Watching Harvard - QU with my better half. 3rd period. They have some bad habits, including taking rather pointless penalties late in a one-goal game. We've seen that so often over the years. Frustrating! I agree with other posters calling for them to improve their teamwork. There also seems to be a lack of intensity that I find disappointing.
Let's start with the positives:
- Unlike last year, Harvard is clearly a more talented team than Quinny. Harvard dominated 5v5 play for most of the game
- Harvard played very solid hockey overall, and consistently pinned Quinny in its own end for shift after shift after shift
- Have not seen SLU yet, but there is not a team that can skate or pass with Harvard this year in the ECAC thus far
- Much better chemistry tonight (unlike vs Princeton last night), though still some tendencies to play too much me, myself, and I hockey
Now for the negatives:
- This game is on Madsen. First two goals were real soft. Unscreened wrist shots and I thought he was on his heels and lacked confidence all night. Harvard needs to get more out of their #1 goaltender in rivalry/big games like this
- Quinny's 3rd goal came on a routine clear out by Dumbrovsky that he was careless and got cute on and 10 seconds later, the puck is in Harvard's net
- Lots of lazy penalties (Horton, Malone, Sherman, etc)
- Harvard PP not gelling. Out of rhythm tonight I thought
All in all, pleased with the team. Tough stretch here with Quinny, then BC, then BU. This was such a winnable game which is what is disappointing. Bring on Hockey Least!
Harvard dominated this game at 5 on 5 time for pretty much all of it. They have a lot of talent. If they reach the NCAA tournament and don't win a game when can we call Ted Donato the Marvin Lewis of NCAA hockey coaches?
QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY BOBCATS
ECAC Regular Season Champions
2013, 2015, 2016, 2019
Let's start with the positives:
-Have not seen SLU yet, but there is not a team that can skate or pass with Harvard this year in the ECAC thus far
Well having watched SLU (my team) on the Internet and a GREAT RPI feed tonight I can offer the following comparison. We are rock solid in goal with Hayton and on more nights than not he saves our bacon routinely. He had a real rough patch early on in the year getting pulled twice in one weekend for the first time in his career. (Against UML and PC.) He bounced back BIG TIME and just broke the school record for shutouts... a record that has stood since the mid 50's and he still has his senior and half his junior year to go. Our "D" is our strength. Seniors, experienced, one new freshman who is small but can move the puck (Finkelstein) and each night we are sitting a decent defenseman or two because we are deep at that position. I doubt you'll match up as well with SLU on the back end.
But...........your front lines will be better. We lack depth. One of our better forwards (Laidley) is out with an ACL injury until mid January and we are skating an extra "D" up front. We have some talent, speed and grit up there......but we lack the talented goal scorer's you have. This is a woulda, coulda, shoulda lament but when we changed coaches (Carvel to UMass and we hired Morris) a lot of what would have been blue chip up front players decommitted. One signed and is playing with Michigan, another signed with BC and a couple of others went back to the USHL for a year. So we are "thin" up front. Another injury or two would cripple us up front.
Union has that unbelievable first line........but you guys have an awful lot of talent up front. My guess is we could skate with you (if we are healthy) but we lack snipers to bury goals. Pritchard is our best up front, Marnell is talented but oft injured, Sullivan is our version of Terry O'Reilly and leads the team in goals with 6. But like last year.......we score by committee and most of our offense is generated from our Defense. Tonight Gavin Bayteuther broke the school record for goals by a defensmen, a record Brian McColgan previously held.
Originally posted by SheLovesCollegeHockeyView Post
Watching Harvard - QU with my better half. 3rd period. They have some bad habits, including taking rather pointless penalties late in a one-goal game. We've seen that so often over the years. Frustrating! I agree with other posters calling for them to improve their teamwork. There also seems to be a lack of intensity that I find disappointing.
I disagree with the intensity part. We outplayed Quinny for most of this game and were it not for the stupid penalties, we would have won the game. The Bobcats are tough to play against yet we held our own. Intensity is not the issue. Discipline and some laziness in the D zone by the third pairing is what is needed along with better goaltending.
Harvard dominated this game at 5 on 5 time for pretty much all of it. They have a lot of talent. If they reach the NCAA tournament and don't win a game when can we call Ted Donato the Marvin Lewis of NCAA hockey coaches?
Sad to say but we haven't won an NCAA tournament game since 1994. Yeah, that long ago.
Let's start with the positives:
- Unlike last year, Harvard is clearly a more talented team than Quinny. Harvard dominated 5v5 play for most of the game
- Harvard played very solid hockey overall, and consistently pinned Quinny in its own end for shift after shift after shift
- Have not seen SLU yet, but there is not a team that can skate or pass with Harvard this year in the ECAC thus far
- Much better chemistry tonight (unlike vs Princeton last night), though still some tendencies to play too much me, myself, and I hockey
Now for the negatives:
- This game is on Madsen. First two goals were real soft. Unscreened wrist shots and I thought he was on his heels and lacked confidence all night. Harvard needs to get more out of their #1 goaltender in rivalry/big games like this
- Quinny's 3rd goal came on a routine clear out by Dumbrovsky that he was careless and got cute on and 10 seconds later, the puck is in Harvard's net
- Lots of lazy penalties (Horton, Malone, Sherman, etc)
- Harvard PP not gelling. Out of rhythm tonight I thought
All in all, pleased with the team. Tough stretch here with Quinny, then BC, then BU. This was such a winnable game which is what is disappointing. Bring on Hockey Least!
Also of note is that Seb Lloyd and Eddie Ellis did not play and were replaced by Gregoire and Floodstrand who looked very much like they belong. Good depth which will make practices that much better.
Well having watched SLU (my team) on the Internet and a GREAT RPI feed tonight I can offer the following comparison. We are rock solid in goal with Hayton and on more nights than not he saves our bacon routinely. He had a real rough patch early on in the year getting pulled twice in one weekend for the first time in his career. (Against UML and PC.) He bounced back BIG TIME and just broke the school record for shutouts... a record that has stood since the mid 50's and he still has his senior and half his junior year to go. Our "D" is our strength. Seniors, experienced, one new freshman who is small but can move the puck (Finkelstein) and each night we are sitting a decent defenseman or two because we are deep at that position. I doubt you'll match up as well with SLU on the back end.
But...........your front lines will be better. We lack depth. One of our better forwards (Laidley) is out with an ACL injury until mid January and we are skating an extra "D" up front. We have some talent, speed and grit up there......but we lack the talented goal scorer's you have. This is a woulda, coulda, shoulda lament but when we changed coaches (Carvel to UMass and we hired Morris) a lot of what would have been blue chip up front players decommitted. One signed and is playing with Michigan, another signed with BC and a couple of others went back to the USHL for a year. So we are "thin" up front. Another injury or two would cripple us up front.
Union has that unbelievable first line........but you guys have an awful lot of talent up front. My guess is we could skate with you (if we are healthy) but we lack snipers to bury goals. Pritchard is our best up front, Marnell is talented but oft injured, Sullivan is our version of Terry O'Reilly and leads the team in goals with 6. But like last year.......we score by committee and most of our offense is generated from our Defense. Tonight Gavin Bayteuther broke the school record for goals by a defensmen, a record Brian McColgan previously held.
Good takes and thank you!
Championships are won from the goal out though and SLU easily has advantages over Harvard in the net and along the blue line (though I think that frosh Adam Fox and John Marino) are going to be the equivalents of your great defensive duo when all is said and done in 4 years.
A back and forth game tonight after a slow start. The first period was a defensive struggle with neither team really mounting a consistent attack. Harvard's passing was off although their D zone coverage was very good. The three penalties didn't help but they did an excellent job of killing off the two man disadvantage near the end of the period. Ryan Donato and Sean Malone had the best chances to score.
You would have thought that after killing off that two man down situation that Harvard would come out firing in the second period but it was just the opposite. BC turned the heat up and scored first with Christopher Brown netting a rebound off his own shot in close. The Crimson struggled to get an attack going until BC was finally whistled for an infraction. As the PP was winding down, Adam Fox took a shot through the screen that Seb Lloyd managed to corral at the side of the BC net and tucked it behind the BC goalie as he was out of position. A few minutes later after another BC flurry (how they missed that wide open net is beyond me - I think Sherman kept it out with his long reach), the second line started to motor and with BC's goalie out of position, Sean Malone got the puck out in front to Tyler Moy who rammed it into an empty net.
The game started to get away from the officials in the third period. On a Harvard power play, Luke Esposito got mauled in front but kept his balance enough to jam the puck home for a 3-1 lead. In the process, he took a vicious cross check in the back and got mauled again as BC lost its cool. Their thuggery cost them dearly as in the next three minutes Harvard scored twice more (a Tyler Moy bomb from the top of the right face off circle and a Sean Malone turnaround from in close) to put the game out of reach. The officials tried to keep BC in it by handing out two more power plays to the Eagles but the Crimson held them off.
A couple of curious personnel decisions by the Harvard coaching staff. After the middle of the second period, Clay Anderson and Victor Dombrovsky were benched (they deserved it. They were brutal). Harvard pretty much went with four D. Teddy also took advantage of TV timeouts and Jerry York's incessant whining to play his top two lines for most of the game. The third and fourth lines did not see much action. We can't do that on a consistent basis but for one night, it worked.
The ice was really soft throughout the game due in large measure to the warm weather and the near sellout crowd. They couldn't pump enough cold air to keep it hard and fast and it affected Harvard's passing to some degree.
Loved the fact that Harvard went to the dirty areas to score tonight. They will need to do more of that against BU on Tuesday.
And would it have killed both schools to send their bands to the game? Cripes, does hockey not matter anymore? This is a rivalry game but it felt like a big social get together of Harvard and BC alumni and students alternately checking their phones for the next text, Snapchat or Facebook post. Sigh. Sure wasn't like that in the eighties. Oh well... on to the Commonwealth puppies.
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