Wow, Merrimack talk on HOCKEY-L.  It sure looks like Tony is buying
into some of the propaganda I've been feeding him. :-)
 
>In regards to Merrimack, 1st of all, I also picked them #5 in the conference.
 
It is interesting that my picks closely mirror Tony's and I believe
they are even exactly the same, even though we came to these decisions
separately.  I also noticed from Sean's post that Jack Parker agrees.
So, go to Vegas and bet on BC to win Hockey East. :-)
 
>Please do not take this as an insult to any specific teams, but Merrimack's
>schedule has them playing teams projected to be of... hmmm... "rebuilding
>status" in the early part of the year.  Merrimack not only plays fewer games
>vs. BU, NU, and Maine, but does not play those games until January.
 
Actually, Merrimack has a home and home with Northeastern Nov 18-19
and hosts Maine Dec 9-10.  Toss in a home and home with UNH Nov 11-12,
and you have six of the season's 9 games with teams projected ahead of
Merrimack (other than BU) slated to come in the season's first half -
in a five week stretch.
 
Splits in each of those series will be almost a necessity for
Merrimack to contend.  The advantage is getting to host Maine, who is
the only HE team Merrimack hasn't beaten since joining the league.
Merrimack has played well vs Maine at home, even in the year Maine won
it all.  Last season, only a dominating performance by Kariya
apparently kept Merrimack from beating the Black Bears early on (I was
on my honeymoon and missed the series).
 
But overall, including these games, most of the first half consists of
games that the Warriors can win.  It isn't like years past when they
would draw Maine and BU back to back to open the season and start off
in the hole 0-4.  It was extremely devastating to the team's psyche
when this happened, especially since they have historically opened the
season with a strong showing out of conference (4-1 last year, 4-1-1
the year before).
 
>Merrimack has the talent to challenge for home-ice in the HE playoffs this
>year.  We all know it, it's just that Merrimack may not know it.  For a team
>that has been in the lower depths of the league for so long, they have to
>realize that they can win.
 
This is very true.  I am a strong believer in the fact that there are
teams who know how to win and expect to win, and there are teams who
need to learn how to win.  Merrimack currently belongs to the latter,
which is interesting because circa 1988 and the NC$$ tourney wins over
NU and LSSU, they were among the former.
 
Last year, Merrimack put itself in a position to challenge for home
ice with a 5 game win streak to start February, including road wins
over two teams that would receive NC$$ bids, UNH and NU.  In all five
of those games, Legault and the defense were masterful, and the team
allowed only 12 goals in that stretch.
 
Then they went down the tubes with 7 straight losses to close the
season, only scoring more than two goals twice - both at Maine.  But 6
of those 7 games were against NU, Maine and Lowell.  Combined, the
last 12 games showed both how far the team had come over the course of
the season and how far they still had to go.
 
There were high points.  One was the freshmen leading a near upset of
Maine on the road - but a 4-3 lead with five minutes left quickly
became a 6-4 loss when the Maine tradition and crowd support finally
kicked in, clearly intimidating the youngsters.  Another was bouncing
back from a Lowell pasting in the first game of the quarterfinals to
almost upset the Chiefs in the nationally televised game, with Roloson
barely winning the goaltenders' duel.  It was characteristic of
Legault to come right back from a bad outing by playing out of his
mind; the kid has more poise than you'd normally expect from a rookie
goalie who was the man from day one, and the team has confidence in him.
 
The inability to score goals at the end of the season is why I say
that this is a question mark that needs an answer for Merrimack to
improve.  Defense and goaltending were as good as almost any team in
DivI got over the last 19 games except for problems at BU, Maine and
Lowell.  But ironically, it was last year's seniors who struggled over
that stretch while the freshmen continued to get better.  Claudio Peca
(whose brother Mike was among the scoring leaders in the OHL and is
now with Vancouver) and Tom Johnson both finished in double digits in
goals, and Daryl Krauss and Rob Beck played some of their best hockey
near the end but haven't yet gained the touch.
 
The end of season banquet left little doubt as to what the aspirations
are for this season's team.  The superb highlight tape by John
Savastano faded out with an on-screen quote from former HE
commissioner Lou Lamoriello:
 
"Playing in the Garden is the prize...
 Getting there is the challenge."
 
The goal this season is definitely to finally make it to the Garden
before the old building is gone.
 
>The only down side of this is that if they don't win a lot of their early
>games, they could be in for a loooonnngg season and in the hunt for a new
>coach.
 
Although, the league to me is so wide open that even a rough start can
be made up with a strong second half.  Much of the second half of the
HE schedule is winnable - including two games with rebuilding Lowell
and three with BC, whose number the Warriors have had lately.  Single
games with the predicted #2-4 teams are sprinkled throughout the
schedule and the big ones will be the three with BU.  What helps is
that there are only two sets of back-to-back games with top 4 teams.
You can drop a pair and come back with a couple of games against teams
that at this point don't appear to be of the same caliber.  That's
better than last season when 8 of the last 9 were against opponents
who were hunting for an NC$$ berth.
 
On the question of a new coach, I will note that from my point of
view, 1994-95 isn't even the season in which to watch Merrimack.
1995-96 is.  That's when the Fab Frosh will be in their third year,
and past experience has been that Merrimack players tend to really
blossom in that third season.  So while this season might produce
pleasant surprises, I'm really looking at the year after as the one
where they could be a team to watch.
 
I'll also throw in what I think is a very big intangible that should
weigh heavily on Merrimack's chances.  That is the promotion of former
Warrior star Andy Heinze to restricted earnings assistant coach.  Andy
is a fiery guy who despite his size, came to play every night and
accepted no less than 100% from his teammates as captain.  He bleeds
Merrimack blue and gold, and with him around the team all the time now
(last season he spent much of his time as volunteer JV coach), his
influence is sure to be a positive one, especially on the young
forwards.
 
>So #1, don't get too exited if Merrimack's record looks great by December, they
>are not going to be worthy of that top-10 status some of you will pick them at.
>But don't write them off either, especially if they start splitting a series
>or two with BU, NU, or Maine in January of February.
 
I couldn't have put it better myself, Tony.  Of course, I also think
anyone who picks them top 10 right now is a nut. :-)
 
>No matter what, Merrimack will be a *very* interesting team to watch this year.
 
And after five years of being on HOCKEY-L and enjoying seeing other HE
fans talk about the successes of their teams, heck, why shouldn't it
be my turn. :-)  We shall see...
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93
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