In a general sense, just about everything
in the wonderful world of sports revolves around one
thing, the bottom line. Players who rack up all of
their stats in garbage time still get to waltz through
life in the spotlight. Teams that win games in an
ugly fashion can still find themselves on top of the
world while teams that play well but find themselves
on the wrong end of the scoreboard don’t often
see a silver lining around their grim cloud.
Unless, of course, it’s still
early in the season.
So despite the fact that the Wildcats
got off to 2-3-1 start and battled through a five-game
stretch with just a single victory, raising concern
that they would be hard-pressed to find Hockey East
success without Sean Collins and Preston Callander
– they had time on their side.
“When you correlate wins and losses,
it was a tough start because we didn’t win any
games,” UNH coach Richard Umile said. “But
we weren’t playing bad. In the two games against
North Dakota (a 3-2 loss and 3-3 tie at the Whitt)
and the game against BC (a 3-2 loss in Manchester),
we were playing pretty good hockey. We were playing
well, and the team and coaching staff felt that.”
Since dropping its contest against the
Eagles on Nov. 1, a game in which the Wildcats held
a brief 2-1 second-period lead, UNH has ripped off
four wins in a row, and until Providence stole a 2-1
overtime decision at Northeastern on Tuesday night,
New Hampshire was tied for first place with the Friars
in Hockey East with its November surge.
And as much as Umile and Co. in Durham
were happy with the way the team was playing early
in the season, it may have been tough wiping the smiles
off their faces after taking down two of their biggest
rivals in BU and Maine last weekend, turning what
was a two-game spurt into a sudden steamroll.
“Our rivalry with BU is a great
one,” Umile said. “It has been going on
for years. UNH and BU have a great tradition. It’s
not the rivalry that BU and BC is, but in terms of
our team and our alumni, it’s always a big one.
We played well, and it was a good hockey game so it
was exciting.
“The Maine rivalry for us is our
border rivalry. It’s not as long as BC and BU,
but the intensity and support it gets from the fans
on both sides is second to none.”
Friday night marked the first time UNH
has met up with Boston University since wiping the
floor with the Terriers in a 5-2 beat down at the
FleetCenter last year in the Hockey East semifinals.
Though this game was tighter, UNH still hopped on
I-93 North from Boston as 3-2 victors.
On Saturday, New Hampshire staged an
encore for its fans at the Lake by scoring the last
three goals of the game to send the hated Black Bears
back to Orono licking their wounds.
“This past weekend was a huge
challenge for us, but having gone down to Boston and
beating BU, and the annual whiteout here [against
Maine] was just some fabulous hockey,” Umile
said. “We kept our pace and probably took it
an extra step. We played as well as we have played
in a long time.”
Heading into the new season, everyone
around Wildcat hockey knew they would get their offensive
spark from one of the most offensively talented lines
in the country with Brett Hemingway, Daniel Winnik
and Jacob Micflikier. That group added a notch to
their game by combining for seven goals and 15 assists
for 22 points during the four-game victory march,
a solid improvement after collecting nine lamplighters
and nine helpers for 18 points during the six games
beforehand.
“I’m not going to say it’s
the best [line] in the nation, but you would be hard-pressed
to find three players who can play the way that they
play together,” Umile boasted. “They are
very unselfish. They like playing with each other,
but I’ll say that they can match up with any
other line.”
But the other three lines have done
their job by complementing the top group by adding
six goals and nine helpers over the two-weekend run.
It will be the other nine forwards in the lineup who
Umile feels will determine how much success the relatively
young club can achieve come springtime.
“We started winning with the other
lines,” Umile said. “We’ve got great
balance and chemistry in our other lines. We don’t
even think we have a fourth line. We have four groups
that go out there as forwards, and that is the reason
for our success.”
It also helps that the two-headed goalie
monster of senior Jeff Pietrasiak and sophomore Kevin
Regan have elevated their games over the quartet of
wins, teaming up to save 129 of the 137 shots they
have faced during the streak. They have lifted the
UNH defense toward the upper-echelon of the league
with only 12 goals allowed in six HEA games.
“You need to play good defense
if you are going to win in this league, and our guys
are committed to playing good defense,” Umile
said. “Both of our goaltenders are playing well
right now and playing with a lot of confidence, and
that has helped us out.”
SEEN
AND HEARD IN HOCKEY EAST
Honest Jack – You’ll
have to forgive Jack Parker for not exactly basking
in the glory of his 300th Hockey East win, a milestone
he accomplished after a 4-2 victory during his first
ever conference slugfest with Vermont on Nov. 4.
Other than that night and a 2-1 road
win over Maine the same weekend, Parker has been pretty
irritated with his team. After dropping two in a row
against Rensselaer and Lowell back in October, Parker
said his Terriers were “trying to win on talent
and talent alone.”
Well, after coming up on the short end
of the stick twice this weekend, first to UNH and
then to UMass, Parker bared it all in the Mullins
Center press room on Saturday night.
“It was a real good performance
by John Curry, but the rest of the players who were
out there on my club gave us absolutely nothing. Maybe
a couple guys played pretty hard, but in general,
as a team, there was no sense of urgency. There was
no effort. We absolutely stunk the house up, and we
especially stunk the house up with our defensive zone
coverage. We never controlled anybody. We gave up
over 40 shots, and that is absolutely bizarre. The
most disheartening part about that game is how pathetic
we are playing people in our own end, and we did the
same thing [in the 3-2 loss against UNH on Friday
night].”
Great Weekend Getaway
Northeastern
at Boston College (Fri.) First-round Beanpot action in
November? Not exactly, but instead of waiting
for the Feb. 6 matinee at the TD BankNorth Garden,
or whatever it will be named in two months,
head to Conte Forum to watch the Eagles take
on Northeastern.
While You’re There:
Take a good look at Conte Forum’s trophy
case, where you will find the ball Doug Flutie
allegedly threw to Gerard Phelan on Nov. 23,
1984, to knock off top-ranked Miami 45-41 at
the Orange Bowl. Look a little closer. Is that
a Wilson NFL ball you see? Hmmmm…
Stick
Salute
UMass
freshman goalie Jon Quick stepped up big for
the Minutemen over the weekend, starting in
net on back-to-back nights for the first time
in his young career, but it was the second leg
of his double-dip that provided a cause for
celebration. His 39-save showcase ended the
team’s six-game losing streak, as he held
off the Jack Parker Terriers by a 4-2 billing
at the Mullins Center.
Bench
Minor
Losing
isn’t something that teams tend to do
well, but after the River Hawks allowed Maine
to have its way with them in a 9-2 embarrassment
on Friday night, Lowell has now lost its six
games by a combined score of 29-8.
Moving on…
“They hoped that UMass would lay
down and die. They hoped that UMass was as bad as
their record was. They hoped that they wouldn’t
have to work, and that is how they played.”
And there was more…
“I think this team is easily satisfied.
That’s for sure. There is no question in my
mind that the major problem here is most of my guys
want it to be easy, that we have arrived and we’re
OK now. But it isn’t easy in this league for
anybody at anytime.”
From the sounds of it, practice probably
wasn’t very easy this week either.
FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG
• Providence freshman Cody Wild
tends to score goals that make the crowd go –
well – you get the picture. He scored the game-winner
in overtime on Tuesday night to give the Friars a
3-2 victory over Northeastern. His previous goal came
with 83 seconds left in regulation to lift PC to a
3-2 win over UMass on Nov. 5. And he even scored the
overtime clincher in the Friars’ 2-1 exhibition
triumph over St. Thomas on Oct. 8.
• During UMass’ 36
power play opportunities in its six league games so
far, the Minutemen have scored just two times, but
their opponents have scorched UMass for three short-handed
tallies.
• BU netminder John Curry may
need some new pads soon. In his last three games,
he has made 108 saves after only needing to stop 68
shots in his first four appearances.
• Of course, Maine’s nine-goal
night against Lowell helped, but the Black Bears had
14 different players score a point last weekend. Just
don’t say anything to the Northeastern Huskies,
who have only had 14 players score a point all season.
• New Huskies coach Greg Cronin
made no secret of the fact that he would take his
players down the street to a gym to work on their
boxing skills before the season started. That may
have something to do with the 28.4 penalty minutes
the Huskies have averaged through nine games to this
point, a mark that leads Hockey East.
A
variety of sources were utilized in the compilation
of this report.
