DURHAM, N.H. — Mark Dennehy sent a message, and his team responded.
Let’s face it, scratching J.C. Robitaille, Francois Ouimet, and Joe Cucci (along with Grant Farrell) was a bold move. Especially considering Farrell and Ouimet especially, are very good skaters and the Warriors were heading to the Olympic sheet at the Whittemore Center.
It’s safe to say the message was sent.
The Warriors outworked UNH, won one-on-one battles, and in the end, it won them a hockey game and two points in Hockey East.
The effort was a 180-degree reversal of Tuesday’s lackluster effort against the River Hawks.
Let’s breakdown the goals:
1) A nice play by Bobby Kramer to tap in a loose puck, but Karl Stollery created this goal. Stollery had a UNH winger in his face but instead of firing a puck into his shins, he simply rolled to his right and fired a puck on a screened Brian Foster.
2) Elliott Sheen collects his first collegiate goal by going to the net — a theme the Warriors nearly perfected against the Wildcats. Puck was being banged around in front and Sheen went to the net and was there to pound in a loose puck.
3) Rob Ricci scores his fourth of the year (all 4 goals in HE play) again by going to the net.
4) Jesse Todd goes to the net (recognize the theme?) and taps in a tremendous feed by John Jamieson. Off a broken UNH play in the neutral zone, Jamieson picked up the puck from Pat Kimball and crossed the blue line. Instead of firing a shot from the circle, he held up and slid a pass to a streaking Todd, who barely had to take a shot, as he just let the puck tap his stick and slip past Foster for the lead, and the win.
* Joe Cannata was tremendous in net. I’d have a hard time blaming the goaltender for any of the three goals. … The first goal, scored 5-on-3, was going a foot wide to the left before it hit a Merrimack defender in front and got past Cannata. … The second goal came off a UNH 2-on-1 after a turnover in the neutral zone (one of the few mistakes the Warriors made). Stollery was back alone and had a hard time defending James van Riemsdyk and Steve Moses, who flew in alone. That goal was faulted on the turnover. … Finally, the third goal came off a Bobby Butler breakaway after a Merrimack defender fell trying to go from skating backwards to forward at the blue line.
Not to mention the stops that Cannata made that kept the game tied (at times), and helped the Warriors keep the lead (at other times). Cannata has now made six starts, and has just one loss. That says a lot.
* The question now becomes what to do with the healthy scratches from Saturday night heading into next Sunday’s match with Maine at Lawler Arena.
* Elliott Sheen easily had his best game as a Warrior. It’s not ironic that it the speedy winger performed well on the big sheet at UNH.
* Rob Ricci is starting to look like the old Rob Ricci again. … After having the hand surgery and not being able to do any real activity for a month, I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t getting the strength back in his wrists until now. Ricci’s improvement on faceoffs has been steady the past few games.
* The officials did a great job letting the teams play. They made the calls they had to, but for the most part, the teams were allowed to just play hockey. There were only five penalties called combined for the two teams.
MARK DENNEHY – MERRIMACK HEAD COACH
General comment …
“I thought our guys were resilient tonight. Whittemore is a tough place to play, and even though their students weren’t here it’s still the first time for six of our guys playing here. Those guys played some pretty significant minutes and I thought that they handled the flow of the game pretty well.
“This game is pretty easy when you’re scoring some goals. We have had some struggles offensively. Tonight, we did a great job of getting to Grade A and getting to the net for second chances; working for second chances. Ricci’s goal was evidence of that. It’s a tough place to play, but we’ve played well for large parts of this season and haven’t gotten points, so it’s nice for these guys to come here and get rewarded with two really hard-fought points.”
Can you talk about the decision to scratch the guys you did?
“One of the things I’m enjoying about this year is that we have depth that we haven’t had since I’ve been here. All of the guys in our locker room believe that at some point they’re going to be called upon to contribute. I’ve been told that there’s one sign in the (New England) Patriots’ locker room, and it say, ‘Do your Job.’ It doesn’t matter whose number gets called, but you do your job. There were some different numbers called tonight than had been called, and those guys did their job.”
This program hasn’t had a lot of success against UNH. What’s the feeling when you battle hard all game but then go down 3-2 in the third period?
“We’ve been down a few times this year and battled back. We were down two goals to Boston College and battle back for a tie. That was the first sign that we have a belief system starting to take place. You can change players in a program, but the hardest thing to change is the culture. Those losses can wear people down. By bringing in new bodies you get some new life, but that quickly loses some steam if you don’t have success. So wins like tonight, ties like the BC tie, you put those in your memory bank and you can call on them later down the road. So, it is a big win for our program and a big win for our guys, and they earned it.”
How about the fact that you get a great performance from your freshman goalie, and who have two freshman who score big goals, and they don’t know about the history of the series between UNH and Merrimack?
“The guys we have now, we’ve made an effort to get guys from successful programs. Jesse Todd has been in big games before. He was Joe Colborne’s (Boston Bruins first-round pick, Denver freshman) linemate last season and they went all the way to the Royal Bank Cup Final. This is just another building to him. If you’ve ever been to Grand Prairie, Alberta – the playoffs up there aren’t much different than this place, although the building is nicer here, the atmosphere is the same. Then you have Joe Cannata from the national program and he’s been in big games, international competitions. You go to places like that and find players and they won’t be fazed by the situation.”
Was this the most successful night of the year in terms of creating chances?
“I don’t know if it was the most successful. The rink lends itself to that sometimes because if you get on the offensive side of a guy you have all sorts of room. I find that our players have played well here in the past because you have a second or two and you’re not as rushed. You’ve got more time here. I haven’t played at Agganis but I remember playing at BU (Walter Brown Arena) and you’d look up and all you would see is red because you have no time. You have more time here.”
What was the mood on the bench after you fell behind 3-2 in the third period?
“We weren’t happy, but we had guys banging sticks wanting to get the next one. At the end of the day it’s about getting a good effort and outworking the opponent. For stretches of this game we did. They had reason to be positive.
Not to go backwards but how important was it to respond after Tuesday night?
“The prerequisite for our team is to play hard. If we outwork our opponent then we will have some success because we have some players. But that’s a prerequisite. Tuesday’s game was a winnable game, it was 1-1 in the third, what had me so upset is that we were sleepwalking. And that’s all I’ll say because I promised the team I wouldn’t say anymore about Tuesday.”
JESSE TODD – MERRIMACK FRESHMAN FORWARD
Can you take us through your goal?
“It started at the defensive end. Kimball got the puck on the boards. I just went hard to the net and I guess Kimball made a nice drop back to Johnny (Jamieson) and Johnny told me that he saw me the whole time. He made a great pass and it just hit my stick. I really didn’t even have to shoot it, so it was a nice gift from Johnny.”
What do you know about this series, and how Merrimack hasn’t really been successful against these guys in the past?
“I don’t know too much about it. Coming in here we just wanted to come out hard. We haven’t had too many wins recently and we didn’t play well against Lowell so we wanted to get going. We wanted to come out hard and work hard and hopefully get the bounces, and it worked.”
Coach talked about how in juniors you played in big games and that can get a player ready for a game like this.
“Oh yeah. We won two championships there. So he prepared me well, put me in pressure situations in the last minute when we needed to block shots to save a win or when we were down and needed a goal. He put me out there and had a lot of faith in me and that helped me develop and get to this level.”
Can you describe the mood on the bench after they went up 3-2?
“No one had their heads down. Coach told us right away to get back at it because we were still in this game and that they were holding on. He just said to get at it. Then Reech gets the goal off a nice cycle play with Barts. Right there we knew we were back in the game and we could win it.”
The last minute of the game, UNH was applying pressure, what’s the mood on the bench at that point, what are you talking about?
“Just block shots, clog up the middle. Any shot that was taken, block it so Joey didn’t have to make anymore phenomenal saves like he did; he played really well for us. Just block shots, get the puck out, and that’s it.
Was that part of the gameplan coming in – block shots?
“That’s part of our gameplan every night. Block as many shots as you can and take as many as you can.”
Have you played in a rink this size before, the Olympic sheet?
“I have. Back in midget my home rink was this size. I was used to it, but you have a lot more time. It’s so much bigger, you still have to think fast, but you have so much more time because there is just some less pressure. It’s less physical, not as much hitting, and a lot more skating.”
DICK UMILE – UNH HEAD COACH
General comment …
“We didn’t defend very well. We didn’t win one-on-one battles in front of our own net. That doesn’t take anything away from Merrimack, they won the battles, played well in transition. But, this isn’t the way we play hockey here at UNH.”
KEVIN KAPSTAD – UNH SENIOR DEFENSEMAN
On the game …
“It’s a joke. It’s a lack of team defense and team intensity at the end of the game. It’s like we sat back and thought the game was over.”
Mike McMahon