At 6:10 PM -0500 12/4/96, Paul Gentile wrote:
> Merrimack - C minus
>  I was dying to give this team a better grade. But .... 3-8-1 ... outscored
>  38-54      You can't even point to one-goal losses any more.
>  What's wrong with this squad? Do they only get up for big games? This
>  is a real good team who could clearly contend if they had it all together.
>  They have good-to-great talent at all positions. But, it seems to be easy
>  enough to take them out of a game completely. What was once a
>  promising NCAA's-potential season is now all but history.
 
I sure wouldn't say their season is history.  They're still in the thick of
things in HE - sixth place but only four points out of third.  On the other
hand, they are only two points out of last.  A lot of teams have yet to
establish themselves yet.  Other than UNH and BU 1-2, the rest of the
league is wide open.
 
Telling stat: each of the last six losses, Merrimack has allowed five or
more goals.  They're 3-2-1 when allowing fewer than five, and both losses
came in the opening series with Providence.
 
Primarily because of Stringer and Porter, the offense has done its job many
nights.  But there are a lot of players who are struggling offensively.
Past history has shown Merrimack to start slow and pick it up in the second
half.  If they do pick it up soon and those key players start scoring,
things could be different.
 
But the biggest problem has probably been defense.  At least as long as the
offense is struggling, and probably the whole season, they've got to play
better team defense every night out.  They won't win many games allowing
five goals a night.  The times they have looked good, i.e. tie with BU,
wins over Union, Lowell and UMass, etc., the defense has played very well.
Part of the reason for this may be that they're playing so many younger
defensemen who have not been very consistent.  But knowing that, the
forwards need to do a better job of picking up their man through the
neutral zone and eliminating those odd man rushes.  They have not done that
consistently yet.  Better play by the forwards without the puck would help.
And those younger players should continue to come along and progress well.
I've liked what I have seen from most of them.  They're just being depended
on for too much right now.
 
This weekend's series vs UNH will tell us a lot.  They usually do get up
for big games like this.  If they are able to play the way they did in the
tie against BU, they have a real chance at getting some points.  That would
put them in decent shape heading into the second half.
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                [log in to unmask]               *HMM* 11/13/93
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