Jack Parker spent much of last week at home, under the weather with a cold.
But after watching his Terriers defeat Merrimack College, 4-1, Friday night at Agganis Arena by way of three third-period goals, there’s a good chance the Boston University men’s hockey coach was feeling much better when the final buzzer sounded.
“I just told [Merrimack coach] Mark [Dennehy] that this was the best home game we’ve played this year,” Parker said. “I thought it was an excellent effort from start to finish.”
It was an effort that included two things the Terriers have lacked recently: power-play goals and third-period scores. They also garnered what has proved to be an ever-elusive commodity – a home victory.
“I felt proud that they played as hard as they did,” Parker said. “I was happy that after the debacle of the third period last week [against the University of New Hampshire] that they could put that behind them and come out and play well. I thought it was great.
“Getting a win in our own building in the third period is huge. It was a good effort all around. I thought a whole bunch of guys played very, very well. Myself and [associate head coach] Dave Quinn were not at practice all week long and [assistant coach] Mike Bavis did a great job getting this team ready to play mentally, as well as any technical things we had to talk about and they certainly followed up on that. [Bavis] told Quinny and I not to show up until Monday night.”
Junior Chris Higgins, who returned to the Red Line after centering the third line for three weeks, potted the game-winner on the power play five minutes into the third on a no-look, between-the-legs shot that found its way into the near corner of the net.
“We had some good puck movement going. I was in front of the net and [senior forward] Pete MacArthur made a nice play to touch it to me,” Higgins said. “I felt some pressure on me. I had my back to the goalie, so I just kind of threw it through my legs and luckily it got through.”
The Terriers (8-13-4, 7-8-3 Hockey East) made the Warriors (10-12-2, 4-12-1) pay again four minutes later. With Merrimack forward Joe Cucci off for high sticking, freshman Colin Wilson slipped a rebound past goalie Andrew Braithwaite to make it 3-1.
And 4:30 later, freshman winger Nick Bonino beat Braithwaite (28 saves) yet again. While fighting off defenders, Bonino nabbed the rebound off a shot by Kevin Shattenkirk shot and got his stick on the puck on his way down to the ice, putting the game away at 4-1.
“It’s a huge confidence booster for us,” Higgins said. “We’ve been up and down all year and people are kind of trying to write us off right now, saying that we can’t get it done. But the 27 guys in the locker room know that when we come out and play our best, we can make good things happen.”
Merrimack jumped out to an early lead 5:40 into the contest when forward Matt Jones tapped a rebound off the pads of BU goalie Brett Bennett (17 saves) and into the net.
The Terriers didn’t go quietly in the first, as junior Brandon Yip found the back of the net amidst a scrum in the Merrimack crease at 15:48. After a weak shot from defenseman Matt Gilroy, co-captain Brian McGuirk kept the puck away from Braithwaite before Yip poked it in.
The victory was an important one for the Terriers, who moved into sole possession of sixth place in Hockey East — one point behind the University of Massachusetts-Lowell and eight points behind league-leading UNH.
The win also gave the Terriers a season sweep of the Warriors, a team BU has dominated since they joined Hockey East. The Terriers improved their all-time record to 67-11-4 against Merrimack, and stretched their current winning streak over the Warriors to 12 games dating back to 2004-05.
“All year we’ve beaten teams and we’ve come back the next night and been too content with the victory,” Bonino said. “We knew even though we’ve beaten them twice, that was good incentive for us to come out and sweep them and get a little momentum.”