Re: UNH Wildcats 2014/2015 - Wait 'Til Next Year!!!
Now that we've reached the midpoint of the regular season, I'm going to revisit some of my preseason projections to see how things are playing out so far, in comparison to the preseason outlooks ...
--------------------
* In goal ... will Coach Umile split time initially between Clark and Regan? Or will one of those two get most of the games (based on board feedback, the consensus seems to be that Clark will be the lead dog)? If the Clark/Regan combo turns out OK, will Coach Umile leave Tirone in juniors until next season? If the early season combo falters ... is Tirone good enough to take the top job?
* Goalie over/under: (EGOL) playing 0.5 games in goal for UNH this season. I'll take the under.
Sadly, that's one in the *win* column. Never saw a way back, whether it be on merit OR on pure distraction. I'll take this one off the board here on out.
It's been virtually 100% Clark up to this point, and I think most of us would agree he's done well. As predicted by others, Regan has been an emergency goalie and nothing more. With Tirone now arriving, it will be interesting to see how long it takes for Coach Umile to turn this into a regular two-goalie rotation. My guess is he'll split the goalie assignments for the UNO next week, see how that goes, and either repeat for the Dartmouth and Providence games OR return to the "All Clark, All The Time" channel. I do think Coach Umile is eager to see what Tirone has to offer (or else he'd still be in juniors), but I don't see him eclipsing Clark ... not this year anyway.
* On defense ... it would seem highly likely that Pesce, Cleland and Maller will be three of the four defensemen who will feature in the top two pairings this season. If that proves to be true ... who will emerge as the 4th player in the top two pairings by midseason? Or will Coach Umile spread his top three d-men with one apiece leading the 3 pairings? If so - who plays with Pesce, who plays on Maller's pairing and who plays on Cleland's pairing??
* Defense over/under: UNH will allow 3.00 goals per game this season. I'll take the over (and hope I'm wrong).
Happily, I've *lost* on this one so far. Let's hope we can still say the same as the rest of the season plays out. 
Allowing for understandable growing pains and lack of consistency, UNH is still hovering around allowing 2.90 GPG. A troubling trend is that in the last 3 games before the break, that average jumped up to 4.33, including allowing 9 goals in two games to a poor UMaine team. Hopefully the (hopefully) imminent return of Pesce will see a return to better defensive play. Marks, Furgele and Boyd continue to be the three favored frosh defensemen (when healthy), while Quast and Randall are not surprisingly the depth guys. Chanter seems to have gotten some games recently, but with Pesce's return, he could be back up in the stands again once January arrives.
* Up front ... who skates on the top line, and who are the centers on all four lines? Where will the goals come from? Which of the frosh will break out early in the season, which will gradually emerge as the season plays out, and which won't get off the start line? Which of the low profile returning players will enjoy their own "breakout" season and start raining goals after a slow start to their UNH careers?
* Offense over/under: UNH will score 3.00 goals per game this season. I'll take the under. If they can get the over, it at least should be a fun and exciting season.
Unfortunately, I'm still comfortably *ahead* on this one, as UNH has only just recently moved back over 2.50 GPG scored with the outburst against UMaine.
WAY too inconsistent here ... 5 games of 5 or more scored, 6 goals with either one or zero scored, and 9 with 2 or less scored. Classic young team "feast or famine" pattern here for sure. Back in mid-November, i was confident there was every reason to believe they'd top out over 3.00 by season's end. Now, I'm not so optimistic. Poturalski continues to be the standout freshman, but Eiserman and Fogele are wildly inconsistent despite showing tantalizing flashes of top D-1 skills, while McNicholas and Salvaggio are struggling merely to get into the line-up. Kelleher has improved his scoring output and two-way play, which is what many expected from the soph this season. Other "good news" is that Thrush, Correale, Gaudreault and MacDonald are currently at #5 thru #8 on the scoring charts, but the "bad news" is exactly that - none of these guys have more than 3 goals, yet the lack of production of some of the key freshmen means these guys are being counted on to overperform. And even with those modest scoring outputs, they are arguably overperforming right now. What this team needs BADLY is for guys like Fogele and Eiserman to start performing at higher levels.
Team outlook: UNH will finish in 7th place this coming regular season. I see a slow (start), but hopefully with a tough NC early schedule out of the way by 2015, the team will finish stronger, and could be an interesting outlook for the postseason. I don't see a return trip to the Garden OR to the NCAA's, but hopefully we'll be back to both in 2016.
Team over/under: 5.5 wins before Winter break (ties don't count as even a half-win). I'll take the under.
Pretty good guess, I'd say. It would have been ever better if I didn't get cute about ties not being half-wins. 
Team over/under: 6.5th place in the HE regular season, and 0.5 postseason wins.
To be determined ...
With seven games left before the break, UNH seemed to be on course to do better than I'd projected. But I made the point that before getting too giddy about it, they'd just lost a game to a previously winless opponent (NU), and would be playing against two talented but underachieving teams (PC and BC), with the RPI pre-Thanksgiving Day ECAC bugaboo UNH always seems to find a way to lose, and then the NC UMaine series. I predicted a 6-10-1 record at the break, with UNH finding a tie somewhere in the four games with PC and BC (not imagining one of the PC games would be postponed), a split with struggling UMaine ... and a win over RPI. 
I did predict UNH would finish the regular season in 7th place this year. Right now, they are in 11th place. In looking at the top seven teams in the standings right now, I'm afraid I don't see UNH overcoming any of those teams - right down to 7th place Merrimack, which is .500 in the league, and well over that overall. That puts my realistic "ceiling* for UNH's HE regular season finish at 8th place tops, which would be the final home ice slot for the opening play-in round. And to get that 8th slot, UNH will have to beat out the lines of UMass Amherst (probable), UConn (ditto), UMaine and Northeastern. If there was a three-sided coin to flip between NU, UMaine & UNH, I'd rate UNH's chances of home ice for the first round at no more than 33%. So my revised prediction is for a 9th place RS finish.
The next seven HE conference games will be the rescheduled home game against PC, followed by three (3) two game weekend series against UMass Amherst, UMaine and Notre Dame. For any realistic shot at first round home ice, UNH is going to have to go at least 4-2-1 and generate 9 points in that stretch. Another split against UMaine won't be enough, either. The two weekends after those seven games, UNH is on the road for 2 games vs. UVM and then BU. ANYTHING out of those games would be a bonus. UConn weekend would again almost be a must-sweep (or 3 points at least) before finishing up the RS with two against Merrimack, which could be battling for either first round home ice OR possibly a first round bye. So I really do think the key for UNH is going to be their next 7 HE games.
Having said all that ... I see no reason - yet - for any post-season optimism. And with even the chances of home first round playoff games very much up in the air, a winless postseason exit is unfortunately increasingly likely. I'll check back in again at the end of the seven game run in late January to see what the outlook is for the stretch run. My head is telling me to downgrade my outlook for the rest of this season, but my heart is fervently hoping my head is full of crap. 
