This was expected — both the game and its results. With a 4-1 win and subsequent two-game sweep of eighth-seeded UMass-Amherst in the Hockey East Tournament quarterfinals Saturday at Agganis Arena, the Boston University men’s ice hockey team dispatched of its opponent quickly, effectively and almost by design.
The top-seeded and third-ranked Terriers (23-9-4) scored early, were in lockdown defensively and — as they have in their three other wins over UMass this year — scored what BU coach Jack Parker called a “killer” power play goal to finish off the 13-21-2 Minutemen.
And, not surprisingly, it was the usual suspects doing the finishing. BU’s second line of Pete MacArthur, Kenny Roche and Boomer Ewing each scored, and senior forward John Laliberte (two points Saturday, five on the weekend) provided the decisive power play goal for the second straight night. With John Curry (32 saves) again proving steady, if not spectacular, BU now moves on to play fourth-seeded University of New Hampshire in the semifinals Friday at the TD Banknorth Garden.
“We’re rolling pretty well right now,” Laliberte said. “We have four solid lines, the defense is playing well, Curry’s playing well. We’re feeling pretty confident.”
The sweep improved BU’s record to 18-2-2 since its 5-7-2 start, and kept it a perfect 6-0 against UMass in Hockey Easy playoff history. Yet, as they have all season, the Minutemen refused to simply lie down. As well as the Terriers were playing, they clung to only a 1-0 lead entering the third, with many of their scoring opportunities in the second going to die in the pads of UMass goalie Jon Quick (32 saves).
“I went to the dressing room at the end of the second period and I said, ‘Boys, this is what it’s supposed to be. This is playoff hockey,'” said Parker, who celebrated his 61st birthday Saturday but did the singing of UMass praises, saying it “has to be the best eighth-place team we’ve ever had in this league.
“This is the way this is supposed to be played,” he continued. “I said, ‘Let’s just go out and win the third period and win the game.’ And obviously we did win the third period.”
The thrashing started 5:50 in. After Mike Kostka was sent to the box for hooking, Brad Zancanaro settled a loose puck in the offensive zone and started a pass that went from Dan Spang (two assists) to David Van der Gulik and finally to Laliberte at the bottom of the right face-off circle.
Left alone, Laliberte hesitated, baiting Quick to defend a low shot or pass, before firing a snipe inside the upper right corner to stretch BU’s lead to 2-0.
“They find ways to get pucks to the net on the power play,” said UMass coach Donald “Toot” Cahoon. “Laliberte’s power play goal tonight was brilliant.”
Roche added to the margin roughly four minutes later during a 4-on-4 situation when he picked up a rebound off Sean Sullivan’s shot and scooped it around Quick for his team-leading 16th goal of the year.
Roche’s goal was the second of his line’s on the night. The first came two periods before on as well-executed a goal as the line has had this season. The game only 1:16 old, MacArthur (who iced it with an empty-netter in the final minute) picked up a pass from Roche at the top of the left face-off circle and streamed in on net. After faking a shot, he slid a hard pass to the opposite post, where Ewing slammed home the one-timer.
“I slid it a little harder than I would like to, but good thing [Ewing] has really good hands,” MacArthur said with a laugh. “He made a nice one-timer out of that. It was a pretty nice goal.”
Curry made the score stand up later in the first when he made a huge save on P.J. Fenton’s point-blank shot just as a UMass power play expired.
“The puck seems to hit him a lot,” Parker said of Curry, who is rarely out of position and as a result, will be in the running for the league’s Goalie of the Year award announced this Thursday. “He made a couple saves tonight that were a little bit flamboyant, but for the most part, he’s very, very within himself.
“But there’s no question that he was runner-up to Player of the Year last year in the league, he should be all-league this year [and] he’s got a good chance of being All-American.”
Chris Capraro spoiled Curry’s shutout bid for a second straight night when he jammed home a power play score with 1:18 remaining, but a monumental rally was not in the cards for UMass. Instead, BU will go into Friday’s semifinal rematch with everything on the table — most notably, a chance to play for the league title and to capture a No .1 seed in the NCAA Tournament — against a UNH team that cleaned them out in last year’s semis, 5-2.
“They have, I guess, components or elements of their game that allow them to play with the big boys and succeed, and we’ve seen them rise to the occasion whenever they’ve needed to,” Cahoon said of BU. “So I think there’s a physical strength, there’s an athletic element and then there’s the mentality, which it’s hard to measure the magnitude of that mentality.
“I think they’re gonna be able to play with the best teams in the country throughout the rest of the tournaments.”
For BU, that’s to be expected.
