Trends? You want trends?
If you’re looking for trends, don’t look at the Boston University hockey team’s weekend. Other than winning and effort, not too much was consistent as the Icedogs earned four big points in Hockey East away games.
No. 7 BU (4-1-2, 2-1-0 Hockey East) knocked off the No. 1 team in the nation, the University of New Hampshire, on Saturday night, 3-2, at the Whittemore Center in Durham. The victim the night before was Northeastern University at Matthews Arena, 7-6.
After suffering a 6-1 beating against the Wildcats at Whittemore last year, BU turned the tables this year, riding a great 42-save performance by junior goaltender Sean Fields and the defense and opportunistic scoring to victory.
Sophomore center David Klema struck first for the Terriers with 5:13 left in the opening frame, picking up a loose puck and slapping it past New Hampshire goalie Michael Ayers. Sophomore forward Matt Radoslovich earned an assist on the play.
Sophomore center Brian McConnell struck just 33 seconds later, taking a great pass from senior defenseman Freddy Meyer and doubling the BU lead.
The Wildcats didn’t stay down for long though. Colin Hemingway took advantage of a freak play when Fields got his stick tangled in a skate and couldn’t clear the puck out of the crease. Hemingway tapped the puck into the net and the Terrier lead was halved with only 27 seconds left in the first period.
With only 2:23 left in the second, sophomore left wing Justin Maiser stuffed in a backhand wrap-around on a power play to give BU a two-goal cushion once again. Senior right wing John Sabo had the goal’s lone assist.
Forty-two seconds into the third frame, the Wildcats cut the lead to one again with Hemingway tallying his second after fighting off a weak check and snapping a hard shot above Fields’ glove hand.
From there, the game took a turn for the physical, with Meyer getting into hitting contests with virtually every Wildcat on the ice. Meyer’s aggression prompted an elbows-up cheap shot from New Hampshire’s Jim Abbott into the boards.
With the game calmed down, all that was left for the Terriers was to hold on, and hold on they did, with Fields equal to every challenge.
Unsurprisingly, BU Coach Jack Parker was happy with his team’s effort. The only thing that seemed to draw his ire was the officiating of referee John Gravellese and his crew.
‘It was nice to do such a great job killing penalties,’ Parker said. ‘The way the game was called, we had to kill a lot of penalties.’
‘The way the game was called, we had to kill a lot of penalties,’ Parker repeated. ‘I’m concerned about hitting from behind, which is a dangerous part of the game. I’m concerned about hitting from behind and so is the NCAA rulebook concerned about hitting from behind. They want to make sure that we call that.’
Parker’s tone took a turn for the positive as he discussed his team, and its ability to deal with anything the officials threw at it, especially his goalie.
‘When you’re killing five-on-threes, you’re not going to stop them from getting great chances and you’ve got to get great goaltending and that’s what happened,’ Parker said. ‘But also, we didn’t get too extended. We didn’t give them any open-net goals, we didn’t give them any scramble goals, which can happen on five-on-threes. And this is a tough rink not to get extended in because it’s such a big rink.
‘Especially in the second period, we had to move like hell to help Fields out after he made some big saves. I think we covered for him pretty well.’
For Meyer, a Sanbornville, N.H. native, the game on his home turf provided quite a range of emotions, moving from joy to anger to joy again as BU pulled out an important victory.
‘We’re real happy to get two points here,’ Meyer said. ‘It’s always fun for me to come here. You get a huge crowd and some people yelling some negative stuff. I’ve got a bunch of family here and it’s nice for them to see me play, and to get out of here with a win is especially nice.’
While Meyer may enjoy playing in front of the home state crowd, those supporting the Wildcats seem to hold a special place in their hearts for Meyer, reserving their strongest boos and expletives for the feisty captain. However, last night Meyer got the last word as BU skated off with a W.
The night before was, as Parker termed it, ‘a wacky game.’
Despite not playing terribly in the first period, BU found itself down 3-1 when the buzzer sounded.
The Icedogs started off with a bang, as Maiser scored past Huskies goalie Keni Gibson on a deflection of freshman defenseman Jekabs Redlihs’ shot 17 seconds into the contest.
Northeastern struck back with a vengeance, with Jason Guerriero putting a rebound in at the 12:00 mark. The Huskies scored again just 56 seconds later with captain and Terrier nemesis Mike Ryan hitting a solid one-timer past Fields. The three-goal first frame was complete when Scott Selig put one in with 28 seconds left. Fields saved a hard slapper from defenseman Brian Sullivan, but the rebound hit Redlihs and plopped down in front of the net. Selig beat the junior netminder to the puck and Northeastern went into the intermission flying.
Apparently, the ice was tilted toward the net under the Dog Pound, as BU more than answered the second period bell.
BU’s comeback started 1:19 in when sophomore defenseman Ryan Whitney put a beautiful pass from McConnell into the top corner on the power play, breaking an 0-for-18 BU skid on the man-advantage.
Junior center Gregg Johnson then sent Sabo alone at the net with a beautiful red line-to-red line pass. Sabo deked to his back hand and slid the puck five hole to even the score.
Just two minutes later, Sabo put the Icedogs up on a power play, knocking in his own rebound for BU’s fourth tally. Maiser and McConnell earned the helpers.
The BU barrage continued with a brilliant cross-ice pass from McConnell — who dished out three assists in the period — to sophomore defenseman Bryan Miller for an easy tap-in.
‘He’s a great playmaker,’ said Parker of McConnell. ‘He’s the type of guy who makes everyone around him better. All of my wings keep telling me that they want to play with him.’
Freshman forward David Van der Gulik finished the 11-minute scoring streak for BU with his first career goal, taking a pass from junior forward Mark Mullen and turning to stuff it past Gibson.
The Northeastern sophomore goaltender was lifted after the brutal second period — he made only seven saves on 12 shots — in favor of freshman Tim Heneroty for the final frame.
Northeastern got two goals back as Chuck Tomes and Mike Morris scored to cut the lead to one goal.
Maiser tallied his second goal and fourth point of the night on a BU power play with six and a half minutes left, taking a great pass from Miller after Whitney kept the puck in the zone to restore the two-goal cushion.
The Maiser score ended up as the game-winner as Ryan blistered his second goal of the night past a helpless Fields.
The night almost ended with a Sabo hat trick but a scrum behind the play resulted in a whistle as the senior assistant captain skated toward the open net.
As he would be the next night, Parker was pleased with his team’s play, getting major contributions in areas the Terriers had struggled in to that point.
‘The best part of the game aside from the two points was getting our power play back on track,’ Packer said. ‘We had problems scoring goals and problems on the power play before, but we figured those out tonight.
‘We had a couple of bad misreads that gave them jumps and gave them goals, but we competed defensively,’ Parker continued. ‘We’ve been playing great defensively and we’ve had no problems in goal, but we’ve had horrible problems scoring goals and we’ve had problems on the power play. We’d like to get it right both ways sooner or later, but the fact that we got seven goals against a real good goaltender made people feel good about their game and good about their abilities.’
Parker was a bit worried about the way Northeastern almost came back, but he liked the way his team held on.
‘We had a team down 6-3, you should end up putting ’em away, and we wound up putting ’em away, but it was a little more hectic than it should have been,’ Parker said.
At game’s end against UNH, Parker had praise in particular for Mullen, who played big defensively in several tough situations for BU.
‘I thought Marky Mullen gave us another great game,’ Parker said. ‘He had a terrific weekend for us. He kills most of the five-on-threes and he did a great job again tonight.’
After a big weekend, Parker had only praise for his team after a couple of strong mental games.
‘Resiliency is something you have to have in a club and I think that if you take last night’s game and tonight’s game there were times when we could have ‘El Foldo’d’,’ Parker said. ‘You know, all of a sudden, you’re on the road, they get a big goal … and yet we hung in there and kept our poise.’
