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Message: [QUOTE="SUlax88-09, post: 5336303, member: 9879"] Great evaluation of the game. I agree with all of your points. My first impressions of this year’s team: Solid defense and solid goalie. Those are the two most important parts of any final four team. Unfortunately, we also had both of them last year, too, and then we still lost to Denver because our offense was inept and couldn’t dodge against a good defense. Unfortunately, this year’s offense looks similar to last year’s team, so we may have the same result (I understand we scored a bunch of goals today, but let’s see how many goals we can score against a good defense). I still worry about our SSDMs besides Rice and that our attackmen cannot dodge (when going up against a good defense). I would actually play Leo and Anderson on Attack because they will both be able to dodge and draw a slide (which triggers Gait’s passing attack) and I would put Hiltz on Attack as the finisher. Having all ‘finishers’ and no dodgers at Attack got exposed last year and it will again this year. Hiltz is just a better version of Spallina (both are good finishers that have good vision, but they cannot dodge), so having both of them out there will hurt us. There’s a reason why Spallina wasn’t even selected to the All ACC team last year, and that included 8 attackmen! He scores a lot of unassisted points against inferior opponents, but struggles against good defenders because of his lack of speed. I think our offense is best when we have 2 Attackmen that can dodge and draw a slide and then have 1 finisher (instead of again having 3 finishers). I would put Finn back to Middie with Rhoa and Birtwistle. English will be too tired from face-offs and man-down to be relied upon to give us much on offense. I would also stop the Junkyard Man-down team. Even if they prevent a man-down goal, then we’re at such a disadvantage when we’re at even strength because our best defenders aren’t on the field. Hopefully the coaches get us ready and get our best players on the field because this is the year to try to grab a chip. Last year’s ND team was an all time great team and some other teams had a few all time great players, so we had no chance of winning it all last year. There will be more parity this year, so we could have a chance! [/QUOTE]

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