With the Beanpot Tournament set to begin Monday, the No. 9 Boston University men’s hockey team finds itself in an interesting situation.
For one of the few times this year, BU (13-7-4, 7-4-3 Hockey East) will have a one-game weekend consisting of a Friday night home Hockey East matchup against Merrimack College.
A game-less Saturday will give the Terriers extra time to gear up for Northeastern University in the Beanpot Tournament’s semifinal round, which kicks off Monday evening at TD Garden.
However, even given the prospect of an extra day off, BU head coach David Quinn isn’t looking forward to a free Saturday. He’s more excited at getting a chance to add another notch in the conference win column against Merrimack (7-13-5, 2-7-5 Hockey East), something the Terriers couldn’t do in October.
“I’m looking forward to [Friday] night,” Quinn said. “I really am. You look at the standings, and you want to play because you want to take advantage of the opportunity to get two points. We know Merrimack. They took two points away from us earlier in the year. It’s an opportunity to get two more valuable points and keep putting pressure on people to keep winning.”
In keeping pace with the rest of the league, the Terriers took two wins over The University of Maine last weekend, outscoring the Black Bears (5-15-6, 2-8-2 Hockey East) 11-3 in the two-game sweep. There was never a moment in those games where BU trailed.
From start to finish in last weekend’s games, BU looked like more of a complete team, Quinn said.
“I think there was more focus, I thought we skated harder, I thought we pursued the puck more,” Quinn said. “I thought our gaps were very good. I didn’t think we gave them a lot of time and space. We earned what we got offensively. We’re going to have to do that moving forward.”
A lot of what made the Terriers so successful against Maine was not all present when they played the Warriors three months ago. In BU’s first matchup with Merrimack this season on Oct. 30 in North Andover, the Warriors came away with a 4-3 victory. Senior goaltender Sean Maguire left the game after allowing four goals on just 14 shots, and BU’s offense fell victim to Merrimack netminder Collin Delia’s 34 saves.
Since then, though, the tables have turned for both teams. Maguire has started his team’s past seven games and posted a 5-1-1 record in that timespan. Quinn said Maguire will start in net on Friday against Merrimack.
In that last meeting, too, senior forward Ahti Oksanen had yet to score his first goal of the season. Since then, though, he has tied for the team lead in goals with 13, and is coming off a six-point weekend for which he earned Hockey East Player of the Week honors.
His linemate and classmate, assistant captain Matt Lane, shares Oksanen’s team lead in goals, and also boasted a four-point weekend in BU’s sweep of Maine. Lane and Oksanen’s fellow winger, freshman Jordan Greenway, had four points on the weekend, including three assists against Maine in Orono Jan. 22.
“When Lane skates consistently, there’s not a lot of prodding to get him to move, but the other two guys, because they’re big, it doesn’t come as natural for them to play at a pace that Matt does,” Quinn said of the second line. “And when they’re playing at a pace, they can be a very difficult line to defend.”
Merrimack, meanwhile, has lost its past nine games and has been outscored 38-12 in that stretch. Delia has started each of the Warriors’ past six games, and has let us four or more goals in five of those outings. As it stands now, Delia is second to last in save percentage among Hockey East goalies at .893 percent.
Senior Brian Christie (18 points) leads the Warriors’ offense, with forwards Ben Bahe and Hampus Gustafsson — who each had a goal against BU back in October — coming in second place with 15 points apiece.
Considering Merrimack has not won a Hockey East game since Nov. 13, Quinn said he thinks BU will see a team that’s extra hungry for a victory.
“A desperate team, obviously they’ve been struggling lately,” Quinn said. “They’re a team that gave us a hard time up there [in North Andover]. Obviously they’re desperate for points and a team that’s going to make us earn everything that we get, as they always do. Our work ethic is going to be tested, our physical play is going to be tested and we got to be ready to match it.”
Andrew is one of the men's hockey beat writers for The Daily Free Press. He was Sports Editor during the Spring 2014 semester and has also interned with NESN, WEEI.com and SportsNet New York. Follow him on Twitter at @squidthoughts for sports-related tweets and random quotes from "The Office," or you can contact him via email at arbattif@bu.edu.
As always, a good article.