Lowell overpowered the Minuteman tonight and skated off with a 5-2
victory to open the season. Biased reports have the Riverhawks clearly
dominating the physical play and keeping Amherst's offense to infrequent
flashes at best.
 
Lowell's five goals were pretty. One was a beautiful rush by the
speedster Basaraba with a sweet backhand up high. He was flying all
night. Another was scored on a dominating power play that Lowell
displayed a few times tonight. A third was on a Golden rush breaking in
alone around a slow Amherst defenseman and putting the puck home
with authority.
 
The freshman report definitely has me favoring Koehler as the leading
rookie. His face-offs were phenomenal going 12-0-1 in the faceoffs
were I was keeping mental tabs. He got a few assists. Leblanc looked
good at times, but he seems to loose balance easy and doesn't finish.
Campbell hit hard all night.
 
Amherst first goal with 4 seconds left in the first was flukey. The second
was a nice bang-bang play after a feed from behind the net. All in all,
Fankhouser looked real solid for Lowell, stopping several point blank
shots and showing good puck control. Fillion's absence is just what this
kid needed to break the starting line-up. The year in Canada seems to
have done him a lot of good.
 
The defense looked good at times. They looked good getting the puck up
ice. They didn't panic and ice the puck when hard-pressed. They got a
little scattered and were rescued by some good back-chekcing
forwards. (read Nolan) Although, he couldn't seem to win a face-off all
night, Doug Nolan played a great physical game ... clearly frustrating
several Amherst players.
 
Let's see how these teams fare tomorrow night at Amherst. I predict
another Lowell win, this time by a 5-1 score.
 
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