Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

[beanstalk]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

Teams like Northeastern rarely every get true freshmen. In fact those in charge rather not have true freshmen, they like them a bit more seasoned. Teams like BC, bu, Minn, No Dak, get true freshmen.

Its been a nice season so far. Can't knock it. Its just the narrative being written is off. Its been having the best collegiate goalie in the country and an opportunistic offense. Not some massive turnaround and top of the line coaching.

The last paragraph above is the most insightful observation I have read on this thread this season. Throw out the box scores and the statistics. If you have watched a majority of the NU games this season, then you have seen great individual efforts resulting in goals and you have seen Clay Witt outperform the "best" goalies in the nation (including Gillies and Hellebuyck). Yes, there is the occasional game where the Huskies, as a team, outplay a good team, but most of the wins against good teams have resulted from Witt standing on his head. I'm not complaining about having a great goalie - just concerned about the coaches not making personnel and strategy adjustments because a great goalie is masking some deficiencies that need to be addressed for the team to win one or more of the three important titles down the road.

[Huskies of NU]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

Still can't make heads or tails of this team. In any of the last four games if you watched all of the game except for the minute before each goal, you would probably pick the winner wrong every time. For some reason, good puck possession and cycling does not translate into goals for this team. I didn't get listen to the game Saturday where I was, could only watch a muted TV, but on Friday night something the commentators said really stuck out for me. They said the huskies have good team defense, not good defenders. I think that's a good way of putting it. After they said that I paid more attention to what the forwards were doing on defense. The forwards seem to do a lot more work defensively to help make up for the sub-par defense on this team, at least on Friday. Consequently we didn't end up with as many opportunities to establish pressure in the offensive zone and cycle the puck because we were backed up more.

On Saturday they opened up their play a bit, giving the forwards a bit more liberty. I'm pretty sure this had to be by design after how well they shut the Irish down the night before. The result was more offensive zone time, but less sound defensive zone play. Not sure what to make of this, because effective style of play going to vary from opponent to opponent, but if NU plays ND again, I hope they play the defensively-oriented style of Friday night.

All in all it was a pretty good weekend. I thought it was going to be a split all the way. And hey, up a spot to #10 in the rankings while holding onto #7 in the PWR.

[Huskies of NU]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

The stars were 1) Witt; 2) Reid; 3) McMurtry. I've actually been pretty impressed by the graciousness of the ND people. None of the Comm. Ave. attitude.

I went out for the games there 2 seasons ago, and I couldn't agree more. Everyone there, from the ND fans to their security guards, was very nice. One guard even let my friends and me go up to the balcony level to take pictures of the ice/explore a bit since we were at the game pretty early and the arena was brand new.

[Huskies01]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

I just thought it was interesting the game they are winning Madigan spends the whole time screaming. The game they are losing, he does nothing. At least that is how it was shown on tv, though i doubt there was an effort by NBCSports to make a point one way or another. They have no dog in the NU fight, they just want ND to look good.

[SkinsFan09]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

Any news on Cody Ferreiro's injury? Would be great to get him back in time for the stretch run after the Beanpot 1st round.

[retsap71]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

See, again though, do not believe the hype. Youngest roster if you go by the old how many freshmen you have, but look at the AGES of the freshmen. Benning is 19, will be 20 in a few months. ZAR is 19, will be 20 this summer. Stevens is 19, will be 20 in April. Hedges is 19, will be 20 in March. Szmatula is 21 will be 22 in this summer. Those are the guys who play every game. They are not so young. Heck, Pimm is already 24! Its not like these freshmen are straight out of highschool like Adam Reid was, a true 18 year old as a freshmen. If they were not hockey players, they would probably be juniors in college. So the whole, "young team" thing they like to throw around, total BS.

As for SOG, yes, it can be overrated, but it also tells you without knowing the Grade of the shots, who has had possession of the puck. Because you are not getting shots without possession. You do not have possession you cannot score. Yes, last nights game we had pretty good possession, especially compared to Friday's night game. SOG wise, these weekend games were not telling of the story.

I would also love to see the Grade charts for the games this year. I doubt anyone would show them though. While it probably makes Witt's season look even better, the flip side would be making the defense and the scheme they use look even more pathetic.

OK so your agrument would make sense if NU was the only team in the country that had older freshman. Take a look around, it is a rare thing for a kid to jump from HS to college hockey. Every single school outside of Ivy league has older freshman which means there upperclassmen are older. Its not just at NU. Soooo that means that Nu who is playing a ton of freshman and sophomores have a young team.

[northeastern]

I think the NU- Harvard gm will be much like the NU-ND gms. In that sense, last wknd was good preparation. Only question is.. which NU team shows up. I'll say NU by a goal.. no more.

Also, no one bought this up but in the first ND gm.. Witt made a save.. looked like near his shoulder/ collar bone. I wonder if there was an injury.. or it factored in the gm Saturday. He seemed to indicate some discomfort Fri night, but seemed to have shook it off by gm's end.

He could be the difference once again.

[northeastern]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

..also, just checked.. Harvard plays Princeton on Fri. The last time we had extended break, took us a while to get it going.

[Huskies01]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

OK so your agrument would make sense if NU was the only team in the country that had older freshman. Take a look around, it is a rare thing for a kid to jump from HS to college hockey. Every single school outside of Ivy league has older freshman which means there upperclassmen are older. Its not just at NU. Soooo that means that Nu who is playing a ton of freshman and sophomores have a young team.

which is why i do not buy that narrative from any team other then BC.

[SkinsFan09]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

which is why i do not buy that narrative from any team other then BC.

Just because you're a 19 or 20 year old freshman doesn't mean you'll seamlessly translate to NCAA D1 hockey.

Granted, it's certainly easier to be 19 out of the USHL than 18 out of Mass. High School but at this point, everyone plays a year of juniors first.

[northeastern]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

I just hope we seamlessly get ready for the Crimson..
they just lost a close 4-3 gm to Union so I know they can easily upset us if we start off slow.. + is the Beanpot..

[Huskies01]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

Just because you're a 19 or 20 year old freshman doesn't mean you'll seamlessly translate to NCAA D1 hockey.

They typically do at a higher rate then an eighteen year old kid coming from Prep School. Especially when they are 20 year old freshmen.

[Split-N]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

I've been optimistic all year and continue to be so but have some concerns about KRoy and freshman forwards not named Szmatula. Compared to the first half, they appear to have cooled off a bit, especially last weekend at ND. While I generally agree with the proposition that this team goes as far as Clay Witt takes it, there's no way the guy can do it all by himself.

[northeastern]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

well.. we were picked to be dead last.. we are currently in 2nd.. perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between. unless more than 1 or 2 step up.. that is the long & short of it.

[beanstalk]

Re: Northeastern Hockey 2013-14 Season

I just hope we seamlessly get ready for the Crimson..
they just lost a close 4-3 gm to Union so I know they can easily upset us if we start off slow.. + is the Beanpot..

Harvard got off to a slow start because the players involved in the academic cheating scandal couldn't start playing until about the 7th or 8th game. They are still paying for it with a lack of chemistry, but they are very talented and very fast and can beat any team in the country on a given night, as evidenced by their domination of New Hampshire at NH. Should be a very tough game.