Well you have to feel sorry for Niagara, once again they play a decent game that doesn’t really show on the scoreboard.  They certainly gave the Minutemen everything they had but in the end thanks to a couple of empty net goals at the end the Purple Eagles fall to UMass 4-1.  Niagara certainly dominated play early  and looked to be in control after the first.   UMass woke up a bit in the second able to get a goal from Mike Lecomte and then another from Danny Hobbs at the very end of the period that put the Eagles on their heels for the third.  At the end both Lecomte and David Boehm made some nice plays in open ice for a couple empty netters to put the game away.  Boehm’s goal was his first of his career.  Despite a year’s worth of lobbying by UMass fans to various announcers no one announced “Boehm goes the dynamite” when it was scored.  We’ll continue or effort for his second career goal.

UMass definitely struggled early and the entire offense seemed really thrown off by the absence of T.J. Syner and Rocco Carzo to injury.  It appears Carzo could be out for some time unfortunately.  Toot originally substituted Marc Concannon in for Syner on the first line but it was obvious from the start that it just wasn’t going to work.  But hats off to Toot who made a good in-game adjustment to put Danny Hobbs on the line instead.  He gave an interesting physical aspect to the line and played to his strength and planted himself in front of the goal and really change the aspect of UMass’ offense when that change was made.

As great as a three goal win is I’m still extremely worried about Sunday.  Part of it is what I wrote in my preview, the fact that the teams now have to travel, Niagara is getting a much deserved homecoming, and the odd start time.  But now we can add on yet another game in which Niagara played well enough to win, especially, defensively and yet came up short in the end.  This is going to be a frustrated, hungry team on Sunday.  Hopefully the Minutemen are ready to absorb whatever NU is going to throw at them.

Fear The Triangle Player Of The Game – Mike Lecomte
A very strong game from Lecomte returning to the lineup after injury.  Mike was able to convert a nice setup from Will Ortiz and Shawn Saunders for the game tying goal and then hustled his way to an empty netter later.  If there is a runner-up for this award it goes to Paul Dainton who kept the team in the game early with some amazing saves.  without him it easily could’ve been 3-0 Niagara after the 1st.

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Elsewhere tonight Northeastern was able to hold off BU 1-0 in the refurbrished Matthew Arena.  Elsewhere in Hockey East it was all sister-kissers as Lowell and UVM as well as BC and UNH all tied.  #1 Miami reinforced their top ranking by taking down Michigan by the score of 3-1 in Ann Arbor.