Great win yesterday.
-- Second and third quarters were clean, and the team executed at an extremely high level. Just seemed to slowly and methodically suffocate Maryland over that time.
-- First quarter was less clean by ND, but Maryland's goalie also made a bunch of saves in the quarter -- several of which were point blank -- which made the 2-2 score look closer than it was.
-- Fourth quarter wasn't great. Definitely felt like the Irish took their foot off the gas and lost some concentration which allowed Maryland to (almost) feel like they had a chance to climb back into the game.
-- Especially seemed to lose focus in the clearing game. When MD went to a 10-man ride starting late in the 3rd quarter, we seemed to panic a little bit and took a couple of shots from 3/4 the length of the field at the open net... which is fun if you score, but they didn't, and it felt like an unnecessary risk and waste of possessions.
-- Also had a sloppy turnover on EMO late in the game.
-- Spanos not playing for MD yesterday certainly hurt them, but ND was clearly the better team, and even if he had played, I doubt it would've changed the outcome of the game.
-- Hadn't noticed it until irishdoc01 pointed out that Maheras didn't return after the first quarter hit he took (which absolutely should've been a penalty). Hopefully he's ok for next week's game. But Lally must have slid in as the 3rd midfielder on the first line after that? Depth on this team is outstanding.
We're now over 1/3 through the season, and it's clear this team has a ton of potential. Generally they're playing well, but there's still absolutely room for improvement.
-- Offense has been great, especially given all the question marks at attack coming into the season. The team is near the top of NCAA in a number of statistical categories, including goals p/g, assist p/g, and goals: assist ratio. I love how unselfish the team plays; there are sometimes when they're making one too many passes (looking at you Matt Jeffery), but can't complain too much. It's really fun to watch.
-- Percentage of shots on goal seems significantly improved vs. last year. Love to see it, and that'll be important next week vs. Ohio St's VERY good goalie. (What's the o/u on how many times the announcers will refer to him as "Big Tasty"?)
-- Behrman is now leading the team in points (16); Yago and Miller are both at 14 with Lally just behind them at 13. Balanced scoring at attack is a testament to their unselfish play and is fantastic. Yago was quiet yesterday. I'm assuming MD tried to take him out of the game -- and Behrman and Miller stepped up with 6 and 5 points, respectively. Awesome.
-- Defense has largely been excellent as well -- as expected. Not only have the starters been solid, but we're seeing depth emerge with Iuliano getting meaningful minutes (think he was playing LSDM yesterday?).
-- MD had trouble getting shots on cage, which was at least partially due to the excellent defensive play. They really struggled to create anything offensively and didn't get many easy chances.
Biggest areas of concern:
-- Faceoffs. Not great yesterday, to say the least. Seemed like a lot of faceoff violations too. To be fair, MD had the top-FOGO transfer from Vermont (won 70% of faceoffs last year), and ADM is still a true freshman -- plenty of opportunity to improve -- but 8/26 is bad (2/9 for ADM, 6/14 for Spano). Hopefully next week will be better, but statistically Ohio State seems to have a good FOGO too.
-- Man-down defense... quietly has been downright bad so far. Still a relatively small sample size, but we've given up 5 goals on 7 man-down opportunities (and Maryland's goal yesterday on its lone opportunity was way too easy).
-- Not quite as concerned, but still worth keeping an eye on: Ricciardelli is off to a bit of a slow start with a save percentage of 47.5% (~10% lower than last year). If this team is going to go far, we'll need him to be better...
Let's keep this momentum going next week in Columbus!!! (And wow... with Richmond beating Cornell and playing really well, our last 4 games are looking tougher and tougher.)