- I missed the first 7 minutes partly thanks to the ticket
office selling me a ticket for Saturdays game by accident (lots of rust in
several places, including the scoreboard/time clock operation). So, unfortunately, I missed our first three goals of the game.
- The final score was a disappointing end to what
was still overall an encouraging game for BU. There is a lot of youth on this
team, and we will have bumps on the road as a result. On the tying goal, there
were 4 freshman on the ice. Witkowski's penalty was ill-advised and started the
NMU comeback.
- To me what stood out was the balance at forward. The top
three lines were all generating good scoring opportunities consistently.
Certainly the top line has the most talent with Harper and Zegras zipping the
puck around, but with Wise, Mastrosimone, Phillips and Cockerill on the other
two lines, they were a threat regularly.
- Speaking of Harper, he certainly looks like he's finally
back to being himself. And Wise looks like a much more confident player. And as
mentioned already, the freshman talent is spread nicely. I don't think scoring
goals will be an issue this year.
- On defense, Fensore is the latest in the line of smallish
puck-moving defensemen to come to BU from the USNTDP, and I would say he looks
as good (at least offensively) as any of the others did at this stage
(Farrance, Grzelcyk, Warsofsky). Farrance missed the third period, apparently
due to cramps, so Fensore was the QB for all our power plays down the stretch.
- I thought McCarthy looked very good. He made a few nice defensive plays. Vlasic looked solid, and used his height/reach to his
advantage on several occasions. That said, I think overall our d-zone coverage
got sloppy at times - NMU had a few really strong scoring opportunities in the
second half of the game.
- If there is one concern I have, it is in net. I know two
games is not a big sample size, but Tucker doesn't seem very confident in net,
and obviously 7 goals on less than 40 shots is not going to get it done long
term. Hopefully his play will improve. He did make a phenomenal save in OT on a
point blank shot - everyone in the arena assumed the game was over, and he kept
us alive. I suspect we'll see Purpura tonight.
- Overall I think this team is going to be a lot of fun to
watch and will ultimately contend for some hardware. I also like the fact that
apart from Zegras, the new talent are mostly 3 or 4-year players.
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