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Utica College 2016/2017

Re: Utica College 2016/2017

PrezdeJohnson09 said:
Stevenson, like Endicott isn't your normal run of the mill new program. They went into this with the intention of being good. They hired a proven winner coach in Dominick Dawes who won a national championship at Neumann and they gave him a full year and a half to get going on recruiting this inaugural class.

Stevenson will be a contender in the UCHC sooner rather than later.
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Stevenson is already a contender in the W, IMO. Wouldn't be surprised at all to see them finish 3rd, maybe even higher...

We here in Utica (aside from his family, as far as I know :D) pretty-much despise D. Dawes, but primarily because he has given UC fits since he left town. I don't know whether or not he bent the rules in the past -I'll defer to Richard Petty's credo on that one- but I'll say this: the man knows how to recruit. He even brought that houligan All-American Davis from Neumann to Stevenson with him. :p

I feel that I can be a friend to all mankind via the cutesy emojis today because Utica has played so well to date. This team is as deep as the Mariana's Trench. They roll four lines, all of which swarm the O-zone like so many enraged hornets, and now that Dill has settled-in, he and Virtanen make an extremely solid tandem in net. The D very seldom does anything noticeably unwise, let alone bone-headed. I could hardly ask for more from my home-town team. But, there is one thing...

Connor Schmidt has to stop taking selfish penalties. He hasn't played anywhere-near well enough to overlook putting his team in jeopardy with a dumb one, as he did v. Stevenson in the 3rd on Sunday. Furthermore, he's accrued too many minutes in the box this season at any rate.

PS: Must be said: Eisenhower of LVC played a game for the ages in net on Saturday. Eye-popping, amazing performance. Never seen a better single-game outing by a goalie in 16 years of D-3. Not once.
 
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Re: Utica College 2016/2017

Pretenders or contenders, guess we will find out Saturday night. Don't overlook Elmira fri though. Go Pios !
 
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Re: Utica College 2016/2017

Think Virtanen is fine, maybe since the score was what it was, Heenan decided give Baggetta a little playing time? Either way, 2 good wins, Hobart game was a hard fought one. Ice bags were definitely needed on both sides. Hoping Fitzpatrick is OK after that hit, hate to see a freshman go down like that. Excited to see the boys back home this weekend.
 
Re: Utica College 2016/2017

UCfan30 said:
Think Virtanen is fine, maybe since the score was what it was, Heenan decided give Baggetta a little playing time? Either way, 2 good wins, Hobart game was a hard fought one. Ice bags were definitely needed on both sides. Hoping Fitzpatrick is OK after that hit, hate to see a freshman go down like that. Excited to see the boys back home this weekend.
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Any idea of the nature of Fitz's injury?
 
Re: Utica College 2016/2017

Oh well, it was a fun watch anyway...

UMB has some high-end talent. Larkin has D-1 hands, Bustard was terrific in net, the team speed was impressive. Having said that, UC was definitely on the same page and the game was a virtual toss-up in the final analysis.

This weekend will pay off in SOS points in any case, but it sure would be nice to beat Amherst.
 
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Re: Utica College 2016/2017

Nice to see UC can hang with Frozen Four talent.
Not scoring on the 5 minute major sealed the deal.
Superficially, I blame the pink jerseys...
 
Re: Utica College 2016/2017

I had a sinking feeling about the Amherst game as I listened to King Gary's pre-game interview. Seems that Utica's 8-1 start wasn't up to snuff in his curious universe, and he was all about a radical re-tooling of his "systems". (Whenever he references his "systems", I groan and utter the F-word, except with about 57 added u's... Just ask The Warden about that one.)

Now, never you mind that UC's only loss was largely due to bad puck-luck vs. a good UMB team... Oh no, the whole deal needed an overhaul, said D-3's answer to Scotty Bowman. And by God, we were going to be privy to his genius tonight at The Aud.

So, it appears that the "systems" we saw tonight were designed to hamstring the attack and to castrate the PK. Worked perfectly.

Yes, Dill pretty-much sucked, but no more than Amherst's goalie, and this was very easily the worst game Utica has played all season long... A "systemic" failure.
 
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Re: Utica College 2016/2017

Fishman'81 said:
A "systemic" failure.
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Well if Coach's system is also to turn the clock back eight years and have the team play "not-to-lose" hockey late again and then proceed to blow leads game after game, count me out. The D3 version of the NFL's prevent defense fails yet again. And yes, Dill was horrendous to boot. Stunning loss...
 
Re: Utica College 2016/2017

jcase said:
Well if Coach's system is also to turn the clock back eight years and have the team play "not-to-lose" hockey late again and then proceed to blow leads game after game, count me out. The D3 version of the NFL's prevent defense fails yet again. And yes, Dill was horrendous to boot. Stunning loss...
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Thing is, with this talented team, all he needs to do is to toss out a puck and let the guys do what they were born to do. His ego has tripped him up so many times via trying to fix what isn't broken. He seems to need to have his fingerprints on everything.

I have often wondered how good UC hockey might have been over the years had they just realized the inherent recruiting advantage they have, and hired a coach who had the sense to stock the larder and then get out of the way.
 
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Re: Utica College 2016/2017

Looks like The U is raiding the USPHL,they have 5 recruits already from the league for next year or so..
 
Re: Utica College 2016/2017

I don't believe the wheels have come off, Shabby... UC is still a very good team, IMO.

Yes, I tend to have excuses, but I truly think that Utica could easily have won the UMB game, and absolutely should have beaten Amherst and Cortland. The goaltending was very poor against former, and UC skated rings around the latter. (To expound, Utica's skaters played well v. UMB and Cortland, and managed to score 5 while Dill and the boys took an inexplicable night off v. Amherst in a flukey loss... Kind of a perfect storm all the way around.)

I blame the fickle Hockey Gods for this skid, but I stand by my assessment of this team. The guys will be fine if they continue to play an open style in order to exploit their team speed, but the 'tending needs to get more consistent.

PS: To give credit where it's due, I have to say that Cortland's McCormick looked All-World on Friday, and that Weigman positioned himself perfectly all night long... In a just universe, UC wins that one 6-2. ;)
 
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