Detroit Weekend Preview: Siena

After a heartbreaker in the sunshine state last week, Detroit tries to right the ship on another roadtrip. This time, they head to upstate New York to take on the Saints of Siena University.

Siena Saints

Saturday, 1PM. Loudonville, NY.
Record: 7-2 (1-0 MAAC)
Rankings: 36 (Computer).
Common Opponents: None.

Schedule

Siena has been up-and down this year, getting pasted by top competition (a 14-goal loss to Duke and a 10-goal loss to Johns Hopkins) and scraping by weak teams (a 1-goal win over Providence College), while earning wins over some solid teams. All the non-conference teams they beat were in conferences with “East” in their name. Seriously:

• ECAC (11-6 win over Air Force).
• America East (10-9 over Hartford and 10-3 over Binghamton).
• Northeast (13-6 over Wagner).
• Big East (10-4 over St. John’s and 9-8 over Providence).

Their MAAC opener came a couple weeks ago, as they took down Marist 12-10.

For comparison’s sake, Siena is 7-2 against LaxPower’s #48 schedule, whereas UDM is 2-8 against a slightly easier schedule, ranked #51 by LaxPower. The Titans, of course, are 1-1 in the conference.

Personnel

Offensively, the Saints are led by junior attack Bryan Neufeld, who has 30 points on 21 goals and 9 assists. He’s been joined on the starting attack in every game by sophomore Danny Martinsen, who has 12 goals and 9 assists. Also near the top of the scoresheet are midfielders Chris Roth and John Rogener, with 22 and 15 points apiece. Chris D’Alberti has added 12 points of his own from the midfield.

Defensively, Siena is led by seniors David Cotter, Joe Vaccari, and Duncan Seale. This is an experienced defensive unit. Seale and Cotter are the team’s co-leaders in penalty minutes with 4:00 apiece on the season (sophomore defenseman Mike Battaglia is up there as well).

Senior Tom Morr – a team captain – has started every game at goalie, and has played all but 4 (and a third) quarters between the pipes over the course of the season. Morr has a .598 save percentage on the year, allowing 8.34 goals per game.

On faceoffs, Siena hasn’t been very good this year, though they’ve played a couple excellent faceoff teams in Johns Hopkins, Duke, and Hartford. Rob Hunter has not performed well on faceoffs, but Chris Brancato and Zach Triner have been neck-and-neck at about .515 on the season.

Predictions

Siena has been the class of the MAAC at this point in the year, and the Saints are in fact the only conference team above .500 on the year. Considering the Titans are toiling at .200, it’s tough to foresee a road win.

The keys to the game for Detroit will be to hold their own on faceoffs, and to get the offensive stars (Shayne Adams and Scott Harris) back into a rhythm after they struggled against Jacksonville.

At the end of the day, a Detroit victory would be a pretty big upset, and a key to turning the season around. However, I don’t see it happening. Siena comes away with the 11-7 win, but Detroit will probably close out the season by winning their final 3 conference games.