Part 1 of a two-part review of the Boston University hockey team’s 2001-02 season.

The Boston University hockey team had every excuse to fail this season.

It could have blamed mediocrity on the fifth-place expectations of the Hockey East coaches. It could have blamed mental mistakes on the inexperience that comes with a heavy reliance on five brand new freshmen. It could have very understandably blamed a sluggish start on trying to escape from beneath the grim cloud of Sept. 11, which took one of its own, former Terrier Mark Bavis.

But after the debacle of a season prior, the Icedogs made it their mission last spring to recommit themselves to the attitude and work ethic that brought them to within a goal of the 2000 Frozen Four. Things went astray the next season, but from the day they were named co-captains for their senior year, Mike Pandolfo and Chris Dyment set out to rid that season from BU’s collective memory, and in the process leave a legacy that would justify itself without excuses or regrets.

“It was an absolute change in attitude as far as discipline, workouts, enthusiasm, effort,” said head coach Jack Parker. “They didn’t want to have a season like they did last year.”

After losing to Providence College in the Hockey East quarterfinal series, the Icedogs took a couple of weeks off before the transformation began. Conditioning coach Mike Boyle’s workouts were enthusiastically attended, as were classes, Parker said, evidence that the coming season was destined to be different, both on the ice and off.

Pandolfo and Dyment didn’t need to get in teammates’ faces to lead effectively. “It was more, ‘Here’s what I’m doing, you’d better do the same thing.’ Walking the talk,” Parker said.

And when the puck was dropped on the 2001-02 BU hockey season, the preseason commitment certainly paid immediate dividends and the Terriers proved they could walk the walk. BU went unbeaten in its first seven games, the only blemish coming in a classic 1-1 Sunday night showdown with the University of New Hampshire that featured 37 saves by sophomore goalie Sean Fields.

That was the first of BU’s three-straight games in which the Icedogs were forced to play extra time. The next came in Orono, Maine, when the Terriers invaded hostile Alfond Arena and escaped with a 4-3, come-from-behind win thanks to freshman Bryan Miller’s second goal of the night.

“I think that was big as far as confidence is concerned,” Parker said. “It kind of set the tone because we had to come from behind to win that game. In over half of our wins, we had to come back, and that was the start of that.”

Parker attributed the team’s blistering beginning to an overall team defense that didn’t give up too many shots because most of the time the Terriers were at the other end controlling the puck offensively. The team posted six goals in each of its first two games, both times featuring six different goal scorers.

One of the marksmen was freshman Brian McConnell, who tallied his first career goal just 2:08 into his career. Fellow freshman David Klema also dived into action with a near-perfect landing, netting the game-winning goal in each of his first two games.

“I think from the get-go [the freshmen] were important,” Parker said. “Right off the bat, McConnell was the first-line center; Miller and Whitney were playing power play and getting a lot of ice time especially. It probably took longer for Maiser and Klema to make an impact, but they became more and more important to us as the season progressed.”

Inexperience didn’t seem to affect this pack of highly touted rookies. Within three games, each had at least a point, holding up his end of a scoring attack so balanced that through seven games every full-time player had left his mark on the scoreboard.

By that point, the team tabbed fifth-best in its own conference was the No. 5 team in the nation. But reality, cloaked in maroon and gold, struck quickly when the Icedogs tested their undefeated mark against the defending national champions.

“It was a real bad Boston College game,” Parker said. “I think there was more pressure on us, and they were having a tough time. But I think it was a pretty good lesson. We went up there trying not lose the game, and we didn’t play very well.”

At the time, Parker said the Eagles dominated “every phase” of the 3-1 loss, but the Terriers didn’t have time to dwell. Two days later they started a three-game in six-day stretch against NCAA Tournament-bound teams from the ECAC, Harvard and Cornell universities.

“It was real important for us to come back right away and play against another archrival in their building, get a W and look pretty sharp doing it,” Parker said.

The Terriers quickly got back to their explosive ways, scoring eight goals over the final two periods to win, 8-4, on the strength of their highest scoring game of the season.

BU then split a series with Cornell, starting a stretch of games when the Icedogs would win one, lose one, in the meanwhile falling fast toward mediocrity. For the 14 games in the middle portion of the schedule, the Icedogs were just 7-6-1.

“It wasn’t so much we were playing a good game and then a bad game,” Parker said. “In fact, some of the games we were winning weren’t as good as the games we lost, so I wasn’t concerned about the winning and losing. But all of a sudden the team was getting concerned about it. Six games over .500 when you’re 6-0-1 sounds pretty good; six games over .500 when you’re 16 games into the season isn’t quite as good.”

The low point of the midseason slump came at the end, when the Icedogs were embarrassed by the Wildcats, 6-1, at the Whittemore Center.

“That was a bad weekend against UNH,” Parker said. “It was a real downer because we really played stupid up at UNH … Then I thought we played a real solid game the second night, then played stupid when we got some stupid penalties and gave away a game we should have won.”

One of the biggest reasons for BU’s early season success was BU’s sophomore third line of center Gregg Johnson and wings Kenny Magowan and Frantisek Skladany. The so-called “Soph Touch Line” had the Midas touch early on, registering a total of 34 points before Thanksgiving.

“They had a fabulous first half of the year,” Parker said. “I thought one of the reasons why we were inconsistent in some games in the second half of the year was because they didn’t play as well.”

Skladany was particularly impressive, scoring in each of the first nine games. But just as BU concluded the fall semester, he and Johnson left the Terriers to play in the World Junior Championships. The duo, along with Whitney, missed the team’s games against Nebraska-Omaha and Northeastern University.

“Skladany I don’t think recovered from that,” Parker said. “He was back into playing North American style, but then he went to Europe and played with his old club and came back and was skating all around again. He never really got back into the start-and-stop game.”

As February approached, it was BU’s season that was start-and-stop. Every time it looked as if the Terriers were going to return to their earlier form, they would falter, the most dramatic drop coming after the UNH series, when Parker proclaimed the Wildcats Hockey East’s best team.

But in the league, the perfect oil for a creaky engine may very well be a series against Merrimack College, and luckily for the Terriers, the schedule next prescribed a trip to the Volpe Center. Too bad a vital cog in the engine returned in condition beyond even the best mechanic’s repair.