He played well overall. D was generally solid. Had a nice check. Came in one one rush and took a good shot. His passing was tentative and he also had a puck stolen from him. But he played well enough to prove he belongs in the NHL.
Chip Malafronte @ChipMalafronte 3m3 minutes ago
Patrick Spano, backup to Alex Lyon the past three seasons, will begin the season as Yale's No. 1 goaltender, says Keith Allain.
. The Smith Brothers reportedly looked very good in the scrimmage vs Princeton. One of the brothers scored two goals in the game.Wow. Well, combined with the loss of Lyon, O'Gara, Obuchowski and Witek, it looks as if we might have to make the transition from a D team to an O team. Hope the Smith Brothers are up to the task.
You still have time to get your picks into the ECAC Pick the Standings Contest. Friday at 7PM is the deadline.
http://board.uscho.com/showthread.php?116311-ECAC-Pick-the-Standings-2016-2017
Per our boy Chip:
Yale d-man Nate Repensky out for the year with injury. Forward J.M. Piotrowski yet to practice this season and out indefinitely with injury
Very sad, he was a great offensive defenseman who would have been a mentor to the new guys coming in, Piotrowski out for some time as well. Can't wait for the season to finally start Saturday!Repensky is a career ending hip injury in Chips article in today's Register.
Decent debut for Yale, marred by the officiating. Good first game for Lindstrand opening this seasons scoring. As for the defense, they are young, small and quick, (except for Sweezey). I could see them having trouble with bigger and stronger opponents in the corners. That said, when you hold a team to 0-9 on the PP including two 3-5's, something is being done right. I liked the fact that the D's quickness allowed them to pinch more often in the O-Zone, even the freshmen were going in deep for pucks. Spano looked a little shaky at first, but settled in nicely and was outstanding during SHU's power plays. He needs to work on his behind the net puck handling skills, a couple of dangerous plays back there that a better team would score on. Overall team speed will be a plus this year, Freshman Stevens seemed to have some trouble adjusting to the pace, but he will be a net front presence that Yale is lacking. The Smith brothers were a pleasure to behold, great two way play, they match up nicely with DiChiara. Snively took three penalties, basically for minor stick work from behind. Hyden hitchcock snively will be a killer line this year.
LT: I watched online (which had some glitch for the first half of the first period which made it virtually unwatchable, but then it went dark for a minute and was great after that.) Anyway, hard to tell about the officiating without being there. The two interference penalties on SHU right off faceoffs were the most obvious manifestation of the new emphasis, I guess, and one of the penalties on Snively was clearly just a mistake, but was the rest of the penalty-fest new standard of play stuff, tight calls on a game that was starting to get chippy, or something else?
I agree with your assessment. I'll add that although Sweezy is not the fastest, I think he had good instincts and one time did a nice job of continuing a play all the way to the net in the offensive zone. I liked watching the Smiths, too.
