I went to North Carolina last weekend with my fiaance to visit with our niece on her 1st birthday. To be honest, I assumed that when I got back, I’d be writing a season post-mortem. The team was cooked, and had played one good game in basically a month. There was no reason to think this team had any magic left in the tank.
Well here we are today, and UMass has an outside shot at an at-large bid! It’s not a great shot, but the fact they are even in the discussion is enough to make me do backflips.
So now they have a bit of business ahead of themselves with the looming Hockey East quarterfinal matchup with B.C. on the horizon this weekend. Can they win? Hard to say. They played the Eagles very tough in two of the three games this season (minus the drubbing in Amherst), but the bottom line is…they lost all three. But they can hang with this team, and if you need evidence, look no further than two weeks ago when they took the Eagles to the limit in overtime.
I don’t know if they have enough offense clicking to get it done. Yes they scored 8 goals this weekend against Maine, but Maine was without Scott Darling, and their defense was shaky anyway. At the very least, maybe it built up some offensive momentum heading into the Heights.
I am excited about the defense. They only gave up five goals this weekend, and three of those came with the Black Bears on the man advantage (and they have the best PP in the country). Doug Kublin is back, and all of the sudden this team is, for the most part, keeping the puck out of the net.
Is it a lot to ask to assume this team can make a legit run now in the tournament, and perhaps into the NCAA’s? Yes, probably. But there was a time this year when they played like a world class hockey team. And for the last three games, they have looked more like the team that went 9-2, instead of the team that crumbled down the stretch. So who knows. At the very least, we have one more weekend of hockey to look forward to.
