Still at #20 in the pairwise and still at 7th in the ECAC. I firmly believe that our program is where it is because of our outstanding coaches. That being said, our consistently horrible power play and penalty kill is on them. They own it. We could have easily lost to Princeton. How many short handed goals have we give up this year?
Still at #20 in the pairwise and still at 7th in the ECAC. I firmly believe that our program is where it is because of our outstanding coaches. That being said, our consistently horrible power play and penalty kill is on them. They own it. We could have easily lost to Princeton. How many short handed goals have we give up this year?
This has been an interesting team. 2 years ago I circled this year as our year to contend, win the league, and make an NCAA run. Last year was a pleasant surprise and I believe they overachieved. They didn't lose much and I figured they should be as successful or likely better this year. But that hasn't happened. And it's very strange to me. Like Dutchmen said I'm not sure how much we have improved throughout the year, compared to the other teams. We seem to have effort and I think in most games we can play 5v5 with anyone. But our special teams stinks and it seems we lack a true finisher like Vecchione, S Foo, Jooris, Carr, etc. I think we get the puck to good positions sometimes, but nobody has the belief to shoot it and when the puck does make it to real scoring positions nobody can actually put the puck in the net. Some of that I believe is a bit lower top end scoring then we have had in the past and some of that may just be poor luck. But either way we need to stop missing the net/putting it in the goalies chest when we have good opportunities if we want to move forward this year.
On the bright side, I think at our best we can play a hockey game from end to end with most teams in the country. Atleast as far as scoring chances and puck possession (again finishing chances is a downfall). Look at the @Harvard game. I think we outplayed them 5v5 (out scored them 3-0 too). I think for most of the game we deserved a win. But we took 4 penalties and had 4 terrible kills (credit their PP also). 8 (or less) bad minutes cost us an otherwise fairly strong 52 minutes. And such seems to be the same for many of our games. RPI at times union, quinnipiac two nights ago, the list goes on: Decent puck control, some good scoring chances but yet no one can finish with any consistency and we give up a few good chances to other teams due to occasional breakdowns and they always seem to finish.
It's a frustrating team. And I think some pieces are there. Just look at plenty of our wins vs good teams. I'm cautiously optimistic that when the games start to count in the playoffs that we can play with anyone. I hope we can be last years Princeton and put everything together at the right time. I believe we can be. I just hope they either get the luck or confidence to start finishing their chances.
And lastly, as far as some folks saying they blame the coaches for not getting this team straightened out, I believe this team would be worse without the strong coaching we have. I think we are extremely lucky to have the staff we have and I have a lot of trust in the recruiting and coaching. I think we are lucky to have this staff and they are always focused on being on being as good as they can be at the end of the year even if that means some occasional bumps in the road along the way. I believe Rick and Jason in particular could be coaching at a lot of different schools or organizations if they wanted to and they are part of the reason Union has maintained such a high level of play after their championship and we are lucky to have them.
