Thursday, September 14, 2006

Guest Post: In the Crease…

In the blog's first guest post, defkit discusses the Terrier goaltending situation and the dilemma of finding opportunities for backups to gain experience when league wins remain so critical.

It will be interesting to see how Parker approaches the goaltending this year. John Curry comes in as the clear #1, fresh off a First-Team All-HE, Second-Team All-American season. Karson “Dizzy” Gillespie only saw 4 games last year – two strong performances (including a shutout of defending champ Denver) and two weak showings (the latter of which he was pulled in, effectively ending his season). Finally, Brett Bennett comes in with a strong reputation, but he only played a third of a season in Ann Arbor after recovering from a shoulder injury.

Other than the first three games of the 04-05 season, Parker has had no rotation to speak of since Sean Fields was a sophomore. Will Bennett be good enough to force some early playing time? Unfortunately for him, the first real game is on the road, followed by eight straight league games. Not exactly a recipe for some early PT for either BB or KG.

Given how much we relied on great play down the stretch, I think Parker is going to want to get off to a good start this season and I don’t think he’s going to be willing to give up a game here or there just to give the other guys some PT. Each goalie likely will play one period against New Brunswick. Then Curry will play at least 9 of the next 10 games, through the Harvard game. The possible exception would be the Oct. 21 away game vs. Merrimack. The late December home game against Yale is the next likely spot to give someone else a shot. Who will get the chance? That all depends on how well BB performs in practice. Nobody is expecting him to perform the way our last USNTDP goalie did…

No comments:

Site Meter