The Minutemen can compete with BC, but need to play without fear and be locked in to their "A" game to win.
UMass Conor Sheary, fires the puck towards the net past BC's #2 Brian Dumoulin in an earlier game at the Mullins Center. Both lead their teams in plus-minus. Sheary is a plus-16, Dumolin a plus-19.
photo by J. Anthony Roberts
The 2011-12 Minutemen can at least compete with the Eagles, and so the losses aren't automatic like in the past.
In the real old days,when UMass finished a bad eighth (and there were only nine teams pre-Vermont), and could only beat the then weakest teams like Merrimack, and would squeeze into the playoffs. You'd go to Maine, BU, or BC, and wonder why you bothered. It would be 2 and out. They had no chance of winning, and everyone knew it.
Even the 2009-10 edition that was 18-16 entering the playoffs at BC, and lost 6-5, and 5-2 , had faded down the stretch, and had lost six straight games before teasing with a couple of wins at Orono the last week of the regular season. Given the talent on that squad, one could argue that was perhaps the most disappointing club in program history. And with that in mind, I fell better about the prospects of this series than I did that one.
This team, if it could have avoided a couple of its late-game implosions, could have just as easily finished sixth, and maybe even fifth. Of course, all that would have earned them would have been a trip to Orono, so as bad as it is to play at BC, it's pretty scary that maybe the only easier stop was at BU.
This feels a little more like the playoffs of 2008-09 at Northeastern, not quite that good a feeling, but closer to that than some of the mail-in series of years gone by. In that series, you may recall, the Minutemen won the first game 2-1 on Chris Davis' goal in the third period. In the second game, they played well, but after a scoreless first when they had allowed only five shots, they gave up a couple of goals in the second, and lost 4-1.
Now the then freshmen, now seniors, remember game 3 for sure. Matt Irwin forced overtime with a goal with 35 seconds left to tie it, but Northeastern won with a goal at 10:26 of OT. T.J. Syner had six shots in that game.
No, surely that Northeastern team isn't as good as this BC team, but I don't think the Minutemen are going to come out scared Friday and Saturday, and get blown out. As Jack Parker said, they're the best eighth place team he's ever seen, and that's because there's very little difference in 5-8. Until that third period last Saturday, I was saying, hey UMass is better than Merrimack, and don't forget Merrimack was once rated No. 1 in the country. So let's go into this with an open mind, a that's why they play the games mentality.They're better than their 13-16-5 record, or at least can be.
2. All that optimism cannot diminish the exciting talent on BC. If you are watching on TV, or go, look for little freshman left wing Johnny Gaudreau, No. 13, what a pest with numbers of 16 goals, 16 assists, 32 points, plus-12. And then there is center Bill Arnold, No. 24. He is 16-15-31 plus-11. Defense? Boston Bruin prospect Tommy Cross is nasty, and it seems like he's been playing there for about six years. But how about No. 2 Brian Dumoulin? A plus-19, that's ridiculous. All I can say to the UMass team is "Keep moving your feet."
3. Think about this - with the two wins at the Mullins Center, UMass has inflicted BC with 20 percent of its losses for the year.
4. But also think about this. In the last four games of BC's 11-game winning streak, the Eagles have outscored the opposition 19-1. It was 3-0 at Providence, 7-0 at home to Providence, and 5-1 and 4-0 at home with Vermont. Well, can't imagine UMass doing any worse than that.
5. Poor Kevin Sneddon, the Vermont coach and a great guy. Using a Toot Cahoon "spit on it" conclusion - this is just one of those seasons "you just spit on it" and see you in September. I love that, make a blunder, and just spit on it. Imagine if people did that in a business office?
6. I'll pick the other three series. Merrimack will hound the Maine top line, and beat the Black Bears in Orono; Providence won the first game against Lowell (too bad UMass couldn't hold on at Merrimack Saturday, it would have had Lowell instead of BC, but then again I didn't want UMass to play Lowell because they looked awful against them, so pick your poison.) Still, I pick Lowell to come back and win the next two games to take the series. BU, even with slipping down to third, will sweep New Hampshire by exploiting the Wildcats' shaky defense.
7. UMass defensemen on the power-play point, take notice: BC has 11 shorthanded goals this season. Barry Almeida of Springfield has two.
8. UMass has finished in the playoffs each of the last 10 years.
9. In the first two periods at Merrimack, the Minutemen did a great job shutting down the Warriors coming up through the middle of the ice - getting their sticks on most Merrimack passes and breaking them up. "They have good sticks," Merrimack coach Mark Dennehy said.
UMass has to do the same against the Eagles, don't let them get wound up because they can fly.
10. Do you think BC has some sort of deal where it automatically is awarded any player from the families named Hayes or Whitney like when the Montreal Canadiens were once allowed to take the best French player?
11. BC coach Jerry York is so gracious that if he were the Red Sox manager, he'd have you thinking that the Kansas City Royals are a designated hitter away from the World Series.
12. BC has given up only 60 goals in 27 regular-season conference games, and only 13 goals during its current 11-game winning streak. They're pretty good, huh?
13. Minutemen fans come to the game, and sit in the section above your team's bench. Make them feel a little like home. Hey, it's still in their state, and this is the state university.
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