What to Make of the Catamounts

Good, Bad and Ugly

It's not easy to figure out the Vermont Catamounts right now.   On the one hand, it would be easy to look at their second half and lump them into the group of teams sputtering and gasping for air as they come down the stretch.  They have been consistently inconsistent since the calendar turned to 2010,  recording a 5-5-4 mark in the new year.  Add to that the fact that that Catamounts outright dismissed their second leading scorer just over a week ago, citing his lack of effort.  This looks to be a team in a tailspin.

Justin Milo's Dismissal is the Latest Hurdle for the Cats

However, the other side of the argument forced you to put the Catamounts not to the statical analysis, but to the eye test.  Last weekend against a tough UNH team, a team that the Terriers cannot beat, the Catamounts stood up and gave the top team in the conference everything that they could handle two nights in a row.  Unfortunately for Vermont, their hard work yielded just one point, thanks to a tie Saturday night.

So now Vermont sits outside of the playoff picture, a beaten and nearly broken bunch of hockey players.  The Catamounts are looking up at a Merrimack team that looked to be dead in the water just a matter of weeks ago.

Care to add insult to injury?  Vermont has been so good outside of the brutal world of Hockey East play that they're still sitting in the #18 spot in the uscho.com national poll.  They went out and beat the likes of  Denver (#1 in the nation), Yale (#5 in the nation) and Minnesota Duluth (#10 in the nation) yet they stumbled against the likes of Mack and Maine.  Number nine in your own conference, but number eighteen in the entire nation.

But in the topsy turvy world of Hockey East, all of that can change in a heartbeat, or in a single weekend.  Their 6-1-0 non-conference record can't help them salvage their roller-coaster of a season now, but a big weekend against the Terriers certainly could.

Just three little points separate the Terriers and the Catamounts heading into this weekend, from fourth place and a home playoff game to ninth place and missing out on the postseason entirely.

But Vermont will not go quietly into the night.  They will not die without a fight.  For god's sake, even their mascot is named Rally!

Terriers fans can expect a whole bundle of rallying from a desperate Catamounts club this weekend.  Do not be fooled by the ugly second half or the sub-par Hockey East record.  Vermont is a formidable opponent, and they could very easily give BU fits this weekend.

BEWARE OF CATAMOUNTS!