NCAAs a microcosm of UNH's season.

By Chris Maza
Fan Fanatic Sports Staff

(Note: This is the first of a three-part series analyzing the performances of all three Hockey East teams in their respective regionals in the NCAA tournament last weekend.)

In a lot of ways, New Hampshire's postseason experience summed up how the entire season had gone for the Wildcats.

In the Hockey East tournament quartefinals, the Wildcats came back from a 4-2 deficit to beat Vermont, 7-4, but then got shut out in back-to-back games and were bounced from the tournament, leaving their hopes of playing on the national stage squarely on the shoulders of others.

The pieces that needed to fall into place for the 'Cats did so and they made it into the tournament as a third seed in the East regional, which featured two upstate New York teams in RIT and Cornell.

In the first round, UNH played beautifully, out-shooting, out-skating and outplaying Cornell in a 6-2 upset victory. Hobey Baker top-10 finalist Bobby Butler was the catalyst with two goals and an assist, while the ever-underrated Paul Thompson scored twice, including the game-winner.

UNH dominated a very good Cornell defense and fired 36 shots on Ben Scrivens, who Barry Melrose spent most of the first period calling the best goalie in college hockey. Five of those shots got past Scrivens.After the Big Red opened the scoring with 48.8 seconds remaining after getting outplayed all period, UNH potted two goals on just six shots. The goals were on consecutive shots, actually, in the final minutes of the period.

Bobby Butler took advantage of a turnover in the Cornell zone and tied the game with a goal that actually went through the net. It took a stoppage and a review to decide it was a goal, reversing the initial call of no goal. Mike Sislo added another goal 26 seconds later on a nice feed from Greg Burke after Blake Kessel forced a turnover in the neutral zone. Those two goals gave UNH the momentum going into the third, leading to three more goals, including Thompson's game-winner less than three minutes into the third, UNH's third goal on seven shots since the start of the second.

But the next round against upstart RIT was a totally different story. While RIT had topped Denver, there still was a sense that UNH was a clear favorite in the conference. Instead, a day after playing possibly the best game of their season, the Wildcats gave away their season with the worst two minutes.

With the game tied, 1-1, UNH gave up three goals in 94 seconds. In an eerily similar way to how they beat Cornell, the Wildcats gave up goals just 13 seconds apart at 13:23 and 13:36. Just 1:26 later, RIT put the game away. Just like that, it was over.

As was the case all season, UNH was the model of inconsistency. The offense did nothing against an RIT defense that is not outstanding after embarassing one of the best defenses in the nation and as a result, the Wildcats remain maybe the team with the highest number of futile and heartbreaking efforts in the national tournament ever.