Another Two Points

Results:
Dartmouth 4, Brown 2
Brown 5, Harvard 2

Video highlights and interviews of the Harvard game can be found on the Men's Ice Hockey page on Brown's athletic site. It is currently the second post. 

http://www.brownbears.com/sports/m-hockey/index

After earning two points up in the North Country last weekend, the Bears came home for one of their bigger homestands of the season- the annual grudge matches against Ivy rivals Dartmouth and Harvard. 

While the Dartmouth game went as most games between the two teams do (Dartmouth overcoming a strong Brown effort and winning by a comfortable margin due in significant part to the play of their goaltender), the Bears exploded on offense against Harvard on Saturday night. 

I was able to watch some of the Brown-Dartmouth game, but was preoccupied with other things and then the stream was messed up in the third period. But from what I saw, it was a typical Brown-Dartmouth game. Brown played pretty well and had some good opportunities. The Bears outshot the Big Green, 33-25, and flu-stricken Anthony Borelli relieved an ineffective Marco DeFilippo (who was battling a knee injury) after a first period in which he allowed a couple of soft goals. 

The first goal was scored when DeFilippo failed to control a rebound (surprise!), and Dartmouth's Tim O'Brien poked home a loose puck. After Matt Lorito answered for the Bears with just over two minutes left in the first period, Matt Lindbald capitalized on a botched power play setup and skated in on DeFilippo untouched. While it's not normal to blame a goalie for a breakaway, I think DeFilippo should have done better: Lindbald's move was not particularly challenging, and he simply slipped a pass through DeFilippo's five-hole and into the back of the net. 

Injuries. Again.

After a solid win over Clarkson at Cheel Arena Friday night, Brown had every chance to, and should have beaten St. Lawrence on Saturday evening. The Bears held a 2-1 lead in the third period, and coughed it up to a resilient Saints team for an eventual 3-2 loss. 

But the loss to the mediocre Saints was overshadowed  by a much more serious loss. Key defenseman Matt Wahl is out for 2-3 weeks now with a shoulder injury. That's especially devastating considering our next three weeks of opponents: 11th-ranked Dartmouth and Harvard, who just came back from a 5-2 deficit to beat ninth-ranked Boston University at Agganis Arena, come to Meehan this weekend. Both teams have beaten the Bears this season already. 

Brown will travel to 16th-ranked Cornell and 20th-ranked Colgate the next week, a place that has historically been fruitless for the Bears. As if that weren't bad enough, 4th-ranked Quinnipiac (yes, the team with the 16-game unbeaten streak. No, that is not a typo) comes to Providence the following weekend. And Princeton, who is no slouch, having garnered five votes in the most recent USCHO.com poll, will head to College Hill the following night. 

The North Country

Finally, ECAC conference play has returned for Brown! And the Bears appear to be getting healthier as they head north to face Clarkson and St. Lawrence. 

Joey De Concylis and Marco DeFilippo are expected to be available to play this weekend, which should serve as a huge relief to Brown fans who find themselves unable to trust the patchwork defense and previously untested Anthony Borelli in net. Though Borelli will start, it's nice to have a backup we can count on the step in and play solid in net in case he has a stinker of a game. 

But there's no reason to expect any sort of letdown this weekend. Clarkson and St. Lawrence are two teams who have not been playing well of late. The Bears have already tied both opponents at home this year. 

Clarkson has lost three in a row to Mercyhurst and UMass-Lowell, scoring just four goals in the process. Their only two wins in their past eight have come against St. Lawrence. 

...And we're back!

It's been over a month since I last posted, and for that, I apologize. Fortunately for me, I picked the winter break to take some time off from the blog, so I didn't miss too much. Let's have a quick recap of what happened since my last entry: 

#15 Yale 4, Brown 3

Brown jumped out to a 3-1 lead at Ingalls against a somewhat flat Eli squad, before taking a bunch of questionable, but also misguided penalties that should have been avoided. Yale took full advantage, scoring all four goals on the power play in a comeback win. A frustrating night for the Bears, to be sure. Victory was at hand, but they blew it. Despite outshooting the Bulldogs, 14-6, in the third period, Brown could not find an equalizer. 

Brown 3, #12 Union 3 (OT)

Chris Zaires got Brown started off right against the 12th-ranked Dutchmen, as his nifty tally about 12 minutes into the game rewarded the Bears for a hot start and gave them even more energy for the next several minutes...until, once again, they were undone by penalty troubles. Union's power play, at the time the best in the nation, scored twice in the first period: nine seconds and 13 seconds into each extra man opportunity. They added a third just a minute or two after their second power play goal. 

Anthony Borelli has been the biggest story for the Bears
lately, replacing the ineffective Marco DeFilippo and
posting an incredible .941 save percentage and 1.50
Goals Against Average. 

This prompted Brendan Whittet to pull goaltender Marco DeFilippo, who in truth probably should have stopped two of the goals, if not all three. Untested senior Anthony Borelli came in to relieve DeFilippo, which would turn out to be the most significant move the Bears have made all season. Borelli was flawless the rest of the way, though he wasn't tested too much as Brown pushed forward to claw its way back into the game. Matt Lorito scored on a power play one-timer in the second, and Massimo Lamacchia scored a thrilling tip-in goal with just over a minute to play. Neither team could find a winner in regulation or overtime, but Brown was more than pleased with the tie. It continues the recent success the Bears have had against the Dutchmen (5-1-4 dating back to 2006-07). 

Big Game Tonight

Let's hope to see a repeat of this. 

Disaster, Followed by Domination

Results:
Providence 7, Brown 0 (Mayor's Cup)
Brown 3, Holy Cross 2

What a crazy weekend at Meehan. After getting absolutely trampled in the third period against Providence, the Bears fought back from a two-goal deficit early on against Holy Cross and pulled out the win. 

Despite being outshot by just five (40-35), the Bears lost by a touchdown Saturday afternoon.  Brown looked shaky from the start, and Providence jumped out to an early lead on a goal from a mad scramble in front of Marco DeFilippo. Though Brown never seemed to be playing its best, it was still in the game in the middle of the second period, when a brawl broke out to the right of Providence's rookie goalie Jon Gillies. This was the breaking point for the Bears.

After receiving three roughing penalties on the play, including a ten-minute misconduct to Captain Dennis Robertson, Brown took a couple more trips to the sin bin due to some really undisciplined play. The Friars took full advantage, scoring two power play goals in the second period and never looking back. 

The Bears had three great opportunities early in the third period. A shot rang off the post as Gillies was caught out of his crease; a PC defenseman cleared a puck essentially off the goal line in the midst of a scrum in front of the net; and Gillies absolutely robbed Matt Lorito on a powerful one-timer. Had those three opportunities gone Brown's way, it could have been a tie game. 

Time to Earn Some Respect!

Nate Owen, in his weekly ECAC game picks over at USCHO.com, has picked Brown to lose to both Providence and Holy Cross this weekend. 

Week in and week out, forum members pick the Bears to consistently get swept in league play in the "ECAC Pick 'Em" weekly contest. 

Brown was picked last in every poll preceding the season, and the general prognosis is that there is no reason to think otherwise at this stage in the season. 

All of this had really ought to piss Brendan Whittet and his boys off. I mean really: Owen claims the Bears won't be able to defend against Holy Cross, but will be able to score easily? Come on! The strength of this team has been defense, while the offense has struggled most of the time. This ignorant "analysis" (and I'm not necessarily picking on Owen, here) shows that nobody even respects the Bears enough to do them the kindness of watching some highlights, or even checking statistics. 

And it's about time the team took notice of little things like that. It's about time they developed an overwhelming sense of pride for their team and channel it into the relentless energy that spurred the playoff runs from 2008-10.