Providence beat New Hampshire 3-2 in overtime tonight at BC's Conte Forum.
UNH waited until late in the second period to start playing with any
intensity at all, trailing 1-0 after two periods courtesy of a Chad Quenville
goal.  Co-captains Eric Flinton and Kent Schmidtke gave UNH a 2-1 lead early
in the third period, then George Breen tied it with about six minutes left in
regulation.
 
About 2.5 minutes into overtime, an intentional offsides call on UNH put the
faceoff in the Wildcat zone.  PC won the faceoff back to the left point,
where a weak, bouncing shot appeared to deflect off of at least one player
before beating Trent Cavicchi.  (I never heard who was credited with the
goal).
 
Basically, New Hampshire did not deserve to win this game.  They played with
very little intensity for the first 30-35 minutes, then found that PC
goaltender Bell was up for the game.  Frankly, both of UNH's goals were
flukes, and Bell could have easily had a shutout.  I also believe that UNH
coach Dick Umile should have had his players pay much, much closer attention
to PC's top line of Kramer-Quenville-Breen.  This is the *only* PC line that
can hurt you, and they did.  Umile did absolutely no line matching, and it
didn't appear that any of his players made any extra effort to defend against
this high-powered threesome.
 
PC goes on to the Garden next week, while UNH waits to see if and where they
will play in two weeks.  It would seem they are still a virtual lock for the
tournament, and knowing the NC$$ the way we all do, I expect they will play
at Worcester so UNH's sizeable traveling contingent won't have far to go.
The prospect of two weeks off does not bode well, however.  The last time
this happened, in 1992, all six Eastern teams (including UNH) lost their
opening game after having two weeks off between the conference tournament and
the NCAA regionals.
 
Chris Craig
Go Blue!