Where: Koeppel Center Hartford CT
When: 4 PM Saturday 3/8/14
Video/Audio: NSN NESCAC Championship Weekend Coverage
Previews: Bowdoin Video Preview Trinity Video Preview Trinity Preview
Regular Season Stats
Offense: 3.83 G/GM (2nd) Offense: 3.44 G/GM (2nd)
Defense: 2.83 G/GM (5th) Defense: 3.17 G/GM (6th)
Power Play: 21/100 - 21% (3rd) Power Play: 13/76 -17.1% (5th)
Penalty Kill: 82/97 - 84.5% (4th) Penalty Kill: 66/79 - 83.5% (5th)
Overall (Conference Rank) Conference Games (conf. rank)
Offense: 4.50 G/GM (1st) Offense: 4.28 G/GM (1st)
Defense: 2.50 G/GM (3rd) Defense: 2.50 G/GM (3rd)
Power Play: 39/130-30.0% (1st) Power Play: 23/89 -25.8% (1st)
Penalty Kill: 71/91 78% (8th) Penalty Kill: 50/64 78.1% (8th)
Power Play: 39/130-30.0% (1st) Power Play: 23/89 -25.8% (1st)
Penalty Kill: 71/91 78% (8th) Penalty Kill: 50/64 78.1% (8th)
The Lowdown
While the first semi is a battle of the two best defenses in the conference, this one is the battle of the two best offenses. The Bantams offense is particularly potent with the three top scorers (and four of the top six) in D-III, including the only 50 point scorers in the nation in Jackson Brewer (F, '15) and Mike Hawkrigg (F, '16). The two of them joined teammate Ryan Cole (F, '17), who also won NESCAC Rookie of The Year, to sweep the All-NESCAC forward lineup. Sean Orlando (F, '17) couldn't even crack the All-NESCAC teams with 39 points (21-18-39), a testament to how loaded the Bantams are this year in the offensive zone.
On the other end, the Polar Bears are led by 2nd team All-NESCAC senior Colin Downey (F/D, '14) who has netted a career high 37 points so far this year (21-16-37), good enough for seventh in the nation behind the four Bantams and two non-NESCAC players. The Polar Bears offense isn't as potent as last year's NESCAC championship team or Trinity, but they are not slouches, either. Injuries and inconsistent play have dampened a season that opened up with Bowdoin as the prohibitive favorite to win the 'Cac, but two wins this weekend and all of that is forgotten.
Trinity swept the season series this year with wins in Hartford and Brunswick. Historically, Bowdoin has beaten Trinity in five of the seven meetings between the two schools in the NESCAC playoffs. The teams last met in the postseason in the 2012 Quarterfinals with the second seed Polar Bears defeating the seventh seed Bantams, 2-1, in a game that featured current goalies Ben Coulthard (G, '14) of Trinity and Steve Messina (G, '14) of Bowdoin. That was Trinity coach Matt Greason's first year as Bantam bench boss. In just two years, Greason has taken his team from barely making the NESCAC playoffs to hosting the Championship for the first time since 2005. This will be the first Championship at the Koeppel Center as the Bantams played their home games at Kingswood-Oxford back in 2005.
Keys to the game
Goaltending *waits for you to finish rolling your eyes* will be a factor as it is in all playoff games and hockey games that are played on ice. Ben Coulthard (G, '14) may not be matching his 2012-13 First Team All-NESCAC season, but he is all by measures one of the best goalies in the NESCAC (3rd best GAA 2.25 and 2nd best Save %, .930 in the 'Cac). The offensive numbers put up this year by Trinity make it easy to forget that we entered this season thinking Trinity had a chance to contend for the NESCAC title thanks to superior goal-tending and defense.
On the other side, we don't know who will be in net. Come the end of the season, Terry Meagher's normal rotation of Steve Messina (G, '14) and Max Fenkell (G, '15) goes out the window. We saw Messina in the final two regular season games but Fenkell in the Quarterfinals. It will be interesting to see which way the leadership council and coaching staff lean for this game. Messina played in both regular season games against Trinity this year and gave up five goals in each game.
Slowing down Trinity's offense is an obvous key for Bowdoin, but especially stopping the Bantams nation best power play (31.16%). Bowdoin has the talent and experience to beat Trinity, but they need to limit mistakes like costly penalties and defensive zone breakdowns that have cost them games this year.
Players to watch (other than the goalies)
Jackson Brewer (F, '16) Selected as the NESCAC Player of the Year this week, Brewer doesn't light the lamp like others on the team, but he is the one setting them up with a D-III high 42 assists. For example, he had four assists in Trinity's overtime win in Brunswick on Valentine's Day.
John McGinnis (F, '15) While his teammates (Connor Quinn and Colin Downey) made the All-NESCAC second team, the junior from Cocoa, FL has had a solid thirty point season (8-22-30), giving him 85 points so far in his career and setting him up as the next likely member of the Polar Bears 100 point club.
There will be plenty of offensive fuel power in this game, so we present Metallica's "Fuel". Sorry, old school Metallica fans, the band did put out albums post 80s and they weren't all bad.
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