Weekend Sweep Leaves Huskies Reeling
After starting the season 2-0, Northeastern has taken just 1 point from the following 3 weekends. And of that 0-4-1 stretch, this weekend was the most disappointing. Merrimack is a team that the Huskies should be beating. They are a stronger team on paper and they had already beaten them once this year.
But this weekend, Northeastern made just about every mistake in the book and let 4 crucial league points go to a team that they will likely be competing with for one of the final playoff spots in March. Last weekend yielded just 1 point, but there were encouraging signs. This weekend was an out-and-out disaster.
Lets start with the biggest problem: the offense. The lines change every night but the results stay the same. It’s not the combinations that are holding this team back from reaching its potential. It’s that everyone seems to have a pass first mentality, outside of a few guys. Shots come too slow and too late. This team will continue to average 2 goals a game until they start pouring shots on net instead of looking to make the perfect pass. Unless the rules have changed recently, dirty goals count just as much as the pretty ones. The freshman have been a bright spot, but the upperclassmen need to take over.
The defense has been better than expected, but that isn’t saying much considering how little was expected of them. That 6th spot has been troubling. Ben Oskroba and Dan Cornell both have some good qualities, but both have been a bit too mistake-prone to count on this year. Drew Ellement and Josh Manson have both stepped into bigger roles this year and they are the closest thing this team has to shut down defenseman. They aren’t there yet, but they can get there before the year ends. Dustin Darou has really looked good since coming back into the lineup after a minor injury. Once again, he was one of the best players on the ice for NU on Saturday.
Unfortunately just being ok isn’t good enough for this defense because all of a sudden Northeastern has no goalie. Rawlings just hasn’t developed since he got here. There are good moments, but there also soft goals and just simple positional flaws that are unlikely to ever be fixed. Rawlings is a decent goalie. No more, no less. Bryan Mountain is very good positionally, but he lacks size and experience. It’d be a great story if he could emerge as the number #1 guy, but even then how good will he be? Clay Witt was supposed to back after a few weeks, but there hasn’t been much chatter on that front. Derick Roy may get his chance this weekend, unless they plan on redshirting him. Its a mess and it is extremely unlikely this spot becomes the backbone of this team like it was expected to be.
The coaching staff is not without blame, either. If you want to bench Pimm for taking a dumb penalty on Friday, that’s fine. But just put him in the stands next time. Benching him, Ferriero, and Manno for the entire first period was just stupid. It meant another whole new set of lines and it also meant playing with a short bench for a full period. The team could have used the energy as they once again faltered in the late stages of the game. It is extremely concerning that through 7 games, this team has no second period goals and just 3 third period ones (an empty netter, a fluke shot from the neutral zone, and a PP goal to cut the deficit to 2 with 6 minutes left). Is someone forgetting to bring the orange slices in between periods?
This weekend was terrible and it will go down as huge wasted oppurtunity. This season’s script is now going an awful lot like the games have been going: quick start and then it all fails apart. Luckily, the Huskies now get a weekend away from conference actions. They should win both games easily next weekend, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is them working on fixing the issues that plague this program year after year and game and after game. This team is far too talented to miss the playoffs again, but dropping 4 points to teams like Merrimack will pretty much guarantee they do.
I can’t tell what is more discouraging, Gaudreau racking up the points or seeing Jon Gillies looking so solid in net.
Team has no identity – yes, dirty goals – physical play -intensity !!! is still worth something in other leagues like the N H L . This coaching staff seems to think this doesn’t apply in Hockey East in general and NE specifically. Keep moving the puck European style and you get a 3-32 powerplay … a joke. PLANT PLAYERS IN FRONT – CREATE HAVOC FOR GOALIES … for a change, please. But I do understand that you need certain players to take punishment in front – YOU HAVE THEM … use them.
I hate to say it but it appears that the team actually regressed once the coaching staff got involved with implementing their “systems”. You have to ask yourself what has changed between the first two games, where the team played great, and the past five games, where the team appears to be in shambles. Through the first two games, the team relied on captain’s practices to prepare thanks to NCAA rules, now it seems that since the coaches have gotten involved, everything has gone downhill. Don’t get me wrong, coaches are a necessity, I’m just afraid that these are the wrong ones for the job. I hope I’m wrong.
Anthony,
Their system relies greatly on “hope” – hope that things will change if you just leave it alone. Their powerplay is more an excercise in “keep away” than driving to the net, getting shots on net – greating havoc in front. Coach Madigan may say the right things at the post game press conferences but he and his associates are lacking in the area of “asset management”. If your present key (sic) players (hello karlson ! hello Saps !) want to continue playing “perimeter” hockey – then success will not come. NE is an an easy team to beat – teams are not afraid to come into the Matthews – and certainly are not afraid of coming from behind against this team. Opposing coaches know we are a soft team (at least, we play that way for now).
Coaches are key to the implementation of an team identity – to making sure everyone can play to that identity without fear of retribution.
Their “system” is no system for success.
I completely agree with you Slammeister, I am so sick and tired of watching this team conduct a passing clinic for 1:30 on a PP and then inevitably turn it over. Put someone in front of the net and just keep shooting the puck. As much as I hated the Bruce Crowder years, he was right about one thing, “Put pucks on the net and good things will happen”.
For a guy whose nickname is supposedly the Mad Dog, Madigan has been surprisingly conservative. Sure, he screams at refs until he is blue in the face, but his teams have not looked anything like the brutal, physical teams we saw under Cronin. Anyone who does play with an edge (like Manno)gets stuck on 4th line.
Cronin coached in the AHL and the last time we saw him – he was an assistant in “the Show”. He knew something about what it took to get to the next level and certainly knew that you don’t try “tit for tat”
hockey with the bigger programs. By playing this soft perimeter-type hockey and instilling a fear of retribution for those attempting to play a little NHL-type hockey – he is doing no favors to his drafted players and those looking for contracts later on. Life in the AHL and NHL is not for the faint-hearted. Speed – power hockey – finishing checks – “pushbacks” are all part of REAL elite hockey. NE hockey, under the “Mad Dog” is not there, at this point.