Re: UNH Wildcats 2017-2018 Season - The Quest Continues
In the aftermath of Clark's "surprise" start against BU on Friday night, let me put a wrap on the latest
WIS Challenge, which was based on some quotes taken from various UNH personnel in the aftermath of the previous weekend's loss to Brown, as reported by Al Pike at Foster's Daily Democrat. The challenge was to match the listed UNH personnel with the following quotes. A link to the article follows below; I've now posted the answers next to the quotes:
(A) Danny Tirone
(B) Liam Blackburn
(C) Dylan "Foxhole" Chanter
(D) Coach Dick Umile
(1) “Give them credit for coming back. Give us no credit for the pushback and the effort.”
Umile
(2) “In the third period I think
they had more left in the tank than we did, and it showed.”
Tirone
(3) “We weren’t really up 4-0 the way the game was going early. They had a lot of chances. They missed some of their best opportunities early.
They played harder and longer than we did.”
Tirone
(4) “They just didn’t quit. They were relentless. Eventually something’s got to go in for them.”
Blackburn
(5) “We talked about playing a 60-minute hockey game before the game, after the first period, after the second period and did absolutely nothing in the third period.”
Umile
(6) “Throughout the third period they were all over us and
I don’t think we responded as well as we should have. It just seemed like
they were winning the puck battles and spending a lot of time in our zone. They got the momentum going and
we didn’t respond the way that we should have and need to.
That’s disappointing.”
Tirone
http://www.fosters.com/sports/20180106/college-hockey-unh-unsettled-after-drawing-brown
I think if you read Tirone's comments - and to be fair (1) he uses the word "we", and (2) it's hard to disagree with anything he's said in any of those three quotes - you can read a lot of different things into them. To me, first of all, he's basically saying the same things his head coach said, but in a little more detail. Secondly, while he often uses the word "we", it's probably fair to assume he is directing the "more in the tank" comment to his teammates, as I don't think that as commendable as their effort was, Brown "wore out" the goalie. Tirone's second comment (the "longer and harder" one) also appears to be an indictment of his teammates' efforts, and also attributes a 4-0 lead to some degree of puck-luck (or as English footballers might say, the 4-0 scoreline somewhat flattered the hosts).
The third and final comment from Tirone really leaves nothing up for interpretation though, does it? It stops short of accusing teammates of quitting, but it does not paint a flattering picture of how he perceived the efforts of his teammates to raise their games in response to a motivated opponent raising theirs. And again, this is not any different than what Coach Umile had to say, in far less words. Even the Blackburn comment seems to indirectly support the comments by his coach and his alternate captain, as he makes it seem as if UNH was powerless to push back against the non-stop onslaught of the <s>Ivy League speedbump</s> "Big Bad Bears" of Brown. I mean ... Brown ... really????
But there were zero (0) comments attributed to the actual team captain, Dylan "Foxhole" Chanter. I guess when the going gets tough, our formerly glib and gregarious C goes into radio silence?? In the end, it's probably not his fault that he was selected as an "in over my head" captain like many before him in recent years (excepting Cleland, a legit 4 year regular and top pairing guy by the end of his UNH career). Just another *terrific* choice for a team leadership role, by a coach who has apparently either deemed actual leadership as less important than contrived leadership to congratulate a kid from working his way out of the stands as a JUNIOR, or just dismisses the quality entirely to the point where he lets his players make this decision for him. Kids whose ideas of leadership are probably framed by popularity or who has the best "cause" or story. Of course, there IS the (frightening) possibility that among these D-1 scholar athletes, there are no actual true leaders among them? I'll save that point for a future possible rant, if our recruiters can actually recruit someone.
So take your pick. Either Coach Umile huddled with Souza and Stu (or just by his lonesome) and decided that a change of goalies Friday was warranted because:
(1) Tirone has been playing relatively poorly, and Clark deserved a shot (at long last);
(2) Tirone went a *mite* too far with some of his (highly accurate) criticisms after the Brown debacle; or
(3) Like changing a goalie when the team is sleepwalking through a game, Umile thought it might wake everyone up?
For what it's worth, I agree with Felger AND Dan. The timing for Clark's cameo was abysmal. Why this didn't happen before the break OR on the second game of the Ledyard Classic, or even the Brown game itself ... who knows? Personally, as much light as I've made of the whole "Quest for the NRN" thing, it's frankly hard to ignore this may all be coloring Coach Umile's decision-making with his goalies. The UNH season is once again threatening to circle the drain in January (shocking I tellya), and we will see where Coach Umile's priorities lie. Let's see what happens if/when this losing streak (including the Brown *loss*) continues, and the outlook for the postseason dims further and further. Tirone is the only one of the three goalies who is definitely not coming back next season. And with no new goalie recruits on the immediate horizon, it's looking more and more like Clark may stick around for his final season of eligibility to go toe-to-toe (or job share) with Robinson next season. So at what point does Umile toss Tirone aside and give Clark a real go at things?
This afternoon in Chestnut Hill may hold the first clue on the answer to that last question. Stay tuned ...
) came off of Richie Boyd's stick.
