SLU 2009-2010 Season

[critsports]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

Ouch! Some games you can be the hammer, others the nail. Refocus for Clarkson.

I was going to make a one word post about tonights game and the word was "ouch". You beat me to it!!!

Like Bruce I was thinking Maine would be a little flat after their big win last night. Bad thinking.

I hope the boys can put this behind them and get ready for Clarkson. It sounds like we will have everyone back in the mix for next weekend.

[amherstblackbear]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

There are heartbreaking postseason losses . . . and then there are nights like tonight. The few dozen SLU fans in attendence seemed to be rolling with it. What else can you do? Maine's been on the wrong end of a few of these the last couple years. Nice to be the hammer, tonight.

[Got 6, Want More]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

Before tonight, I would define ugliness as either Nancy Pelosi or Hilary Clinton. After tonight, I would define ugliness as that game.

First shift of the game, Bollig puts a run of the mill breakout pass towards Vermuelen, Vermuelen misses it and it ends up on a Maine stick streaking into the slot. I used to think there weren't too many power play goals scored with back door passes, all night on the power play Maine would send guys straight down the crease through the circles and perfect feed after perfect feed from behind the net turned into goal after goal. The officiating was so one sided it was laughable. 5 penalties to one in the first and our one was a matching minor. There is homer officiating and there there is screwjob officiating....that was perilously close to the latter but not like it would have mattered, we didn't have our legs, half the passes were 10 feet in front of our guys, the other half 10 feet behind our guys. I thought two guys played pretty well - Carden and Drewiske. Drewiske sure can skate! There were too many goals to remember, but I don't think the guys had much of a chance on any of them. The only game in 25 years that comes close to that memory was about 5-6 years ago at Brown when they beat us about 8-1 with only 18 shots on net. Yann Danis was a senior! The other positive is we won a lot of faceoffs. Other than those few things that was UGLY!! Only 3 for 8 on the PK. Oy! I mean, Maine's PP was looking good but we were making it look good too. I guess one other thing is that in the third when we stopped even bothering trying to score, we threw some nice hits. There were three of four just "thud' hits! We were also essentially 1 for 1 on the PP. Our second PP was with 18 seconds left in the game. All I can say about those refs is they must like a parade as that is what it was for us to the box.

Sure that game doesn't mean anything, but actually when you lose like that it better mean something because that was a ***** slapping! You either come back from that with a vengeance or you let a loss like that unravel you for a while. Sure hope it is the former.

Just so you guys know...that was the first word I said to Hurley after the game...."Ouch"!

As for the Larries versus the Saints...I understand Bruce's perspective and agree with it. I think it is partly generational. Only the people that watched the Saints in the 60-70's call them the Larries so it is a bit like someone one calling you the wrong name! How many guys under the age of 50 with the first name Richard go by the name Dick?? That is kind of how I feel about Larry. Perfectly acceptable name from a bygone era! I agree though with Bruce about the Saints as well. Okay, about enough energy wasted on that debate! After tonight we could be the "road kill" as that might be more appropriate!

That is about as bad as it gets....again, until tonight I though only Brown can make us play that bad.

[Got 6, Want More]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

Oh, just to weigh in on the goalie surprise / debate...I think some could say that Tisi won the RPI game so it might have been an equal surprise for Joe to come back with Petizian. Still, when Petizian has one of his best nights ever at Harvard, I was just really surprised not to see him back in net on Saturday. Tisi did have the best numbers of the three though coming in.

Tonight, Petizian's numbers took a tumble with 5 goals on 11 shots!! I actually though Moss played pretty well in the third. No goalie in the world would stop the 10th goal which was a deflection off a slapshot. Moss covers a lot of net and looked decent. BUT, to be clear, it would be completely unfair to even talk about goaltending for SLU tonight. That was an offensive feast by Maine and most of the goals weren't going to be stopped. Just one of those nights where you got the clunker but no cash for it.

[bcarlisle]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

I'm just glad I went down to Palo Alto for the Stanford-Notre Dame game (which was exciting and close) instead of listening in to the LarrySaints game. FWIW, "ouch" was my first and will remain my only word.

[Muskieman]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

Something tells me that last night's game, as embarassing as it was, will help us in the long run. I'm sure the bus ride home was a long one and the team will have some very spirited practices this week.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes you get smoked. A good 'ole fashioned smoking it was and sometimes a really bad outing can be a good thing (see Syracuse b'ball losing an exh. game several weeks ago to LeMoyne).

BTW, I still can't believe that we lost TEN TO ONE..... Next!

[apple2k]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

Was there a game yesterday? I missed it.
Aaand, on another note, here's a little-known fact: after his game-winning goal last night, Rich Peverley leads the NHL with 5 game-winning goals. Check last night's highlights on NHL.com--the goal was a thing of beauty.

[Spaceman]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

Ouch!

[gscott13]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

The officiating was so one sided it was laughable. 5 penalties to one in the first and our one was a matching minor. There is homer officiating and there there is screwjob officiating....that was perilously close to the latter but not like it would have mattered, we didn't have our legs, were missing passes...

penalties were lopsided, but not unreasonable... maine possessed the puck the majority of the game and slu was chasing... slu didn't have enough possession to draw any real penalties... of the nine called on slu, i'd say two were "soft" one was the slash in the third on bollig (was it a slash, yes, but you swallow your whistle a little bit when it's 8-1), and the other was the trip on vermuelen to give maine a 5 on 3 in the second... probably could have let that one go given that it was a. soft, and b. 6-0 at the time...

that being said, mobley's boarding was blatant, as was raley's interference call, and mackenzie's elbowing call... those three had to be called as they were way too obvious to let go... bogosian's was the matching penalty, which gets us down to three others, mobley for high sticking and armstrong's roughing and interference calls... i'd almost put armstrong's interference call in the have to call category... he stopped moving his feet, the maine player skated past him down the slot and he hauled him down... the other two i can't really recall the circumstances of, so i cannot comment...

at the end of the day though, the saints just didn't have their legs and were not moving their feet... that's a recipe for taking penalties in any league and at any level of play... add that to getting blown out and guys getting frustrated...

i'm not saying the refs were not one sided, but i don't think they were bordering on screwjob either... the saints didn't work hard enough to draw any going the other way... they left their legs on the bus and got run out of the joint...

[gscott13]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

I thought two guys played pretty well - Carden and Drewiske. Drewiske sure can skate!

i was impressed with drewiske and carden as well. i assume drewiske is the younger brother of the guy that played at wisconsin when they won their last national title? in any event, i was impressed by them, but conversely, i thought vermuelan played a horrible game... maybe it was b/c they were down so quickly, but the guy needs to get the puck off of his stick... i can't tell you how many times he tried to skate himself from his own blue-line through all five maine players... pass the puck and then move off of it, let the puck do the work for you...

[critsports]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

at the end of the day though, the saints just didn't have their legs and were not moving their feet... that's a recipe for taking penalties in any league and at any level of play... add that to getting blown out and guys getting frustrated...

i'm not saying the refs were not one sided, but i don't think they were bordering on screwjob either... the saints didn't work hard enough to draw any going the other way... they left their legs on the bus and got run out of the joint...

For the life of me I have been following hockey for a long time......college hoceky not quite as long. Still bus ride, smush ride......I will never understand how a team playing ONE game on a weekend can come out and not have their legs. It's not like they had to walk behind the bus to get there, I assume they were on it!!!!!!
Tell me the flu bug was going around the team....I understand, but this team has to know that the one thing they can't let happen is to get outworked or outskated. Lack of skating or effort is going to almost always mean automatic loss for this team unless a goalie stands on his head.

[gscott13]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

For the life of me I have been following hockey for a long time......college hoceky not quite as long. Still bus ride, smush ride......I will never understand how a team playing ONE game on a weekend can come out and not have their legs. It's not like they had to walk behind the bus to get there, I assume they were on it!!!!!!
Tell me the flu bug was going around the team....I understand, but this team has to know that the one thing they can't let happen is to get outworked or outskated. Lack of skating or effort is going to almost always mean automatic loss for this team unless a goalie stands on his head.

not sure myself... it would stand to reason that they made at least part of the trip on friday and didn't make the 8 hour+ drive on saturday, but who knows... saints just came out flat, gave up the quickie and never recovered... i think the first goal played a bigger part in their demise then we believe... from that they got called for roughing and then boarding, maine popped in another and the rout was on... they were out on their feet after the first punch...

[Muskieman]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

not sure myself... it would stand to reason that they made at least part of the trip on friday and didn't make the 8 hour+ drive on saturday, but who knows... saints just came out flat, gave up the quickie and never recovered... i think the first goal played a bigger part in their demise then we believe... from that they got called for roughing and then boarding, maine popped in another and the rout was on... they were out on their feet after the first punch...

Yes, the first goal played a big part in our demise, but so did the 2nd, 3rd,..........,and the 10th goals. There's a great consolation here in that it was only one game. For me, it recapped a bad week for my teams, with the Giants getting destroyed by the Broncos, the Rangers getting trounced by the Lightning (albeit "only" by 5-1), Syracuse football losing at UCONN, and SLU capping it off. It was the Thanksgiving week/weekend massacre for those teams. My last hope is the Bills with the game just starting.

[Muskieman]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

Was there a game yesterday? I missed it.
Aaand, on another note, here's a little-known fact: after his game-winning goal last night, Rich Peverley leads the NHL with 5 game-winning goals. Check last night's highlights on NHL.com--the goal was a thing of beauty.

I saw the replay on the NHL Network and it was a beauty. Here's another little-known fact: in Rich's first season at SLU (2000-2001), he played in 29 games and had 2 goals and 4 assists (per info. from the Thrashers website). Look where he is now, an amazing feat.

[Got 6, Want More]

Re: SLU 2009-2010 Season

penalties were lopsided, but not unreasonable... maine possessed the puck the majority of the game and slu was chasing... slu didn't have enough possession to draw any real penalties... of the nine called on slu, i'd say two were "soft" one was the slash in the third on bollig (was it a slash, yes, but you swallow your whistle a little bit when it's 8-1), and the other was the trip on vermuelen to give maine a 5 on 3 in the second... probably could have let that one go given that it was a. soft, and b. 6-0 at the time...

that being said, mobley's boarding was blatant, as was raley's interference call, and mackenzie's elbowing call... those three had to be called as they were way too obvious to let go... bogosian's was the matching penalty, which gets us down to three others, mobley for high sticking and armstrong's roughing and interference calls... i'd almost put armstrong's interference call in the have to call category... he stopped moving his feet, the maine player skated past him down the slot and he hauled him down... the other two i can't really recall the circumstances of, so i cannot comment...

at the end of the day though, the saints just didn't have their legs and were not moving their feet... that's a recipe for taking penalties in any league and at any level of play... add that to getting blown out and guys getting frustrated...

i'm not saying the refs were not one sided, but i don't think they were bordering on screwjob either... the saints didn't work hard enough to draw any going the other way... they left their legs on the bus and got run out of the joint...

That is your perspective, but not mine. Possession is bound to be lopsided when in one period alone penalties were 5-1 and the one was a matching call that wasn't correct. Bogosian got cross checked by the goalie in addition to the roughing and it was the cross check that initiated the roughing. Five on five, possession was even late in the first, in the second and for most of the third before the Saints threw in the table. The interference on Mobley could have easily gone the other way. There were several stick holds by Maine, picks, interferences, late in the third Jared Keller got smoked at the red line and didn't even have the puck...that was both interference and elbowing to the head. As I said, it didn't have a huge impact on the outcome of the game because SLU couldn't make one pass in a row all night let alone 2 or 3. Sorry to say there were a lot more than two (non-matching) penalties on Maine last night. Maine had six PP's before SLU had one...when you call one team tight and include some "soft" calls in there, and you don't call the other team tight....that is a screwjob. And Whitehead was still yelling at the refs when the calls were 8-1 wanting more...whatever!!!

Well, you take your worst beating in 12 years (since 12-3 against CC), that says something about how ugly it was. The only game that I remember in the last 25 years that was that ugly was when we lost 10-1 before Christmas to Clarkson in 1985 when McColgan, McGeough, Lammens and someone else were out on defense. The game actually had more the feel of Brown when we lost 8-1. 8 goals on 18 shots. Maine had at least 7 goals before the shot clock rolled over 20.

It wasn't really so much a lack of legs. Most guys were skating alright. It was more that we couldn't pass the puck to save our lives, and we were behind so quick 3-0 by 9 minutes in that there was a quitting element to our play. The second period was our best period, but any shots we took were stopped and the Maine shots still found the back of the net. After we fell behind, there appeared some uncharacteristic quitting or at least a feeling of futility. Now we know what the result will be when 90% of the roster has an off night.

I was at the game with a neutral (former) front office guy from the Manchester Monarchs.....he couldn't believe the officiating either. But, as I said, the game was actually over before the Little Richard / Mystery, Alaska rendition of the Star Spangled Banner was done!