Handicapping the 2009 Hockey East Quarterfinals: Another Perspective

#4 UVM vs. #5 University of Lowell
The University of Lowell River Hawks and The UVM Catamounts played to a perfect 1-1-1 draw in three games this season. Look at the games and not just the box scores from Lowell’s trip to Burlington only three weekends ago, in which they took three out of four points, and the game that they won they won handily and the tie could have easily resulted in a four point weekend had the River Hawks have had only the Catamounts and not the Refs as well as their opponent(s).

With the exception of two losses against a team that rivals any in the nation – Northeastern – Lowell has been hotter than a short order cook’s griddle in the last half of the Season, particularly in the last month of Conference play. Vermont has been steady, but has several holes in their game that if exploited will make followers of this series forget early and often which team has the Home ice ‘advantage’.

Lowell is one of the toughest outs in the league if not the country, and not to look ahead but I would much rather them having finished third or sixth than fifth as a BU supporter because: a) They are the only team that I favor to win as a road dog; and b) by being in the 4-5 series that sets them up to play BU in the semis, and honestly I think that with the exception of BU and NU, the Lowell River Hawks are playing at a level far better than the five other teams which make up the 3 through 8 seeds and the numbers back me up.
The players on the Lowell squad are a veteran bunch. Their roster is littered with physical Canadians who are no strangers to the long seasons of Canadian Junior hockey (11 having played in Ontario, with all but 2 veterans of the elite Ontario Junior Hockey League; and another three from the British Columbia Hockey League, making 14 of their players experienced in the physical type of play that generally comes to the forefront in playoff college hockey) , and that is a huge part of the reason that as other teams seem to be tiring by this team in their season’s Lowell is just hiding its stride, ready to peak. Guys like Nick Shaus and Captain Gary Bauers are players who are not intimidated easily – for that would have to mean that they can be intimidated at all – which they cannot. Couple that with workhorse forwards such as Scott Campbell, David Vallorani, and sniper Kory Falite (the only true finisher in that he is only player on team in their top 15 in scoring who has more goals than assists – and at a two to one margin, no less) and you have a formidable threat on any given night. The Lowell Squad is so balanced that it has eight players with 19 or more points – three of their top six in scoring are defenseman – led by blue-liner Maury Edwards, with 27 points overall and one of only three PLAYERS on the team that has double digits in goals. In the River Hawks, you have a scoring attack that does not rely heavily on a line or a pairing to get their goals. This team rivals only Northeastern in the SUM is significantly better than the whole of its parts category. Add to that the second best group of blue-liners in Hockey East, and you have a team who might not finish Grade A scoring chances pretty, but more often than not (although not as often as Coach Blaise MacDonald would like), finish they do. The two question marks that I see that might tilt the series for Vermont to win this series at home (incidentally, Vermont has not won yet in the two games they hosted Lowell at Gutterson, and Lowell failed to win the one matchup played at Tsongas) are a) turnovers, as Vermont’s Coach Kevin Sneddon and Lowell’s MacDonald both cited that the team that wins the turnover battle will have a huge upper hand; and b) post-season experience. Despite being new to Hockey East, Vermont made it to The Semis in Boston just last season whereas there has been a seven year draught since Lowell made it out of the quarterfinals. Playing for the pressure of the final weekend and a bid at the NCAA tourney might prove too much pressure on this Lowell team that hasn’t really played for anything in years, whereas UVM has experience winning Conference Tournament Series, even with their infantile status as the newborn to Hockey East play.

While I am not hiding the fact that I think Lowell will win this series, there is no doubt that the most dangerous player on the ice for either team is UVM Forward and Hobey Baker candidate Viktor Stalberg. The other column where the checkmark clearly has to go next to The Catamounts is Forward and Goal Scoring capability. Stalberg and fellow UVM forward Brian Roloff are the two most talented players in this series. However, while I would expect a lesser team to come out and shadow Stalberg in the way so many BU opponents shadowed Colin Wilson this season, I expect for Lowell to stick to fundamental defense and not to use anything gimmicky against Stalberg unless and until he shows that they need to do something drastic to shut him down, and I do not expect that to happen.. One reason I really like Lowell is they know that if they lose this series their season is over, while the same cannot be said about Vermont. But an even bigger reason I like Lowell so much in this series is the disparity in special teams. Lowell is first in conference play in the penalty kill and second in Power Play Conversion, while Vermont is abhorrent in Penalty Kill and mediocre in Power Play Conversion. Vermont gives up twice as many goals on the PK than does Lowell, 30 to 15, with the two teams taking almost an identical number of shorthanded situations in conference play making the example so vivid. This is the difference maker in the series, and this is the primary reason why I like the lower-seeded Lowell River Hawks to travel to the large but not Olympic-sized sheet at UVM and leave as the winners of the series.
I see this quarterfinal going into the books with a lot more confidence than I have in my pick in the UNH-BC series, and just shy of the confidence that I have in my Northeastern-UMASS pick. Not only do I look for Lowell to pull the ‘upset” by winning this series on the road at The Gut, I look for the River Hawks to win two straight (one close, one by at least three goals) and there will not be a need for a Sunday game as Lowell will be smiling on their bus trip home; hoping that BU has somehow gone three games so as to tire – anything for an edge – and knowing that they have just earned a berth in the Semis at The (TD Banknorth) Boston Garden. You better believe that Coach Blaise MacDonald (whose apprenticeship under Coach Jack Parker has proven invaluable) will waste no time, spending the long bus trip already preparing see how they might be able to throw the kitchen sink at the Terriers in the semis and somehow – they hope – escape their one gamer with a W and a birth in the Finals, as it is the only way that they keep their season alive. But that is getting way ahead of themselves; for now – Lowell should be satisfied being the only road team earning a spot in the Semis.

Scott’s Pick: Lowell in Two

#3 UNH vs. #6 Boston College
I know… this is the time of the year that Boston College realizes that if they don’t go on a double digit win streak they won’t be making what they now believe to be practically a rite-of-passage for The Eagles: A trip to The Frozen Four. But this isn’t your Older Brother’s BC Squad. In fact, it is not even your older Irish twin’s Eagles for although, just like in the case of Irish Twins, both The 2007-8 Eagles and The 2008-9 Eagles are remarkably similar on paper (subtract Hobey candidate Nathan Gerbe, insert redshirt Pre-Season All America Candidate Brock Bradford) and to stick with the analogy – less than twelve months removed from last year’s title run, this Eagle Team has not responded to Coach York’s easy demeanor with the press, calling a two point weekend (a split) against Northeastern ‘a turning point’. Yes, they have last year’s unlikely hero John Muse back manning the pipes, but perhaps he was indeed a one year wonder who should be playing baseball, the sport he went to BC with the intention of pursuing until the hockey gig last season ran into the start of baseball practice. Muse is a shadow of himself this season. Four times he has given up a game winning or game tying goal in the final minute of a game, and in the first Northeastern game last weekend he pulled off the rare double, giving up the game-tying goal with less than 30 seconds left, and then in OT he gave up the winning goal with 50 seconds left. Muse is clearly mired in a sophomore slump, but Coach York has either a belief in this kid no one else does, or an absolute fear of shaking things up for he did not even start Muse’s backup in the Consolation game of the Beanpot; which is practically an unwritten rule for the BC’S and BU’S of the world so that the backup can get a chance to say, ‘I played in the Beanpot’ as it is likely the highpoint of the backup’s career.
And yet you here all the pundits saying, ‘The one team I wouldn’t want to face at this time of year is an underachieving BC. For they are as talented as anybody and all they have to do is turn it on and they are suddenly a viable Frozen Four caliber team.” Really, just how many BC games have these experts watched this season. They seem to have a Matthew McGonaughey “Well alright!” too-cool-for-school attitude since the very beginning of the season I find this both ludicrous and offensive. Ben Smith has not only not picked up where he left off last season, rather he has exposed himself for just what a marginal player he is without a star on his line benefitting his game and his numbers putting no-look between his leg feeders on Smith’s tape without a defenseman or a goalie in position, for example, and Benn Ferriero has shown no signs of improvement and neither had Nick Petrecki, unless you count the number of cheap hits and PIMs increasing somehow showing a progression in his game.

So along with BC’s seeming lack of urgency when the rest of the Hockey World sees it, there is also the small matter of how are they going to win now that they are going to Durham to play The University of New Hampshire Wildcats on their Olympic-sized ice sheet at The Whittemore Center. Most teams tend not to win there … As a matter of fact, in a recent home and home versus Boston College, UNH indeed defended home ice at Whittemore and, for good measure, took the Conte forum game for a four point weekend sweep.

Before the season, when BC was number one before a puck had been dropped, Ben Smith and Benn Ferriero were expected to have Brock Bradford slide in and potentially be THE BIG THREE for BC of the 08-09 season. The truth of the matter is that the offensive trio of Peter LeBlanc, Mike Sislo, and oh yeah, first round draft pick James Van Riemsdyk are playing to their potential, and The Ben(n)s are regressing and Bradford is not even a fraction of the player, even if he has all the potential, that Gerbe ever was. Ergo, I don’t see how BC can expect to take two games at Whittemore in a single weekend. The BC forwards, along with young blood infusion like Cam Atkinson and Jimmy Hayes are unquestionably talented, and Muse and co. can occasionally play inspired hockey like they did on Saturday night at home versus a motivated Northeastern team that felt they had been given a death row reprieve when they managed to grab two points in a game they were thirty seconds away from getting none in only a night prior, and for that reason, and that reason alone, I figure that a team that has been to three Frozen Fours in the last four years will show some pride and at least take a game at UNH, but truth be told it will just be window dressing making what had the potential to be a history making year a little less abysmal as it will not look as if they just rolled over and gave up, but I see BC having very little to no chance at being able to steal a second game at UNH, and Coach York, usually the master of motivation with understated, easy going comments like the one he made to his team last season in the midst of a January slump when he said:” I am going to Denver the weekend of the Frozen Four because I have to attend a coaches conference. It is a shame that you guys won’t be joining me…” and the rest was history – he may have well been Knute Rockne. But York has not been able to get the pulse of this team going all the way back to the pre-conference schedule when his team was embarrassed by Notre Dame in a rematch of last year’s championship match. He kept saying we’re about to get it turned around or we’re on the verge and now The Eagles are a team that on paper still look solid, but can’t be counted on to take three points in a home and home, and thus expecting them to win two at one of the toughest venues to play a road game in (let alone two) just is beyond even what the paper version of BC is capable of achieving.

Series pick: UNH wins in three; would not be shocked if UNH wins in two
#2 Northeastern vs. #7 UMASS
Headline to the lead story on College Hockey News “Northeastern vs. Massachusetts comprise one of the more intriguing Best-of-3 series this weekend …” Huh? What am I missing here? I KNOW that UMASS took two of three against Northeasten this season, but the long and the short of it is that Northeastern wins games it is supposed to win. So much so, in fact, that it actually has hurt them in PWR which is not relevant for this debate except for pointing out one simple fact. Back on February 24, the last time that UMASS was still a TuC, or a Team with an RPI of 25 or better, Northeastern had a perfect record of 13-0-0 with zero losses to teams that were not in the RP1 Top 25. In other words, they don’t just win most of the games they are supposed to, they win all of the games they are supposed to.

So now UMass has slipped just outside the TuC, ergo no longer does Northeastern have an unblemished record against Teams not under Consideration, as UMASS falls into that latter category. And of the games between the two this season, none have been close, a 2 goal in a high scoring affair for UMASS at home, a two goal game in another high scoring match at UMASS with Northeasten getting the victory, and in the rubber match a 3 goal victory at Matthews with UMASS winning 4-1. What can you surmise from three games played in a 16 day period from the last Friday of January to February 14. NOTHING. The January 30th win by UMASS at UMASS on a day where Northeastern participated in The Beanpot Luncheon only hours before hopping a bus and losing at UMASS. I would have been surprised if they didn’t come out flat. The first full weekend of Hockey AFTER the Beanpot starting with a statement game from Northeastern at UMASS winning easily and letting the world know that they now know they can compete at that level. A GREAT WIN. The next day the second half of a home and home and UMASS blows Northeastern out of a game that they were never in from the beginning, SURPRISING.
We know Thiessen, we know Vitale, we know Toot Cahoon and his top players. So what can we validly look at to see if one team is obviously superior to the other? How about records against common opponents.
ADV  UMASS    OPPONENT           NU
PUSH 1-2-0 Boston University 0-2-2
NU      2-1-0 Maine                         3-0-0
NU      1-2-0 Mass.-Lowell           3-0-0
NU      1-2-0 Boston College        2-0-1
NU      1-2-0 Merrimack               3-0-0
NU      0-1-2 New Hampshire      1-1-1
NU      2-1-0 Providence              3-0-0
NU      0-2-1 Vermont                   2-1-0
PUSH 1-0-0 Rensselaer               1-0-0
Coach Cronin is arguably the hottest coach in the nation. Thiessen is a Hobey Baker Finalist. Northeastern has a better first line, a better second line, and a better third line.  ‘Nuff said.

Oh yeah, they also are the grittiest team in Hockey East and despite not having beaten our Terriers this season, they know after 130 minutes of electrifying tied hockey three weekends back that they can play with us, and in all likelihood will get to play us at least one more time, and depending upon the way the brackets are set up BU and NU could meet for a sixth time this season in Washington D.C. I certainly don’t see any team (including Notre Dame) other than each other knocking either BU or NU out of what I think will be a matchup of Destiny in The NCAAs. It will likely occur in the Frozen Four; I pray the brackets are set up so that it takes place in the NCAA Championship game.

Series Pick: Northeastern in two – likely giving up no more than 2 total goals.

For a different perspective, be sure to check out Joe’s 2009 Quarterfinal Preview and picks.

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