The wheels have officially come off the UMass hockey season after last night’s horrid result at Agganis Arena. Although you would think the chief complaint following a 7-3 loss would be defensive play, that’s not the case as the offense looked completely disjointed and flat out confused. There was no sign of the smooth, high powered offense we saw at the beginning of the season.
Let’s look at some numbers. UMass managed just 23 shots in the game despite the fact that they had 12, yes twelve, power plays for a total of 18 minutes. They were on the extra man advantage for nearly an entire period. UMass attempted 55 shots total, of that only 23 ever made it on net as 16 were blocked and another 14 went wide. You’re not going to be successful when only 1 out of every 2 shots you take makes it to the goaltender.
The problem offensively seems to be that UMass suddenly only has a handful of scoring threats. Case in point in the last seven games dating back to Quinnipiac, while the team has gone 2-5-0, Casey Wellman, Will Ortiz and T.J. Syner have accounted for 80% of the total goals scored. In the prior 11 games those three players accounted for only 33% of the goals. Where have all the other scorers gone? The total team scoring has gone down an entire goal in that time from 3.9 to 2.9. Other players simply must step up or the offensive scheme must be adjusted to get these player better chances. The scoring load cannot be carried by only three players, other teams have to see threats from the others as well. UMass will have an entire week to try to turn things around and make the necessary adjustments to get things going again.
Fear The Triangle Player of the Game – T.J. Syner
Syner had a goal and overall played a pretty good all around game. He did a good job standing up against the bigger BU lineup.
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Brett Watson did not use the third game in five days excuse in the Republican’s recap.
In the USCHO game story Jack Parker complains about the officiating even though his team won by four goals.
Here’s the Globe’s recap of the game which reads pretty much like the Herald’s.
For those wanting to check out UMass’ next opponent UNH will be taking on Cornell at 3pm this afternoon on ESPNU.
Fear The Triangle - UMass Hockey Blog 
transrapide
/ January 3, 2010Thanks for the recap, Rocks. These types of games are why I enjoy looking at the standings in October rather than in February or March, when UMass begins its annual collapse. 😦
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rocks22
/ January 3, 2010To be fair, this one started in November. Still plenty of time to turn things around however. We’ll see if the coaches and players are up to the task.
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Mel
/ January 4, 2010Good wrapup. I disagree slightly with your assessment, however, as I don’t think the defense played all that well in this game. Definitely not as big a problem to fix as the offense, but it was not great.
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rocks22
/ January 4, 2010I didn’t say the defense played particularly well, but there’s only so much that can be done on that end when a team is unable to establish sustained pressure in the offensive zone. It’s a lot like football where even the best defense in the league will look bad if the other team constantly has possession of the ball.
UMass’ defense is what it is. Not the best in the league but they and Dainton play well enough to get the job done. The offense on the other hand is capable of playing much better given what we say in the first dozen games of the season.
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