It's kinda hard to put into words exactly what happened last night. Maine
definatly had more talent, but UNO was more physical, G Jason Mitchell
stopped Kariya dead on 3 breakaways (he gave up a meaningless one late in
the 3rd on Kariya's 4th breakaway), but let in some soft goals as well, UNO
had the momentum after getting the crowd back in it with their first goal to
cut the lead in half, then lost it when they couldn't clear the puck and
Maine got 3 unanswered goals.
 
I was surprised the penalties/powerplays were as close as they were,
especially after the end of hte first/start of the second disaster for UNO.
Reynolds got a penalty for hitting after hte whistle at the end of the
first, then someone else got one with about 30 seconds left on Reynolds
first, then reynolds goes back in with a minute left on the 2nd penalty(on a
questionable roughing call, we'd been hitting harder than that all night,
only differece in this one was 2 guys hit the one Maine player instead of
just 1), and Maine still didn't score on the power play.
 
The big difference tonight was finishing the plays...Maine capitalized, UNO
did not. UNO had about 4 or 5 pucks sitting in front of the net ready to be
knocked in and they went high, wide, or whiffed. On one 2 on 2 rush UNO
looked like Maine except they didn't score, I think it went pass, pass, drop
pass, pass to the other guy wide open in front of net, shot missed high. It
was about the sweetest play I've seen UNO make to date, including some of
Tortorella's last year, yet they couldn't capitalize.
 
Mitchell did a good job, the defense broke down in front of him many times,
especially late in the game. He made some great breakawya saves, but he got
burnt 2 times early on the high glove side, and gave up a lot of second
chances. It almost seemed like he made the easy saves and the hard saves,
but he couldn't make the average saves.
 
Oh well, same 2 teams tonight. Hopefully UNO will play 60:00 of hockey with
Maine tonight, as opposed to just 30:00. Especially if we wore em down at
all with some of the big hits last night (Hope that Maine guy who got the
concussion early in the first is doing better, it appeared he got knocked
cold on a clean hit in center ice.)
 
Ben F.
U!N!O! U!N!O!
 
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