2019-20 Season

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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by 78 » Sat Nov 16, 2019 7:48 pm

We’ve played 9 games. We have 25 left. Way, way, way too early. We’ve also played one home conference game and 4 on the road. We are so young on defense. We'll get better.
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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by jjmc85 » Sat Nov 16, 2019 10:45 pm

My gut disagrees tbh. It’s roughly a quarter of the regular season. Not exactly insignificant.

I think the arguments you make contradict more the “must win” for hockey East positioning tbh.

Regardless I’m very happy they won tonight. On to Merrimack. Bring a tape measure this time. :lol:
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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by 78 » Sun Nov 17, 2019 12:57 am

They moved up 12 spots in Pairwise with 1 win over BU. It was as much of a must win as you can have early in the season, due to the fact that they had lost 2 HEA games in a row. It was a nice bounce back victory tonight and I walked away from the 2 games shocked at the talent disparity between UMass and BU. We are the far better team. UMass out shot them 92-39 in the two games, controlled both contests, and should have had a sweep. I'm encouraged.
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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by mdogt12 » Sun Nov 17, 2019 1:27 pm

^Carvel also said it was pretty much a must win in the postgame

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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by Bubba » Mon Nov 18, 2019 7:53 am

In the recent past, people wouldn't even publish the pairwise this early. Hockey has a decent amount of parity, a small amount of teams. One weird result can affect the pairwise throughout the entire rank. It need more data to start making sense of anything. This is why you see 12 point swings from a single game. The best teams in Hockey East will drop games to the lower teams in Hockey East, particularly when they are on the road. BU, UNH and particulaly NU are not bad teams. UNH, IMHO will have a decent year, that loss is not insignificant, but it's what happens. The team is playing with one of its best injured and doing a decent job. They need to get their PP back up to snuff, stop taking dumb penalties, and clean up some of the sloppiness and we will have a decent team. This is a good team that could go places if they get some bounces in their direction and play clean hockey. They are a much better team with a healthy MDG, MGD healthy and some bounces and we could see some post season success. The sky isn't falling. This is hockey folks, losses happen, even to lower ranked teams, particularly in HEA. Goalies can steal a game (see the 2007 season when Quick stole enough for us to make the NCAA).

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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by 69MG » Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:17 am

^ Good points regarding MDG. Our depth isn't great on D and we are replacing our #1 D man with our #7 D man. That's a big drop in talent, no offense to anyone it's just a fact.

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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by 78 » Mon Nov 18, 2019 2:21 pm

Dropped to #7 in Coaches’ Poll. I actually thought we might fall to 10. Let’s get a sweep this weekend versus Merrimack. https://www.uscho.com/rankings/d-i-mens-poll/
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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by 78 » Fri Nov 22, 2019 9:43 pm

Houston, we may have a problem. Completely out played at home by a bad Merrimack team. Lucky to come out with a tie thanks to Lindberg. Can’t afford to squander points like this, especially in a Hockey East where parity rules. First time I’ve been this concerned about the team this year.
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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by jjmc85 » Sat Nov 23, 2019 12:35 am

PSA: if you’re going to games watch the puck. A person in my section wasn’t paying attention and got hit with one tonight in the head. No one who posts here. They’re fine, but it’s a good reminder.

I thought Merrimack played very well tonight after the first period. Blocked tons of shots, generated a lot of offensive chances, including odd man rushes, beat the UMass penalty kill unit with the game on the line. I know it was a tie but it felt like a UMass loss tonight.

Beating Northeastern 2 out of 3 made me get my hopes up that perhaps the team wouldn’t take as big of a step back as I anticipated this year. But since then the team has been mediocre at best to be honest. I didn’t watch the BU games and hear UMass dominated, but so far the Terriers look pretty pedestrian as does UNH. With the exception of tonight, Merrimack seems bad. UMass is 1-2-1 against those three in the last four games. That’s cause for alarm.

If I had a vote in the polls, I wouldn’t give one to UMass right now. Also I like tracking the pairwise. I’ll save everyone the post and say I acknowledge your opinion is it’s too early to care, but this drops UMass to 25.
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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by 78 » Sat Nov 23, 2019 8:16 am

^^
I’m not worried about Pairwise now...I’m actually starting to worry about the makeup of this team. 11 games in and we are seeing the same problems - undisciplined play and dumb penalties, a bad power play, inconsistent effort, including at times little or no effort. We knew there would be challenges this year given who the team lost combined with the injury to MDG, but the team took a big step back last night, something that shouldn’t happen. They should be getting better and should be beating up on weak teams like Merrimack. Based on results so far this season, HEA looks to be extremely weak. I’d rank the team somewhere between 15-20 in the national rankings. Carvel has a lot of work to do...
Last edited by 78 on Sat Nov 23, 2019 9:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by 69MG » Sat Nov 23, 2019 9:36 am

^
11 games in and we are seeing the same problems - undisciplined play and dumb penalties, a bad power play, inconsistent effort, including at times little or no effort.
This exactly. The current team just doesn't have the killer instinct that last year's team had. Can't blame it all on the loss of Cale and Mario, but they were both really smart and seldom made critical mistakes. We are playing a lot of youngsters but the upperclassmen aren't leading the way I was hoping (with a couple of exceptions).

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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by jjmc85 » Sat Nov 23, 2019 3:23 pm

Carvel said that centers haven’t scored a goal this season. Team misses Pritchard and Boeing too
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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by 69MG » Sat Nov 23, 2019 9:43 pm

A HUGE sigh of relief. 2 goals in the last 4 1/2 minutes for a 3-2 win at Merrimack.

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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by 78 » Sat Nov 23, 2019 10:51 pm

They played about 15 minutes of good hockey this weekend and really deserved to lose both games. Two more 5-minute majors and DQ’s tonight, including one on Felix at the 20 minute mark of the third period. My guess is he might get a one-game suspension. Kessel’s 5 and DQ was for elbowing and did not seem to merit a suspension. I can’t remember the last time a UMass team was so undisciplined. Also, this team has developed a reputation as headhunters. I believe they have had 6 DQ’s this season, mostly for hits to the head or hits from behind. Next Friday night could be interesting depending on MDG’s health and how HEA rules on possible suspensions. Vegara might see his first ice time of the season.
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Re: 2019-20 Season

Post by Cahoonaville » Sat Nov 30, 2019 12:01 pm

Shut out Quinnipiac 3-0 last night. Back at it tonight at Mullins.
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