Monday, January 13, 1992 at Snively Arena, Durham, NH
NONCONFERENCE GAME
St Lawrence Saints (12-5-2) 0 1 0 - 1
New Hampshire Wildcats (12-6-0) 2 1 3 - 6
FIRST PERIOD NH-SL
1. NH1, Kent Schmidtke 1 (Bob Chebator, Greg Klym), 0:53. 1-0
2. NH2, Rob Donavan 4 (Jason Dexter, Gregg Blow), 2:52. GWG 2-0
SECOND PERIOD
3. NH3, Scott Morrow 14 (Savo Mitrovic, Joe Flanagan), 16:04. PPG 3-0
4. SL1, Mike Lappin 16 (Martin Lacroix, Lee Albert), 18:10. PPG 3-1
THIRD PERIOD
5. NH4, Klym (Kevin Thomson, Jesse Cooper), 2:15. PPG 4-1
6. NH5, Chebator 3 (unassisted), 7:46. SHG 5-1
7. NH6, Morrow 15 (Domenic Amodeo, Flanagan), 17:13. PPG 6-1
SHOTS ON GOAL: St Lawrence 6-16-??
New Hampshire 13-10-??
GOALIES: SLU, Brady Giroux (L, 60:00).
NH, Jeff Levy (W, 60:00).
POWER PLAYS: SLU 1 of 5, NH 3 of 8.
REFEREE: Ned Bunyon.
ATTENDANCE: 2,522 (capacity 3,530).
MIKE'S THREE STARS: 1. NH, Scott Morrow (2-0--2).
2. NH, Bob Chebator (1-1--2).
3. NH, Greg Klym (1-1--2).
(Between tv and live, this was six games in four nights for me...I think I
can use the three-day break until Friday - but will I be saying that
tomorrow? :-) )
St Lawrence was playing its third road game in four nights tonight and it
showed, as the Saints were too slow defensively and could only mount an
attack in spurts. UNH got two goals from Scott Morrow on route to the
6-1 win.
UNH came out flying and scored twice in the first three minutes. 53
seconds in, Kent Schmidtke got his first when Chebator found him at the top
of the left circle and he shot the puck over Giroux's left shoulder.
Giroux was shaky early on. He allowed another goal two minutes later when
Jason Dexter made a backhand pass out in front to Rob Donavan for a
shot along the ice that got between the post and Giroux's right skate.
Giroux seems to like to give too much of the net to his right side, and
that's where he got beat most of the night.
The Saints got in the game about halfway through the first and it was pretty
even until late in the second. Mike Lappin had an open net late in the
first and hit the side of the net. The teams exchanged power play goals
in the second period after a nearly scoreless stanza. At 16:04, Morrow
got a questionable goal when he took a feed from Mitrovic and tried to
jam it in; Giroux appeared to make the save and keep it out of the net, but
after conferring with the goal judge, referee Ned Bunyon called it a goal.
The replay didn't appear to confirm that it went in, although it was
difficult to tell. Giroux was getting sharper as the game went on, but
his defense was getting worse.
Lappin finally got one at 18:10 on the power play when he took a cross-ice
pass from Martin Lacroix and wristed it past Levy from ten feet to make it
3-1 UNH after two.
The Saints just ran out of gas in the third and surrendered three goals
as the Wildcats skated circles around them for much of the period. Klym
added another power play goal at 2:15 on a play that should have been
broken up. Klym carried up the middle on a 3x1 and tried to dish it
off, but it was broken up. Then Kevin Thomson got it back and put a shot
on Giroux, and Klym knocked in the rebound on the doorstep to make it 4-1.
The goal came after a bad slashing penalty by SLU's Spencer Meany as Meany
put a wicked two-hander on Klym right in front of Bunyon. The Saints
took a lot of bad penalties in the period which is a sure sign that they
were running out of gas and feeling it.
After Morrow went off for slashing at 7:10, the Saints had trouble
getting the puck out of their zone and Chebator just plain took it away.
He wheeled out from behind the net and snapped a quick shot from the bottom
of the left circle that beat Giroux for a shorthanded goal and a 5-1 lead.
Morrow closed out the scoring with a power play goal at 17:13 when the
Saints could not tie him up in front and he whacked in the rebound of
Domenic Amodeo's shot.
EPILOGUE
The Saints hung tough for most of the game, considering UNH was well-rested
and SLU was probably looking forward to getting home. I wouldn't put
too much weight on the 5-goal differential; both of these teams are solid
all-around and would likely give us a closer battle under better conditions.
Still the Wildcats looked good and did what they had to do, taking
advantage of the SLU defensive miscues and doing a good job of controlling
SLU's dangerous scorers.
SLU is off till 1/25 when they host Clarkson in a big game, and UNH is at
BU Fri and will host BC Sat in a pair of very big games among three of the
four teams tied for the lead in Hockey East.
By the way, two notes on NESN: they had a very nice feature during Sunday's
BC-PC game on Hockey East assistant coaches that got fans acquainted with
many of the lesser known guys who do a great job in the league. It was
unquestionably timed perfectly to coincide with the announcement that the
NC$$ wouldn't be reinstating the other fulltime assistant. As Shawn Walsh
told us during our interview with him Saturday, there is a serious problem
with college hockey losing many good people and good coaches who will not
be able to continue as part-time assistants. But none of us should have
been surprised at the NC$$'s decision to axe the hockey assistants and
allow football to keep theirs; it's just business as usual. I hope people
are beginning to understand more and more just what a bad situation college
hockey is in, being at the mercy of people who know and care nothing about
the sport.
Also, tonight's game was another ECAC-HE matchup that NESN chose to show,
and they should be applauded for doing this. Their contract is explicitly
with HE, not the ECAC (except Hockeyfest), and I am pretty sure they don't
have to show any non-HE games but they have tried to get as many ECAC
teams on as possible this year (8 in total, I believe). The nationwide
coverage of NESN games also gives ECAC teams some national exposure, and
that's good too since they have so much difficulty nailing down a league
tv contract. NESN does a great job and I love listening to Bob Kurtz
(who the Minnesota folks will quickly point out is from there)...and
occasionally I can tolerate Bob Norton, too. :-)
Oh yes, The Fish was back!
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Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]
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