As the Boston University hockey team staggered around the FleetCenter on about 18 hours rest during the Hockey East Championship Game ice last year against a much fresher University of New Hampshire team, there was one factor keeping BU in the game.

That fact was apparent from the shocked murmur that filled the huge arena every time he made another ridiculous save, and even more clearly from the ‘MVP’ chants that resonated throughout the building.

The fluke goal that skipped off Ryan Whitney’s stick and into the net to give the Wildcats a 1-0 victory in overtime did nothing to tarnish Sean Fields’ performance. And it is this type of standing on his head keeping a legless BU team in the game into overtime against the national runners-up that gives BU coach Jack Parker and Terrier fans the feeling that they have a chance in any game.

‘We expect him to be the Sean Fields of usual,’ Parker said. ‘Every year he’s gotten much better as the season progressed, in every season he ended up being one of the best goalies in the league.’

There is nothing ‘usual’ about Fields. With every signature snap of one of the best glove hands in the nation, the senior goalie turns some more heads and wins over more believers. After some lapses in his first two years, Fields put together a full, solid campaign in 2002-03, finishing with impressive numbers (2.49 goals against average, .911 save percentage, 24-13-3 record) while playing more than 94 percent of BU’s total minutes in net.

At times last year, Fields carried an offense that struggled to consistently find the back of the net. And with so much experience over three years of consistent minutes, BU is in a period where much of Hockey East, including Boston College, has more of a question mark inside the crease.

‘He has shown some signs of inconsistency his freshman and sophomore year that I think he got over last year,’ Parker said. ‘He was steady for us last year and then emerged in the second half as being spectacular at times, so we’re confident that we will have as good a goaltender as anyone in the league, and that includes [senior Michael] Ayers at UNH.’

While Fields is clearly the answer for this year, one cannot help but notice the void he will leave in net next season. For that reason, next year’s likely starter sophomore and backup Stephan Siwiec could see some minutes to prepare him for a heavier workload in the future.

Behind Siwiec, freshman John Curry is unproven and it remains to be seen the kind of impact he will have.

‘Obviously we’ll play Sean a lot, but we think that Stephan Siwiec can be a help to us too,’ Parker said. ‘He’s not going to get a chance to play in a lot of games, but he is going to play some games to see what he can do. Also we want to guard against anything going wrong with Sean and we don’t want to wear him out either. [Siwiec will] see a little more action than I think most people think he is going to see.’

Fields can be Superman at times, but he obviously cannot be successful on his own. It will take solid defense and special teams as well as plenty of goals in front of him to maximize his value to the team.

But regardless, there is no question how important he is to this year’s squad.

‘If there’s so much pressure on him that he’s going to be the guy that has to make 40 saves a night, then we’re not going to win a lot of hockey games,’ Parker said. ‘We’ve got to play solid defense and be solid getting the puck out of our zone, etc., and I think we will be but he’s going to make the defensemen less jumpy because they know every mistake they make isn’t won’t show up in the net, and that’s important for defensemen.’

This is the year the Terriers have to take advantage, because you won’t see Sean Fields scratching up the crease at Harry Agganis Arena in 2004-05.

That said, don’t be surprised if you see ‘Fieldsy’ again carrying BU as far as he can take them. And as BU’s proclaimed ‘All-American candidate and Hobey Baker candidate,’ that could be as far as the North End of Boston.

But along with the Big Dig, another roadblock on the way from Babcock to Causeway Street could be another classic duel between Fields and Ayers the two most proven goalies in Hockey East, for two of the conference’s top three preseason teams.

‘They are probably the best premier goalies in the league coming back reputation-wise,’ Parker said of Fields and Ayers.

Still, Parker’s confident in what he has.

‘We have a guy who has a proven track record for a long period of time, and the best part about it is he’s gotten better every year,’ he said. ‘So we can imagine if he gets better than he was last year, we’re going to be in pretty good shape.’