Lowell and Merrimack in a home-and-away series.
 
This was once a great rivalry and seems to have been regaining that
excitement in the recent years. Its a long, long way from the donnybrooks of
the late 70's but it does project to be a hard-hitting affair.
 
As Dave Hendrickson reports on USCHO, Merrimack coach Chris Serino thinks
"It's going to be a battle. They play hard every night. They come at you.
They're very physical. I think it's going to boil
down to the team that takes the [fewest] penalties and stays disciplined."
 
Which provides me with the perfect seguee into a little talk on disciplined
and undisciplined players in HockeyEast so far. For starters, I'll confine
my talk to Lowell and Merrimack.
 
The Riverhawks have had some trouble so far. Their biggest offender has been
sophomore forward Kyle Kidney who is not putting up the numbers to warrant
so many minutes in the box. Kidney is a bruising hitter who can resemble a
freight train at times. His number seems to be known to all the refs though
and he leads the team with 10 minors in 7 games. He may be a victim of the
league's spotlight but the team can't afford to see his #13 on the penalty
clock as much as it has.
 
Freshman defenseman Josh Allison and senior defenseman Anthony Cappelletti
are next with 7 minors each. Allison's play has looked very promising at
times. He seems to be taking it a little too far though and could really
benefit from keeping his head in pressure situations.
Its hard to complain about Cappelletti. Three power-play goals and a
short-handed overtime winner are just the beginning of what looks like a
very strong season for the senior captain. His defensive play has warranted
these remarks from his coach (also reported on USCHO by Dave) "The best
asset Anthony has is that he comes to play every night and competes. He just
doesn't quit. He blocks shots. He plays his heart
out. He plays with a ton of heart and courage and he's a real good leader
for our team.". But, he can't lead the team from the box.
 
Its hard for defenseman to stay out of the box given the nature of their
responsibilities. But, someone who has done a great job of that this season
has been junior defenseman Kevin Bertram. He was the team leader both his
freshman and sophomore seasons with 86 and 83 minutes respectively. This
season he has but 3 minors for 6 minutes. Another big story with Bertram
this year has been his production on the power-play. He has really stepped
up and is tied with Cappelletti for the team lead with three power-play
goals so far, one of which was the overtime game-winner versus Amherst.
Bertram gets a lot of shots on net which is crucial in HockeyEast.
 
Bruising Lowell forwards Doug Nolan and Jeff Boulanger are also getting
enough minors to warrant some attention.
 
The offenders for Merrimack are mostly forwards. Kris Porter and Jayson
Philbin lead the team with 6 minors followed by Greg Classen and Chris
Halecki with 5 each. Everyone with the exception of Halecki have been making
strong offensive contributions when they're not serving time. Porter leads
the team with 3 power-play goals and the impressive freshman Classen has
scored two out of his four goals on the man-up.
 
Senior defenseman Roland Grelle certainly deserves some mention here. He has
been whistled 5 times for a league leading 21 minutes. Not sure what the
story here has been but he's someone to keep an eye on.
 
On the honors side of things has been Hobey Candidate Rejean Stringer
(pronounced Stron-jay with the j more like the "ng" in orange - is this
correct, Mike?) Stringer has only three minors and the teams only
short-handed goal. He leads the league with 4 goals and a whopping 12
assists in only 7 games (2.29 ppg).
 
There seems to be quite a change this season from the typical Merrimack
bench protocol. Gone is the reserved and respected Ron Anderson who was
seldom seen making much noise behind the bench. This was a trait that was
often duplicated by his assistant coaching staff. In his stead, has been
placed the hot-headed Chris Serino who was often seen blowing his stack on
the UNH bench ... or in the stands at Tully ... or blowing up at refs on the
ice after the Providence-UNH donnybrook last year.
 
It seems that Serino has been having himself heard quite often behind the
Merrimack bench. From what I've heard, the attitude has been catchy ... as
assistant Andy Heinze as well as the entire Merrimack roster has been
joining in the act. It may be new to Merrimack and its fans but its
certainly something they've seen often when playing games against BU and
Maine. If they ever wonder if those kind of actions may have benefitted the
opposition in the past ... they certainly don't have to worry anymore.
 
Passion is something that can be quite a strong weapon. If its harnessed and
used productively, it can really make a difference. However, its also
something that can be detrimental to composure. We'll see how it plays out
in Merrimack. Merrimack's uniforms may have taken something from the
soon-to-be-gone pro football team, but the coaching staff is certainly not
emulating that same team's coaching crew. More like the old crew that is now
in Jersey!
 
I always try to remember the old adage "you have to pick your fights". You
can't be seen complaining about every close call or infraction or eventually
you won't be listened to at all.
 
Throughout the league, Grelle is tied with Nick Stephens of Amherst who also
has 21 minutes on five penalties. Behind them are Kidney and the
not-surprising-to-see-mentioned-here Brendan Walsh of Maine. Walsh has 10
minors and teammates Jason Vittorino and Robert Ek have 8 minors each. These
three players have nearly 50% of Maine's penalties but the Black Bears as
well as UNH are the least penalized teams in the league. These three players
also have just 6 points (Walsh has 5) in 7 games.
 
Brian Cummings of Northeastern has 9 minors and Kevin Caulfield of BC has
eight.
 
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