I'd much rather play Siena...Bryant really tried to slow the game down.
Bryant has a great faceoff guy in Massa and a really good goalie, they rely heavily on those two guys to win games. I dont think they have the depth or really the offense to beat Syracuse especially if Daddio is even winning 35% of the draws. The one concern I would have about a matchup with Bryant would be if Massa gets in one of those grooves like last year when hes pretty much unstoppable and our O has just an awful game (unlikely but not impossible I guess) and Bryant is able to win the game like 7-6 or something like that.
Bryant's offense is better then last year and they have a few nice players including a guy who is a pure crease finisher like Maltz. But I just dont see the kind of offensive firepower needed to beat Syracuse. Desko will surely be in the officials ear about the timer on and the Syracuse offense is playing at a really high level right now.
For Bryant to be in this game in the last few minutes or even be leading the following would have to happen;
Massa gets in Daddio's head again and just has a monster game, maybe not 21 for 22 or whatever he was last time but lets say pretty close to that.
Bryant goalie would have to stand on his head, were talking at least 12+ saves and probably would need 15+ if I am being honest.
Bryant successfully scores at least 2 or 3 timer on goals right as the clock is about to expire after taking 3-4 minutes off the clock
Syracuse has a repeat of the stretch they had against ND in the 3rd quarter where bryant is somehow able to reel off 4 or 5 straight goals by playing make it take it with Massa.
Is all of that possible? I guess, they pretty much used that exact blueprint to beat Albany 12-11 this year. Syracuse is a better team then Albany and has a much better Defense and overall depth on offense. To me the key is to simply get any sort of decent lead and Syracuse should be able to use that to eventually pull away like they did against hobart. A team like Bryant isnt built to make a comeback against the team a caliber of Syracuse. If you force them to have to press out and play an uptempo style because there down they lose that slow down style and will start to make mistakes. Even last year they jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first quarter and endedup losing by 5 goals 12-7. I know this years Syracuse D isnt nearly as good as it was last year but with Mullins, Young, Firman, Jenkins, and Grimm its still an above average unit. As I pointed out above it would take a disasterous performance from Daddio and the Defense to lose.