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Message: [QUOTE="DoctahLexus, post: 4575160, member: 6798"] Just going to add to this with some of the thoughts and stuff I wrote down on the offense and other areas while watching the full game yesterday. -We were allergic to possessing the ball on Saturday. Both in getting the ball to the offense and then often rushing a look or doing something dumb and immediately losing it when the offense did get the ball. Richiusa had three turnovers yesterday as others have mentioned. Maybe someone who knows more about how stats on face offs are kept can correct me, but I believe that means in effect the faceoff disparity was essentially 27 to 4 instead of 24 to 7, since we immediately lost the ball on three that we won. Just complete and total domination there. -Offense did not get a real quality settled set going until there was 6 minutes left in the first quarter. Would have had one earlier but Leo had a freshman moment trying to pass it to Spallina with Makar right on him. With an offense that is still lacking experience, that possession disparity is a recipe for feeling the heat and rushing things. -After the disaster start we actually did begin to generate some solid looks. The first quarter goal was a slightly unsettled situation but still a good cut and feed from Spallina and Leo. Spallina with about 4 mins left blew a quality scoring chance after he got the ball at x from Leo and beat a slightly hung up Makar around the left side of the goal, but he got to fancy with an unnecessary btb attempt. It was the right move on the one he scored later, but sometimes I just want to see him put it in his left and bury coming around GLE. Had plenty of room to do that there. He needs to learn when to keep it simple. You are from Long Island not Peterborough. Pretty sure our team btb success rate is like 1 for 28 this season. - They were sliding to Spallina in the 1st half but I think he only went at Makar maybe 3 or 4 times the whole game. One he held him behind GLE, but on three of those he got above GLE and they slid. One Dolan saved a shot from Simmons on the wing. One we did not do enough to get open on the back side. Thought it was interesting that they did not leave him on the island with Makar and felt the need to slide. That was certainly not the Vermont or UAlbany method. -One of our best offensive possessions was actually the one that ended with the loose ball goal that Hiltz had to make it 3-2 MD. Spallina gets to 5x5, they send a slide from behind him, but as we know Spallina has eyes in the back of his head and passes it to Hiltz up top once the slide sneaks towards his back. Hiltz immediately zips a pass in to an open Thomson on the doorstep (his man was sliding to Spallina) but he unfortunately doesnt handle properly. We get it back off the ground and then Simmons draws a lot of attention dodging on a short stick. His backdoor pass gets tipped but Hiltz still has time to grab it and score. -I liked that Hiltz didn't shy away from the Zappitello match up in the first half. Took him from up top and missed an alley shot wide left. Not the greatest angle on the shot, but with Hiltz's shooting ability even that is one you would rather not give up as a defense. Then he took him inside from GLE and could have either scored or drawn a push in the back penalty if not for a well timed check from Zap as he hung his stick. Hiltz also had a good skip pass in the second half when matched up against an lsm. Drew a slide and then hit Spallina down low but he couldn't finish. Good to see him showing some aggression on O. He is our best offensive weapon. -Could go on, but one bright spot is that there was a lot to like from all six of our starting middies (aside from a rough day for Thomson who had an LSM on him most of the game). We were finding success against their short sticks all day. Even a nice goal from cook against an LSM. Everyone in the top 6 registered a point. That is something that will hopefully improve going forward. Defenses will have to rotate to the mids or face consequences. MD was very slow to slide to mids, testing their ability as dodgers, and we made them pay multiple times. [/QUOTE]

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