This might’ve been the one that got away, but only because BU let it go too easily.

Coming into Friday night’s semifinal contest against the University of Maine, BU coach Jack Parker and his Terrier men’s ice hockey team found themselves fighting for their postseason lives. Nothing short of an eighth Hockey East Championship would help BU sneak into the NCAA’s field of 16.

Parker knew that. The BU faithful, who showed up in force at TD Garden, knew that.

Unfortunately (and inexplicably), judging by their lackluster performance in a 5-2 loss to the Black Bears, the Terriers must not have gotten the memo. And if they did, Parker’s men sure didn’t play like it. BU failed to show any sense of urgency until Friday night’s final frame &- and, by that time it was too late.

There would be no magical moment &- no miracle comeback that could mercifully snatch the Terriers from the claws of defeat. Nope, not this time around. Rather, a disappointing season finally came to a screeching halt at around 11:15 p.m. Friday.

“We had a team out there playing at the top of their game, and another team not nearly at theirs,” Parker told the media in his postgame press conference.

For a talented roster highlighted by 14 NHL draft picks, Friday night’s mediocrity should be unacceptable (as should this season’s pedestrian performance). But, maybe for this Terrier team, “OK” is…well, OK.

“Obviously, I’d be flabbergasted if a BU team had one game to play to get to the national championship tournament and was not ready to play,” Parker said. “Not this team. My guys are too easily satisfied.”

How right you are, Parker. How right you are. One week removed from posting an impressive 3-0 shutout of the visiting Merrimack College Warriors in Game 3 of the HE quarterfinals, the Terriers failed to show up for the most important 60 minutes of the season. Parker, in his postgame statements, insisted that almost two-thirds of that time was spent watching Maine as the Black Bears skated circles around BU.

In a win-or-go-home game, it looked as though most of BU’s roster had given up during the game’s first and second periods.

The recipe for BU’s postseason disaster? Too much time in the penalty box (18 minutes), too little time on the attack (the Terriers managed just five shots on goal in the first period) and an overall lack of energy and intensity. Simply put, BU spent Friday night playing catch-up.

And you just can’t play that game against good teams. One period of solid play (usually) isn’t enough to win games in HE regular season play (see the Terriers’ 16-15-3 regular season mark). And it’s certainly not good enough to earn a “W” in a single-elimination playoff contest.

Sadly, this weekend’s clunker on Causeway Street has become old hat for fans of the 2009-10 BU squad. All season, the Terriers &- dubbed a “Jekyll and Hyde” group by Parker &- struggled to string together stretches of solid play (resulting in a failure to post anything more than a modest three-game win-streak).

Even worse, fans of this team have had no reliable way of knowing which BU squad they would see come Friday or Saturday evenings. On some nights &- like March 14’s HE quarterfinal elimination contest &- the BU faithful were treated to the welcomed sight of their “Dr. Jekyll” team.

But, almost inevitably, on nights like Friday, the loyal members of Terrier Nation were forced to suffer through the ugly reemergence of “Mr. Hyde.”
Did a couple of “bad calls” and unlucky bounces play a part in Friday’s outcome? Yes, they could’ve played a small role.

But, in the end, it comes down to heart &- who wants it more?

On Friday, that team was clearly Maine.

So, no, BU did not get the calls or the bounces; but it’s also not clear that they really deserved either. Great teams &- like the 2008-09 BU squad &- play solid hockey regardless of whether they get the good calls or the favorable “bounces. ”

This BU team was not great &- it was just “OK”. That, BU fans, is why the Terriers didn’t earn the right to play eventual-champion Boston College.
And if the Terrier Nation chooses to look back at a 2009-10 campaign that could’ve (and, by all accounts, should’ve) been special, some things, the apparent sense of complacency and inconsistency among them, should be terribly troubling.

“A good description of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome,” Parker said after Friday’s game was already in the books.

When Parker loses defenseman Eric Gryba, forward Luke Popko and forward Zach Cohen to graduation (and junior forward Nick Bonino to the NHL), it’s clear that something has got to change.

Whether that change is for the better or worse remains to be seen.
Let’s hope for the former, because BU has too much talent to settle for mediocrity any longer.