Friday and Saturday night, the No. 19 Boston University men’s hockey team must have felt like it was staring straight into some sort of strange, mirror-like time portal.
In two games against the No. 15 University of Maine, the Terriers capitalized on consecutive nights of lackluster play by a Black Bear team fresh off a two-game sweep of the top team in Hockey East, the No. 13 University of New Hampshire.
For BU, the weekend marked the first time all year the Terriers played on back-to-back nights and came away with four points.
For Maine, the weekend marked a major step in the wrong direction, which, according to Maine coach Tim Whitehead, was the result of poor focus and intensity &-&- a story the Terriers remember far too well from the first half of this season.
“We were not prepared to compete at the same level they were,” Whitehead said after Friday’s 7-4 BU win. “I just don’t think our focus was where it needed to be tonight.”
Whtiehead said he sensed in practices leading up to the BU series that his team might not be prepared, adding that injuries had also played a factor &-&- another story very familiar to a BU team that spent nearly two months shuffling lines as players cycled in and out of the lineup with injuries.
“We had a lot of players with ice bags after last weekend,” Whitehead said.
“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to muster up the same, you know, grit for this weekend. So yeah, we had a sense of that during the week. Yeah, we had injuries, but we had a hunch it was going to be tough sledding down here, and BU definitely carried the play.”
The Black Bears let in 12 goals over the two-game set, including seven on Friday.
“Just lack of honest effort and everyone was a little off from our goalies right through to our D corps and our forwards,” Whitehead said. “I thought we lost that little jump that we had for a little stretch here.
“Passes were just a little off. Guys were just a little out of position. They weren’t communicating. Part of that was BU obviously . . . It was a combination of their focus and our lack of.”
Whitehead said Friday he hoped to see a response from his team on Saturday, and though the team did bounce back to some degree, the results weren’t there against a BU team that, for the first time all season, was ready to give a 60-minute effort for the second night in a row.
In particular, BU succeeded by stifling one of the nation’s top scoring lines, comprised of Brian Flynn, Tanner House and Gustav Nyquist, who Parker referred to as, “The best offensive player in Hockey East.”
On Friday night, the explosive threesome contributed just one point &-&- an assist by Flynn &-&- in an 11-goal game, and finished with a combined minus-6 rating.
“Our top line was certainly not our top line tonight,” Whitehead said after Friday’s game. “They were hoping things would come a bit easy tonight and it didn’t. As you can see, they’re probably not on the scoresheet, and they deserve that.” ? ?