What The Hell is Up With Merrimack's Defense?

Warriors Want to Be Killing Penalties for 60 Minutes

For the greater part of last night's opening round game, Merrimack set up on defense with just four skaters inside their own zone.  The fifth skater, a forward, would instead zig-zag through the neutral zone, hoping to receive a quick outlet pass and create an odd-man rush the other way.

While the cherry picking forward could cause a team headaches if his defenders were finding a way to get him the puck, that didn't seem to be the case last night.  When Merrimack gained possession in their own end, one of the two BU defenders would skate back to center ice and prevent the odd-man from starting a rush.

Mack's Mark Dennehy Thinks He Is Smarter Than Every Other Coach Ever

After the game, Jack Parker talked about the odd strategy with Scott Wieghart of USCHO. “I’ve seen two or three coaches who have really enjoyed using it and do it a lot,” Parker said. “It’s a game of 4-on-4 in their zone, and when you get possession it’s 5-on-4 — we had a couple of power plays going for a while — but you’d better be careful because if you let it go. … In general, we did a good job of going in and then coming out again when we realized there was imminent danger."

While the cherry picking strategy didn't particularly help Merrimack's offensive efforts, it didn't really hurt them either.  Despite spending the majority of the game on a makeshift power play, none of BU's goals came thanks to the man advantage in the offensive zone.

Mark Dennehy refused to comment on his odd strategy.


(Dennehy is asked about the strategy at the 1:45 Mark)
(Video courtesy of The Boston Hockey Blog)

Parker says other coaches use this crap, but I call shenanigans.  Even back to your earliest days playing sports, you don't pull this type of nonsense.  If kids played the role of cherry picker out in the school yard, you just wanted to beat the hell out them for being cheap.  Granted, this isn't recess, so instead of worrying about whether it's a cheap way to gain an advantage or not, you simply have to make them pay.

If Dennehy tries to steal a goal with his Permanent Penalty Kill strategy, the BU offense simply has to force the issue and burry a goal or two.  Make Dennehy stop doing it, because eventually, Merrimack is going to get a breakaway out of this nonsense.

The goal is to take Dennehy's silly little strategy, and knock it on its ass.  Because to be honest, I'm already tired of watching one clown in Blue and Gold just coast around the neutral zone waiting for a pass.