Hi everybody!

I'll start with this picture.

I don't typically take out my iPhone in bathrooms, but hey.

That reads, in case you can't see, "Shea Hillenbrand once stole a laptop from Snell Library." This is probably the strangest thing ever written on the wall at Conor Larkin's pub on Northeastern's campus. Although I doubt the veracity of this particular claim, there is no doubt that Hillenbrand stole millions from the Angels in 2006.

Second,

Northeastern 5, University of Massachusetts - Lowell 6 (OT)
Northeastern 1, University of Massachusetts 4

Northeastern used to be a fun team. I'm not talking about last year, when they were actually good, but the three years before that, when the team was mediocre to godawful. The games were usually pretty close, but the physicality and passion sometimes made up for the losing. The real fights at the end of games, the running of goalies, the jawing at opposing coaches...those were the things that the Huskies were good at, even as they were losing hockey games.

That's gone. It's been replaced with boring, predictable hockey and a complete lack of team cohesion. I don't place much stock in "leadership," because winning teams never have leadership problems despite (sometimes) obviously poor leadership. Intangibles are intangible because they have negligible impact as compared to injuries or player skill, so blaming a collapse on lack of leadership or lack of identity or any of that crap is poor analysis.

Teams lose because of poor execution. Whether that manifests as awful passing, stupid penalties, fanned shots, or a combination of the above and more, is irrelevant. Northeastern is not executing their game plan, and they are losing to good and bad opponents alike.

The game against UML was nearly an inspiring win, with the Huskies coming from three down to tie the game at 5-5 and send it into overtime. But a goal from former Husky recruit Mike Scheu iced the game for the Riverhawks with just over 25 seconds remaining. Chris Rawlings looked awful, but wasn't helped by a porous defense and a steady stream of turnovers directly in front of him. The team played poorly, but at least they showed up.

Tonight, of course, was a different story. With former Kings coach and current ESPN hockey analyst Barry Melrose* doing the color for ESPNU, the Huskies decided that they weren't even going to bother playing hockey. Let's look at shot totals:

1st period: 3
2nd period: 4
3rd period: 6
Number of players with more than one shot: 1 (Vermeersch, 3)
Number of forwards with zero shots: 4 (J. Daniels, D. Daniels, Costa, Tuckerman)

A game total of 13 shots means something has gone hideously wrong. I've been relatively easy on Cronin after his yearly improvements from my freshman year 3-win season, but if there's one thing to point to as a fault, it's his lack of ability to properly generate offense. He has admitted to being, primarily, a defensive coach, but shot totals of 13 reinforce the need to come up with a consistent offensive strategy. Every power play results in the loss of the puck before a shot, forwards routinely carry the puck into the zone only to pass it to an opponent behind the net, and Northeastern seems incapable of running the same backdoor play which so frequently nets goals for the opposition.

Something has to change.

*A Doghouse member shouted "Hey Barry, see you never!" at the end of the game. That game must have been torturous for his mullet.

Melrose (R) thinks to himself, "There is no god-damned way I do another Northeastern game."

Kings win in OT, Huskies play tonight

Kings 3, Boston 2 (OT)

Mark managed to get his hands on some unbelievably nice tickets to last night's Kings/Bruins game. I've never sat in anything resembling a nice seat for hockey before, particularly at the Garden, where student section seats for the Beanpot or Hockey East playoffs are typically near the higher parts of the uppermost bowl. This was a bit of a shocking experience, frankly, as we had someone bringing us beer and food. Before the game, we wandered around the lower level and looked at decades of sports memorabilia, including Jim Craig's mask from the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, and other trivialities like the Beanpot trophy. We did attempt to steal the Beanpot and return it to Huntington Avenue, but it seems as though that's something the team will have to do itself. I snapped a couple pictures but I've gotta pull them off my camera first.

The Kings actually looked pretty good the whole game. Their penalty kill, in particular, looked great, never really letting Boston settle into their offense and running a few shorthanded plays. They controlled play pretty much the whole game, but found themselves in a 2-0 hole entering the third, victim of Tim Thomas' multiple stomach saves. How that man puts up the numbers he does with his awful form is completely beyond me.

Halfway through the third, amidst the jeers of the Boston "faithful," Handzus whacked home the rebound of a Simmonds shot to cut the deficit to 1. At this point, the idiots sitting to my right were all over me, yelling "Kings suck!" and "you suck!" and a bunch of other things I'd be reluctant to say were my team holding the slimmest of leads over a clearly inferior opponent. The Kings would get a goal with just over 90 seconds left, prompting yet more criticism and my acceptance of an assist on the play. Boston fans are such idiots.

Overtime was, again, completely controlled by the Kings, who managed to get a goal from Dustin Brown to a chorus of boos. Even after a win, I amazingly found myself getting heckled to chants of "playoff hockey" in North Station, to which I responded "What does first-round playoff loss mean to you?" Ouch. Here's the highlights.

We did, though, sit next to two guys from Scandinavia, one Swedish and one Finnish, both of whom had travelled to the States for the weekend to see 3 NHL games before flying back. Impressive, and much more knowledgeable about the game than 90% of the people in that arena.

I forgot about the Manchester Monarchs, the Kings AHL affiliate in New Hampshire, so there was a surprising contingent of Kings fans at the Garden. It's weird how people from New Hampshire become Kings fans because they grow accustomed to seeing the players while they're still in the minors. Teddy Purcell, Erik Ersberg, Jon Quick, and several others all had substantial representation in the crowd.


Northeastern vs. UMass Lowell (5:00 PM ET, TD Banknorth Garden)

My goal for this season was making the Garden for the playoffs, but being in first place until the last day of the season has a way of changing expectations.

I am nowhere near as optimistic about this game as everyone else is. It's hard to beat a team in this league 4 times in a season, and Lowell just beat Vermont at the Gutterson Fieldhouse in two games. I've said it before and I'll say it again: This is not your freshman year's Lowell.

The Huskies win this game if they stay out of the box and generate early offense. If they're down a goal in the third, I'm not particularly confident, just because they've had a tough time scoring goals lately. I may be liveblogging this evening.

Should the Huskies win, they'll play the winner of the 8:00 matchup between BU and BC...in other words, they'll be playing BU.


NCAA Tournament Bullets:

• Clemson, Butler, Cal, Illinois, and VCU: Good for one thing. Ruining my bracket. Every year, I've chosen Clemson to do something, and every year, they screw me. Rooting against UCLA was weird and uncomfortable, but Maynor needs to hit that 7 foot jumper to end the game. Awful. Took them far too long to get down the court. Cal...might as well be Northeastern. Illinois...sucks. Butler routinely disappoints me.
  
• Anyone who missed the CSUN/Memphis game missed a really fun game. It was looking like the Matadors were going to pull off an historic upset, but you don't win if you don't play defense.
• I've got Connecticut winning the title over Duke 64-60, so yesterday's 103-47 win over Chattanooga (?) was promising.
  
• Villanova almost lost to American (?!), so I'm getting the feeling UCLA is going to continue to maul my bracket. Again. I had them winning it all last year.
  
• I am expecting Marquette to continue their uselessness in the tournament this year by losing to lowly Utah State later today.
  

Up by one with two remaining

Northeastern 3, UMass Lowell 0
Northeastern 3, UMass Lowell 1

UMass Lowell and Northeastern are both prime examples of the steady improvement present at the lower tier of Hockey East. Both teams ride generally strong goaltending behind good coaching and neither has made much of a splash in the standings for a few seasons now.

I say this because UML is not a joke this season. They are not the doormats of the league. They aren't the Riverhawks who provided me with my first collegiate win at Matthews (I missed the win over UMass earlier that season). This is a well-coached team that, until this weekend, was a contender for home-ice in a very strong Hockey East.

Northeastern played their best hockey of the season on Friday night. I missed the game to catch a flight to New Jersey, but the Huskies outshot the Riverhawks 9-2 in the first period, getting goals from Mike McLaughlin and Steve Silva in the opening frame. The Huskies haven't played very well in the first this season, so it was encouraging to see that kind of domination early on.

Oh yeah, NU has the best goalie in the nation. That helps. You should read his blog.

Northeastern!

Huskies 3, New Hampshire 2
Huskies 4, University of Massachusetts, Lowell 3

NU picked up a surprising 4 points this weekend, two of them during a game I attended at Matthews Arena. After the last NU-UNH game, Wildcat and NHL draft pick James van Riemsdyk earned the ire of the Doghouse with a post-game cross-check to the helmet of Greg Costa. THe fans would not forget.

From the outset, the game was physical, with both teams earning some post-whistle penalties. Under two minutes into the first, though, as Alex Tuckerman smacked a rebound off a Steve Silva shot from a Steve Qualier feed into the net past a sprawling New Hampshire goalie. Two Steves, one Alex, 1-0 Huskies.

The second period seemed to take at least an hour, with both teams getting called for a collective 14 penalties amounting to 44 minutes, with van Riemsdyk and Randy Guzior receiving 10 minute majors for their parts in a post-whistle scrum. Despite the myriad power plays, though, neither team was able to find the back of the net, with Brad Thiessen making 30 saves through the first two periods.

The third, however, was classic college hockey. Van Riemdsdyk, who had been hearing boos from the 4788 red-clad fans every time he touched the puck, managed to knock in an easy rebound to know the score at one. After his goal, he put his hand to his ear and skated around center ice, proving that class can, indeed, be spelled without "JVR."

About 7 minutes later, though, Ryan Ginand ($$$) scored an impossible goal, somehow wedging the puck between UNH goalie Brian Foster and the post, off the goalie's back, and into the net. I had no idea how it went in until I found an image here that shows the absolute nastiness that was Ginand's shot:

Yes, that's the pick about to sneak into a hole which no puck has any business getting through. That is fundamentally sound goaltending getting beaten on a split-second decision by a rapidly improving center. Foster has his skate against the pipe, after sliding across the crease, has his glove where it needs to be, sees the puck, and is pinching up to the post. Just an unbelievable goal. Former NU blogger and current NU student Steven Roth may have said it best:

"Ryan Ginand is disgusting. How he ever put that one past Foster is beyond me."

Wade MacLeod would score a crucial insurance goal with under three minutes left, an absolute beauty of a wrist shot that beat Foster top shelf stick-side. UNH pulled their goalie with about 1:30 left and got van Riemsdyk his second goal of the night, but it was too little, too late, even for a two-goal performance.

Northeastern-New Hampshire is quickly blossoming into Hockey East's best rivalry.

Saturday night against Lowell featured another defensive battle through two periods, but a Greg Costa hat-trick (!) along with a Ginand goal and pair of assists ($$) led to a hard-fought victory over much-improved UML. It's hard to say too much about Thiessen...his season has been absolutely incredible thus far.


Northeastern 61, Holy Cross 49

It seems pretty clear, at this point, that Jesus does not love Worcester. The Huskies opened up a quick 14-0 lead over the first seven minutes of play and rode 27 points from Matt Janning for a solid out-of-conference victory in their home-opener at the Arena Saturday Night. On a night where temperatures dipped into the 20's, Husky shooters stayed hot, with Janning hitting four of his five three pointers and Nkem Ojougboh shooting 5 of 6 from the field to go along with his three blocks.

This team is beginning to look an awful lot like a contender. The key is probably a combination of Manny Adako and Eugene Spates. Since the departure of Bobby Kelly, the Huskies haven't had a particularly reliable outside shooter, but if Spates can fill that void, it will lead to better penetration by Adako and more points in the paint.

High percentage shots. They're a good thing.


Patriots 48, Miami 28

Surprise. For the Patriots against Miami earlier this season, the surprise was the "Wildcat" offense. For the Dolphins against the Patriots today, the surprise was Matt Cassel. Matty C threw for over 400 yards for the second consecutive game, including three touchdowns to Randy "81" Moss. He also rushed for the first Pats touchdown, something to consider when Tom Brady returns next season. Tom Brady is not a mobile quarterback. Cassel is. It's fun to watch.

Miami had temporarily forgotten it was rebuilding and sat in a second place tie with the Patriots for the AFC East at 6-4. With this loss, their playoff picture looks far more muddled, although their improvement from last season's 1-15 squad is remarkable.

Speaking of the AFC East, the Jets beat the formerly unbeaten Titans today, which is bad for the Patriots, but good for the world if it means Mercury Morris can crawl back into his hole for another year. I've discussed how horrendously overrated the 1972 Dolphins were/are, and the fact that this asshole still gets national TV time is downright criminal.

Anyways, Cassel's good season means he's probably a Lion next year, as the Patriots don't have the cap space to pay him what he deserves. From a small weightlifting plaque in Heritage Hall to a starting roster in the NFL, you've gotta respect the kid.


Wildabeasts 1, Other Team 2

And so my broomball season comes to a close, but not without another injury. My ankle got screwed up while trying to make an acrobatic save to keep the score 1-1. I had a two-on-none, made an initial save, then tried to dive across the crease to block the rebound shot. I managed to get the stick against the pipe and create a wall, but I was a couple inches too short as the shot sailed over the stick and into the net. Meanwhile, both players and one of my defensewomen plowed into me, an experience for which I now infinitely respect real goalies.

The first goal scored was much uglier, with a nice glove save turning into a stupid glove mistake, with the ball glancing off the top of the glove and rolling lazily into the net. It happens. Jeff had a nice goal at the other end, but without more offense our season was doomed to end anyways.

With about 45 seconds left, I was glove-less and at about half-ice trying to help out on offense when an opposing player got the ball and raced down the ice. I managed to get my body on the ball for a neat-looking but mostly lucky save while moving backwards towards the net.

I suspect next season will lead to the playoffs, as this team has the talent it needs to succeed. Three goals per game will probably leave us undefeated heading into the playoffs, and that seems like a distinct possibility considering our recent offensive prowess. For now, I'll ice my ankle.