years, and Carney/Ayers a couple years before that. So while my gut instinct at this point tells me the platoon approach may be here for the balance of the season ... there will be times where we might catch a glimpse into who is the preferred goalie at any given moment. One of those times will be tomorrow night. And if it does prove to be DeSmith, does that mean the early platooning of the two was simply a nod to the team's alternate captain selection? :confused:

Over to you, Coach ... :D
 
Re: UNH goalie situation

Re: UNH goalie situation

Chuck Murray said:
The last time I can remember a two year starter being pushed this hard for the top goalie slot at UNH dates back to senior Sean Matile losing his job to sophomore transfer Ty Conklin back in the '98/'99 season.
Click to expand...

I didn't know Conklin was a transfer. Where did he come from?
 
Re: UNH goalie situation

Re: UNH goalie situation

Nick Papagiorgio said:
I didn't know Conklin was a transfer. Where did he come from?
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Alaska Anchorage I believe? Not sure he ever played there, but he did use up a year of eligibility with the transfer.

For that matter, I'm pretty sure Sean Matile transferred from UMaine without playing there either, and lost a year of eligibility as well.

Guess that's just how UNH was securing their goalie talent back in the early days of The Whitt ... :D
 
Re: UNH goalie situation

Re: UNH goalie situation

Chuck Murray said:
Alaska Anchorage I believe? Not sure he ever played there, but he did use up a year of eligibility with the transfer.

For that matter, I'm pretty sure Sean Matile transferred from UMaine without playing there either, and lost a year of eligibility as well.

Guess that's just how UNH was securing their goalie talent back in the early days of The Whitt ... :D
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Correct-- UAA (never played in a game) - he left early in the 96-97 season and went back to Green Bay.
 
Re: UNH goalie situation

Re: UNH goalie situation

Chuck Murray said:
I don't think there's any question that the story of the UNH season early on is the emergence of the goalie competition.

There hasn't been a true goalie platoon at UNH since the Pietrasiak/Regan years, and Carney/Ayers a couple years before that. /QUOTE]

I always thought that Carney should have started in net at the NCAA semi's in Xcel Center back in 2002. Then, there was that weekend in Orono late in the regular season when Carney was on the shelf with a concussion and Ayers had his wrist badly cut by a skate, but essentially played with one arm the remainder of that game and the next one. But, I liked that duo pushing one another the entire season.
Click to expand...
 
Re: UNH goalie situation

Re: UNH goalie situation

Snively65 said:
Chuck Murray said:
I don't think there's any question that the story of the UNH season early on is the emergence of the goalie competition.

There hasn't been a true goalie platoon at UNH since the Pietrasiak/Regan years, and Carney/Ayers a couple years before that.
Click to expand...

I always thought that Carney should have started in net at the NCAA semi's in Xcel Center back in 2002. Then, there was that weekend in Orono late in the regular season when Carney was on the shelf with a concussion and Ayers had his wrist badly cut by a skate, but essentially played with one arm the remainder of that game and the next one. But, I liked that duo pushing one another the entire season.
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Still remember that game when Ayers got sliced - it was our eldest daughter's first trip to Orono, and (other than the score and the injury) we had a great time with the UMaine-iacs. :) I think that was a Friday night game, and the second game wasn't until Sunday afternoon. We were equal parts shocked and impressed to see Ayers in there for the Sunday game. But I don't think he finished up the Friday night game? I'm pretty sure Timmy Collins finished that one up in Ayers' place ...
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2013-14 Season Thread

Looks like the Jeff Wyer era as #1 goalie for UNH lasted all of 23+ minutes ... :(
 
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