Personally, for as much criticism as I gave Coach Umile and his team last season about how they handled the captaincy, I think they've made the right decision with Cleland alone this time around. I think several of us have speculated about why Kelleher hasn't gotten a leadership letter, but Coach says the decision was pretty clear-cut, and I've never been a fan of just adding a whole lot of "A's" out just because. I made that mistake myself a couple of years ago. If it's that easy, no need to cloud the leadership issue.
Otherwise, I'm not sure how a defense that admittedly "struggled" last season, and really only adds a promising frosh (Wyse), maybe a healthy Maller, and then just the rest having an additional year's worth of experience becomes a strength? Either Wyse is really good and capable of taking on top pairing ice right from the start, or Quast and Furgele were so bad that it's addition by subtraction (maybe both?).
Coach can say Tirone and Clark start out even-steven, but I'll be shocked if Tirone isn't the top guy again.
Now ... I just want to make sure I'm reading this next part correctly ...
"With the top bracket, there's no question BU with the drafts coming in and what's coming back, and Northeastern's run at the end of the season and they have a lot coming back. It was pretty right on as far as the top bracket goes. But after the top bracket, I believe it's wide open and hopefully we can compete in that area and that will be our goal. There's not much difference between the bottom six."
I'm reading that as Coach conceding UNH is not a top six team, but should be fighting for home ice (7th/8th) in the MBPBEGAM round of the HE Playoffs. Then he talks about how being picked 10th is "motivating".
So being picked to repeat last year's finish - all the while setting the ceiling for your own team as *maybe* 2-3 slots higher - is supposed to be "motivating"??
Listen, I understand, playing the so-called "disrespect" card (BTW I hate that word AND that concept with a passion) as a motivation for your team to overachieve, I totally get that. But if you're going to go down that path ... do you then turn into Mr. Realistic ten seconds later and put a "cap" on your team's ceiling that isn't all that much higher??
If you're going to play the "we're (ticked) off and we're gonna prove everyone wrong" card from a 10th place prediction, then you need to follow that with an expectation of a top half finish. Double down. Otherwise, if you don't really disagree with where you've been picked - and I translate "we can finish 7th or 8th" into "their picks aren't really that far off, we might do a little better" - then jeez, leave it alone, just keep it to yourself, and limit your comments to your team.
Maybe I'm reading this too closely ... but it just seems like mixed messages, and those are best avoided.
I remember the Everyone Gets A Medal, but I forgot the first part of the acronym MBPBEGAM. Help!
UNH wins 7-3.
