Still on the ledge, but no longer preparing to jump

So after a couple days to recharge my batteries, I’m not quite as doom and gloom today as far as the rest of the season goes.  However, it’s going to be a roller coaster ride.  But rather than looking too far into the future, we are going to take this day by day.

Huge game Friday at Merrimack.  The Warriors are so tough at Lawler Arena (more on that in the preview story tomorrow night), so winning here will be tough.  But a big road win is just what this team needs right now, so it’s a big opportunity to stop the slide.

I will be in attendance (me and a probably 60 other people), so hopefully I give them more luck than I did at Northeastern Saturday (not good times).

But the good news, for now, is that even though I’m still standing on the cliff, I’m now just milling around, rather than looking for a landing spot.

And, as always….Tim Benedetto blows.

-Josh

Pack up the tents

I’m paraphrasing here, so don’t kill me.  “People keep waiting for us to collapse in the second half.  It’s not going to happen this year.”-Paul Dainton, after the Merrimack win.

The thing about that is…it is happening this year.  Again.

The pasts two nights were basically must win games.  Especially after losing in Amherst 2-0, tonight became the biggest game of the year.  James Marcou said as much after the Friday night loss.  If that’s the kind of effort you get from a team knowing it’s a huge game, then you aren’t a team that deserves to go to the NCAA tourney.  And sadly, this team isn’t going.  And it doesn’t deserve to.

Northeastern is not a good offensive hockey team.  Solid defensively and between the pipes.  But putting the puck in the net is not their strong suit.  They screwed up multiple odd man rushes today, but it didn’t matter, because UMass played a very special brand of swish cheese defense, allowing some very easy goals.  I felt terrible for Paul Dainton, who had almost no shots on most of the goals.  Huskies just sitting on the doorstep, tapping pucks in, cleaning up easy rebounds.  It was really atrocious to watch.

Offensively they weren’t much better, getting a couple of garbage time goals.  They piled up some shots, but they never really put a lot of pressure on Rawlings.  Will Ortiz and Brett Watson played hard, and Michael LeComte looked very solid returning from injury, and even showed some emotion (by punching Alex Tuckerman and getting throw out.  But I didn’t mind it.  It was a blowout, and I was just glad to confirm there was a Minuteman who actually had a pulse).  I saw no production really from Marcou and Wellman, but I can’t hang this loss on the offense.

Getting no points this weekend is an absolute disaster.  I know they are still tied for fourth in Hockey East with BU (who has the tie-breaker, and a game in hand), but being brutally honest, this team is dead in the water.  Before the Quinnipiac game, this team was 9-2, and in the top ten in the country.  They beat a top five team in Yale, and crushed nationally ranked Vermont in the Gut before Thanksgiving.  They were piling up offensive numbers and looked like a team to be reckoned with.  And I’ll admit, they sucked me in.  I thought they were the real deal. 

Since that game, they are 7-11, and have given up more six or more goals 4 times.  They haven’t played any quality teams, and they’ve lost every important game they have played.  At this rate, the would be lucky to finish in the top six in Hockey East and even win one playoff game. 

The fact is, these were really important games, and they got thorough dominated by a bottom of the league team.  It’s unacceptable, and I think it’s time for a coaching change.  That’s not easy for me to say, because I’ve been an ardent supporter of Toot.  But the fact is this team is soft.  They don’t get up for big games.  They aren’t mentally tough.  They fold when there is adversity.  The offense was great early in the year, before teams had hit their stride defensively.  Now they are shutting down Marcou and Wellman, and UMass has shown no ability to adjust and get ugly goals.  They are getting completely outcoached and have been unwilling or unable to make adjustments.

Now I don’t know if the players are just soft, or if they have tuned out to Cahoon, or if Toot just isn’t doing a good enough job getting through to these guys.  But either way it falls on the coach, because if they players are soft, well, Toot picked them.  And if they aren’t getting coached well….obviously Toot’s fault also.  But this is a trend with this team (starting hot, fading when it matters), and it’s extremely frustrating.  This is a talented team that perhaps raised our expectations to an unreasonable level, but even still, they are playing so far below their talent level it’s sickening.  Am I angry?  Upset?  Emotional?  You’re god damn right I am.  I’m sure you didn’t pick up on that from the beginning of this post, so I figured I’d spell it out :). 

This one is going to sting for awhile, and to be honest, it should.  They basically have to win out to make the tourney, but I don’t even have faith in them to take two points from Merrimack next weekend.  How many times have I said that in my life?  Once.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch Pulp Fiction and drink gasoline.

-Josh

Northeastern Preview: Put up or shut up

The Mass Attack takes on the Northeastern Huskies (13-12-1) this weekend in a home-and-home series that is absolutely critical for the Minutemen.  UMass has been on a bit of a slide, and with only seven games left, the time to right the ship is now.  4 points up for grab, and no less than 3 is acceptable.

The Huskies have been playing much better hockey of late, including a pretty good showing in the Beanpot (getting nipped by BU and dominating Harvard).  Chris Rawlings (who the Minutemen did not face in their last meeting) has been playing very solid hockey between the pipes, and the team is solid defensively, giving up 2.77 goals per game.  Offensively, however, this team is just god awful.  They have only three players with more than 20 points (Wade Macleod, Tyler McNeely, Kyle Kraemer), with Macleod leading the way with 22 points.  In contrast, UMass has 4 twenty point scorers (and Matt Irwin has 19), but their scorers are much more productive (James Marcou with 41 points is one point short of the Huskies top two point scorers combined).  Casey Wellman has 35 points, which also is much more productive than anything Northeastern has to offer.  Bottom line, the Huskies can’t score, and their offense is just what the doctor ordered for a struggling Minuteman defense.

The biggest key to me will be getting out to a fast start, not something that has been a huge strong suit for UMass.  Northeastern is undefeated this season when leading after the first period, so the fast start will be critical.  This is an average team, coming off the biggest game of their season, entering an absolutely brutal stretch of games.  They are primed to drop a pair, but they won’t go quietly if you let them hang around.  Jump on them early, and they could potentially put it on auto-pilot.  This is not a team built to play from behind, but they do play well with a lead.  I can’t beat the quick start horse dead enough.

For UMass, it really boils down to this.  Northeastern is an 8th place team who I personally don’t think will even make the Hockey East tournament.  If UMass is going to win a home ice spot in the Hockey East tourney, or make a bid at the NCAA’s, they need to take care of business against the lesser teams left on the schedule.  This is a huge four games stretch for them (two with the Huskies, two with Merrimack), and they need to make hay before they clash with BC and Maine.  Not that two wins over the Huskies would be anything to do cartwheels over, but anything less would actually be a big disappointment. 

With that said, I think they get it done.  I think they are getting to the NCAA’s.  This weekend is the first step.

The B.C. debacle is over, now on to important stuff (like how bad Tim Benedetto sucks)

So the B.C. beatdown is behind us now.  Let’s all agree it never happened, and never speak of it again?  Agreed?  Excellent.

Now we move forward, hopefully like the UMass team.  Two very winnable games coming up this week against Northeastern.  The time for splits is over, they really need 3+ points this weekend.  But we’ll get to the preview on Thursday.

Couple things on my mind at the moment.  Number one, UMass being tied for 9th in the pairwise rankings.  To be honest, that suprised me a bit.  I really felt they were going to take a bigger dip, but much to my eternal joy, they are still in a good shot to make the NCAA tourney.  They are going to have to play a lot better down the stretch (I’m thinking 5-2, and a Hockey East semifinal birth would do it) in order to get it done.

Also, as our good friends at Fear the Triangle reported, it’s possible that super stud Casey Wellman may leave school early.  That’s not confirmed yet, and we don’t know what kind of offers he will get (it’s a deep draft which could decrease his stock, THANK GOD).  Who knows what will happen, but if he left early, it would suck.

Speaking of things that suck…Tim Benedetto!  He’s on my mind for two reasons tonight.  First, he reffed the Beanpot last night, and in typical Benedetto fashion called an awful holding against BU, which he only called because after the BU and BC player fell to the ice, they crashed into Benedetto and he wiped out.  Hence, he called a penalty to save face.  Well done.  Reason number two.  Today somebody googled Tim Benedetto sucks, and found a link to my blog.  I have never been prouder.

-Josh

Well that sucked

So…..there is nothing good to say about what happened last night.  In fact it was a total disaster.  Aside from losing out on second place in hockey east, and dropping all the way to 12th in the pairwise, this loss was flat out embarrassing.  And quite frankly, damaging to the program.  Let me explain.

Last night the Mass Attack had a big stage.  A complete sell out of the Mullins.  Televised on NESN.  And they laid an absolute egg that everyone saw.  Everyone including recruits that Toot has to convince that UMass is an up and coming program competeing with BU, BC, UNH etc.  That’s a tough sell, when you lose 7-3, 7-2, 6-2, 7-1 in your last four games against those clubs.

What also very disappointing is that a team this talented can get pasted, badly, four times in a one month stretch.  I don’t know if it’s coaching, or if the team is already mentally defeated when they play the tougher programs (also an off shoot of coaching), or if some of the players just don’t care.  But we keep hearing how they have a renewed focus after they take one of these beatings, and then they get drubbed again.  I can’t take this team seriously as a national title contender anymore, when they can get completely manhandled the way they have in some of these games.  They seem to always bounce back, and I’m sure they will again, handling Northeastern next weekend, or Merrimack the weekend after that.  But what does it matter if they get bounce back wins over the dregs of the league?  When it seems to matter most against the Hockey East big boys recently, they just don’t get it done.  And they aren’t even close.

I am not on the ledge, because I still feel as though this team can get to the NCAA tourney?  But can they get very far when (if?) they get there?  All signs point to no.  Sadly.

B.C. Preview

“Rise up and take the power back, it’s time that
The fat cats had a heart attack, you know that
Their time is coming to an end
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend”-Muse

Biggest came of the year by far this Friday.  Aside from there being two huge points and sole possesion of second place in Hockey East (not to mention the pairwise fallout), this is a statement game for the Mass Attack.  If they are going to be an elite Hockey East and national power in the coming years, these are the types of games you absolutely have to win, especially at home.  A great effort or a strong showing isn’t good enough.  For a team with big aspirations, a win is necessary.

It won’t be easy.  The Eagles are number one in offense, number two in defense, and number one on the penalty kill.  They are a decent road team (and already have one win at the Mullins Center this year).  There aren’t a lot of chinks in the armor.  Offensively, they are explosive.  Brian Gibbons and Cam Atkinson are fantastic, and Carl Sneep adds lots of offensive punch from the blue-line.  They are very tough to beat when they get out to early leads (9-2-1 while leading after one, 11-1 while leading after two).  A key is going to be keeping this game close, and going into the third tied or with a lead.  Why, you ask?

Aside from the obvious, the Eagles worst period is the third.  It seems when they are behind (or tied), they get very aggressive trying to get the puck in the net, and leave themselves open to odd man rushes, a recipe for success for a team as quick as UMass.  If they are in a tight game in the third, I feel very confident in the Minutemen’s ability to finish it off.

John Muse (or Parker Milner, who started the last Amherst tilt) are solid but unspectacular in net.  They are the beneficiaries of a very solid defense, but if UMass can get some shots on net, I think there are goals to be scored.  And there better be, because even with a very solid defensive effort it will be tough to completely negate the B.C. offense.

But this game is a real opportunity for the Minutemen.  Not only to put them in a great position for the NCAA tourney (and it would), but it would also boost their national perception and help with recruiting.  Am I overselling this?  Maybe.  But I don’t think so.

The pick?  I can’t say, I don’t want to jinx anything.  Aaaaaaaaand I just threw up in my mouth.

Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and f*ck the prom queen.

Big BC preview coming in the next couple days, but a couple musings tonight before I dive into the LOST season premiere.  I think this is a huge, huge, huge, huge huge huge game for the Minutemen.  The Mullins Center is going to be packed with over 8,000 maniacs to watch a game dripping with Hockey East playoff implications.  But more than that, if UMass is going to be a national title contender, they are going to have to start beating some quality teams, especially at home (where they only have three games left).  This win would even the season series with BC (who sucks, figuratively, as we all know) and would do wonders for their pairwise ranking (another win of a team under consideration, and helps their comparison with BC), and would put them in a great spot to get a home ice spot (or even a 2 seed) in the Hockey East tournament.  Bottom line, this is a game where a good effort is a bad consolation prize.  What they need is two points.

Not much going on in the rankings, with UMass checking in at 15 in both the national polls that matter (take that, Inside College Hockey!).  They are tied for 6th in the pairwise, with a chance to improve that in their only game this week.  Hopefully we’ll catch BC looking ahead to the Beanpot final (but in the words of The Who, I won’t get fooled again, as I thought we may catch BU looking ahead to the first Beanpot game.  Didn’t happen).  With this being the only game this week, hopefully Toot has the boys doing a little extra prep for the Eagles.  Time to find out what the Mass Attack is made of.

In the words of Pete Carroll, I’m jacked and pumped to find out.

Providence Recap…*exhale*

Sorry for this being up so late.  I had a pretty good little Sunday planned.  Little Home Depot.  Wanted to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond but I didn’t have time.  But now to the important stuff.

I don’t want to make too much out of a solid win over a last place team, but I will say this.  UMass did what good teams do.  Take care of bad teams, handily, in a game they really needed to win.  The offense looked really sharp, and if weren’t for Alex Beaudry (believe the hype, this kid is great and he doesn’t get much help), this game could have been a stage 5 blowout.  It was also nice to see the offense click without getting a goal out of Casey Wellman, or much of a contribution from James Marcou (one assist).  Big ups to Darren Rowe, who had two ridiculous assists, particularly his second one to set up Eddie Olczyk’s first collegiate goal.  Rowe carried the puck into the offensive zone on the left side, weaved his way to the right boards, circled towards the net and gave Olczyk a tap in goal.  It was fun to watch.

I was not thrilled when I got to Schneider to find out Dan Meyers was going to be in net (because this was a game they absolutely had to have), but he was very solid last night.  He only gave up one goal, and didn’t have a ton of really tough stops to make, but for the most part he made them, particularly in the first period.

This weekend would have been a total train wreck if they lost this game, but they didn’t.  They showed some poise, didn’t panic, and set Mass Attack nation’s mind at ease, at least for now.  They are now tied for 6th in the pairwise rankings with Minnesota-Duluth and Ferris State, which means they basically control their own destiny as far as getting into the NCAA tourney.  They have two games with Northeastern two games with Merrimack left.  If they can win those 4 (not the world’s easiest feat, but doable), split with Maine and BC, that should be more than enough to get them into the tourney (unless they lay a complete egg in the Hockey East tournament).  But this team has had plenty of opportunites to roll over and die in the same way some past Amherst teams have, but they keep bouncing back.  I love that about this team.

Side rant, since it has come up in three of the last five UMass hockey games I’ve gone to.  Once again, James Marcou gets a call for taking a dive, while an opposing player gets sent to the box as well (in this case, for tripping).  IT. CAN’T. BE. BOTH.  If Marcou took a dive, then great!  Send him off to the box.  If he was tripped, then great!  Send the other guy off to the box.  But it’s a total cop out to send two guys off.  Pick a penalty and call it. 

On another side note, that was my first trip to Schneider Arena.  Was a pretty good place to watch a game, but it almost reminded me of a high school rink in some ways (particularly the snack bar).  Not a lot of fan support, but I suppose I can give them a pass since the program is having a rough go of it lately.  The free parking was a nice unexpected bonus, and there was no traffic getting out of the lot, which was awesome.  All in all a good experience.

I’ll check back later this week with a BC preview, and some other assorted business.

BU recap/Providence Preview

Not what we had in mind last night.  For whatever reason, they just struggle at Agganis.  Now the game wasn’t as bad as the 6-2 score makes it sound.  UMass thew over 40 shots on net, and B.U. scored a garbage time goal with 37 seconds left.  Also, they second goal of the game for B.U. never want in, and I absolutely can’t believe they didn’t review it.  It’s not UMass bias talking, they showed it on the video board three times, and the BU fans around me at Agganis when Benedetto dropped the puck without reviewing it, knowing they got away with one.  So they won’t review an obviously shady goal, but they will call James Marcou for embellishment (again) after he gets hacked.  Well done, Benedetto.  I’ve said this time and again….if it’s embellishment, don’t send Popko off for slashing.  If it’s slashing, then don’t call Marcou for embellishment.  It’s not rocket science, but then again, this is Tim Benedetto we are talking about, who probably has trouble when you ask him questions like “What sound does a cow make?”, so maybe I’m asking too much.

 The Terriers are a mystery though, because they certainly didn’t look like a sub .500 team last night.  But like I said, they are hot and cold.  Some nights they look great, others they look like they frankly don’t care.  Bottom line is this though…even though the Mass Attack played pretty well, they lost a game they shouldn’t have lost.

With that said, Tonight they absolutely have to win.  I’m not hitting the panic button yet, only because Umass just never seems to win at Agganis, so I don’t think last night is a reason to raise the alarm bells.  If they don’t beat Providence tonight however (and I don’t care that it’s on the road), they will have some serious issues.  Over the last ten games (last night included), I think 7-3 to 6-4 for UMass gets them into the NCAA tourney.  They had six of their last ten games against sub .500 teams (BU, two with Merrimack, two with Northeastern, one with Providence).  You really should win at least 4 of those games, so if you lose tonight, against a struggling last place team……..well that’s just inexcusable.  The Friars got romped yesterday by BC, so I’m hoping their confidence is pretty low.  Anything short of two points if unacceptable tonight.

Alex Beaudry is the only real weapon the Friars have (the most underrated goalie in the country, and better than both kids from Lowell, which is saying something because both Hutton and Hamilton are fantastic), and he is capable of dominating a game.  but the rest of his team is playing like garbage, and there is only so much he can do (see Eagles putting up 5 goals in the first period).  The key tonight, in my opinion, is scoring first, and letting this team feel bad about themselves.  The Providence offense is as good as Benedetto, and they know they don’t come from behind well.  So get and early lead and this team goes to sleep.

The pick?  UMass 3, Providence 1.

B.U. Preview

Boston University Terriers (8-11-3, 6-9-2 HEA)

v

Massachusetts Minutemen (15-9, 10-7 HEA)

Big weekend for the Minutemen coming up.  First order of business is the rubber match with defending national champion Boston University.  Plenty of motivation for UMass, who last left Agganis Arena with their collective tails between their legs after a 7-3 beatdown at the hands of the Terriers.  Agganis has been a house of horrors for the Minutemen, so they would be pretty happy to take a point here.

But this is a very hot and cold Terrier squad this year.  They have looked, at times, like a defending national champion.  They have also looked like doormats, so it’s hard to know what you are going to get.  Bottom line though, is they are a sub .500 team, who are 8th in offense and 9th in defense in Hockey East.  They have plenty of talented guys to be worried about (namely Nick Bonino, Corey Trivino and Vinny Saponari offensively, and Colby Cohen, Kevin Shattenkirk, Dan Gryba and David Warsofsky on the blue line……wait how is this team bad?  Because they are.), but they are getting awful goaltending (so much for Kieran Milan being the next big thing), and even though they say they aren’t looking past UMass to the Beanpot, I find that very hard to believe.  I think BU is there to be had Friday night, more so than usual.

On the UMass side, this is a game they really need to win.  They have ten games left down the stretch, and to me, the most important thing they have to do is win the season series with most of the Hockey East clubs they have left.  The toughest one will be BC obviously, since they would have to beat them twice.  But one out of two with Merrimack, beating Providence, one out of two with Maine, split with BC, beating BU, splitting with Northeastern gives them six wins and a likely NCAA tourney birth.  I actually think 7-3 is a reasonable expectation in that stretch, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

This weekend though, UMass has to take care of business, and that starts with the Terriers.  I would be very disappointed if the Mass Attack didn’t come out tomorrow with a high energy effort and two points.  The pick?  UMass 4, BU 2.

On a positive note, I will be in attendance tomorrow night, but not in my usual seats.  My uncle is a BU season ticket holder, so the last three BU-UMass tilts I have seen have been from his seats.  The bad news is those three games went tie, huge loss, huge loss.  We are hoping to avoid that by actually paying for my seats this weekend.  Hopefully that will help with the karma gods.