Some midweek musings for a slow list ... resulting from last weekend's
series and observations on Lowell so far.
On BC, first.
Freshman Jeff Giuliano is playing on a line with Brian Gionta and Andy
Powers. He is listed
as 5-10, 200 lbs. but it is hard to believe. He's much more Gionta's size as
well as speed.
This line is all over the ice and very hard to defend. However, when two
forwards are this fast
and hustle as much as Giuliano and Gionta do, it's also very hard for them
to connect with eachother.
This may just be too much speed for one line. It doesn't seem to deter
Gionta too much as he has
5g and 2a in 4 games. Helping greatly, I believe, is the strong contribution
by senior forward Powers.
He benefited greatly from finishing last season along side Gionta and
Reasoner and is picking up
where he left off. Powers only has about 50 career points but may nearly
double that this year. He
played defense half of his freshman year as well as most of his sophomore
year but there isn't
much need for him on defense anymore. He's the line's best forechecker and
body cruncher.
Mike Mottau ("motto") is the Eagles #1 Hobey candidate in my opinion. He is
very strong at both ends
of the ice. One among a handful of offensive threats on the BC blueline,
Mottau is equally effective on
defense. This is something the other Eagle defensemen need to work on. When
the play is up-and-down, the
BC blueline corps can be beat ... by teams equally tenacious and
hard-working as Lowell. However, when BC
has a lead, and their forwards have defense first in their mind, no other
team may be able to put 5 more talented
skaters on the ice. BC demonstrated on both nights last weekend how good
they are at shutting down the
opposition when they need to. In the third period, Lowell could only muster
2 shots on Friday and 5 on Saturday.
On Lowell,
The big Lowell story this year could be the play of freshman goalie Jimi St.
John. He certainly looked capable all
weekend against the vaunted BC attack. Lowell's defense looked really strong
at times and pretty anemic at others.
Except for the two late goals on Saturday though, St. John looked capable of
handling all kinds of pressure. He made
great standup saves on point blank shots, he made great sprawling saves on
scrambles in his crease. He also
demonstrated some strong puck handling skills although he had trouble
keeping his clearing shots out of the crowd.
Lowell's defense looks strong enough to provide a great tandem with this
freshman standout.
Will St. John get the starts? I'm willing to venture that coach Whitehead
will give senior Scott Fankhouser at least one
more start against Maine this weekend. If he performs adequately, I wouldn't
be surprised to see St. John sitting again
and waiting for Fankhouser to falter. Fankhouser was yanked twice on Friday
night. The coach said the first time was more
of a tactical move but the second yank was because Fankhouser didn't look
strong ... and St. John subsequently got the start
the next night.
On Saturday, St. John looked top-notch all the way. There were a few times
were Lowell collapsed and BC capitalized with
a great shot. There were other times when St. John stonewalled them. There
were a few times when St. John raced out to
beat an attacking BC player to a loose puck and he made a diving stick-poke
... which proved effective but certainly left him
vulnerable. I thought he could have smothered the puck instead of poking it
away. BC did however score 6 goals on 32 shots
but three of those were on power-plays. There is definitely room for
improvement. St. John only allowed 2 goals in over 50 minutes of play on
Friday while facing 31 shots. (USCHO erroneously reported 4GA on Friday).
What's the record for consecutive games scoring a goal for a defenseman?
Lowell's Anthony Cappelletti has one goal in each
of Lowell's four games, three of them on the power-play.
Doug Nolan may be the most snake-bitten player in HockeyEast but
he's found the scoring touch this year. On both nights this past weekend, he
scored highlight-film shorthanded goals. On Friday,
he came down the right side and in alone on Clemenson, and then beat him
five hole on a shift. On Saturday, he came down the
left side on a two-on-one and rifled a shot top corner to Clemenson's glove
side. The puck came out of the net almost as fast as it went in. Nolan has
always worked hard enough to get him some great chances ... game in and game
out. Maybe this year he'll have that needed finishing touch.
Kevin Bertram is playing some great disciplined hockey this year. While he
has managed to stay out of the box except for two minors so far, he has also
stepped up his offensive prowess and made some great contributions along
with his power-play goal on Saturday. Kyle Kidney hasn't been so disciplined
however and that has hurt Lowell.
Lowell is starting three freshmen defensemen - Josh Allison, Kevin Kotyluk
and Chris Gustafson. All three look very promising with Allison really
stepping it up this last weekend.
Freshman Dan Fontas must be out with an injury because his early season play
certainly warranted him dressing for RPI and BC. Anyone know any more on
this? Perhaps he was injured in the Amherst game?
-Paul.
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Paul Gentile
Programmer Analyst
Addison Wesley Longman Publishing (soon to be Pearson Education)
[log in to unmask] (781) 944-3700 x2649
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