Make no mistake about it, Bryan Miller said. This one is about revenge.
‘Definitely. No question about that,’ said the Boston University hockey team’s sophomore defenseman. ‘We haven’t forgotten that they gave us our only loss.’
‘They’ are the Warriors of Merrimack College, expected Hockey East pushover but proven early-season parasite to the league’s upper-echelon. The Warriors’ proudest pestering came Oct. 22, when the Terriers traveled to North Andover and returned 5-3 losers. A week ago, Merrimack pushed then-No. 1 University of New Hampshire to the brink before falling, 4-3, and last night No. 2 Boston College invaded the Volpe Center.
But ‘they’ are still the team unanimously chosen as the conference’s worst, and come to Walter Brown Arena Saturday with the stats to prove it. Except for its penalty kill (fifth) and shot percentage (sixth), Merrimack ranks no higher than second-to-last in any team category kept by Hockey East.
The Icedogs (4-1-2, 2-1-0 Hockey East) aren’t into reading the numbers, though. Several said they have seen first-hand how dangerous Merrimack (2-3-1, 1-1-0) can be, and indicated BU will go into Saturday night giving the Warriors its proper respect.
‘We know they’re a good team,’ said junior wing Kenny Magowan. ‘But we knew that before they burned us.’
Freshman forward Brent Gough, specifically, toasted the Terriers. His goal and two assists paced the first offense to score an even-strength goal against the Terriers this year.
Unfortunately for the Warriors, center Steve Crusco, who tallied the game-winner against BU, is expected to be out at least three months after suffering a laceration to his left arm.
Reports said the injury occurred Oct. 29, when during practice Crusco’s arm got caught between the boards and a teammate’s skate, severing five tendons and an artery. Repairs required a three-hour emergency surgery, according to U.S. College Hockey Online.
Crusco, a sophomore, had two goals and three points through four games this season. Last January, BU’s Pat Aufiero suffered a similar, season-ending injury when a skate blade cut tendons in his leg during a game at Merrimack.
Without Crusco, Merrimack’s attack is balanced. Gough is among four players with a team-high five points, with Nick Pomponio’s four scores leading the club. Warrior senior goalie Joe Exter has played every minute in net, and is among Hockey East’s most taxed netminders, facing more than 30 shots per game.
Exter made 29 stops against BU, a game that left some members of Terrier Nation wondering whether the Icedogs’ No. 5 preseason ranking was a mistake. Since then, the Terriers have put together a three-game winning streak, bringing some stragglers back on the bandwagon and restoring enough faith to fill Walter Brown Arena on Saturday as BU begins a five-game homestand.
‘Usually against Merrimack in the past, you look up in the stands and it’s pretty sparse. People have high expectations this season and they know we’re a good hockey team,’ Magowan said.
Standing room tickets will be sold for the game, the second sellout in three home dates for BU. The Icedogs packed 3,806 into its home rink only once last season before Boston College visited in mid-January. Last year’s Merrimack game drew only 2,975 spectators.
‘That was one of the things about going up there. We played awful anyways, but they had a big crowd,’ said sophomore defenseman Ryan Whitney. ‘Being at home you get jacked up a little more. [The fans] will show up, and we’ll show up, too.’
POWERLESS
BU’s power play and penalty kill units have truly been ‘special’ teams so far this season.
In fact, the units have been so unique, when the referee sends someone to the sin bin it’s like an entirely different team climbs into the scarlet and white sweaters.
The even-strength Icedogs have outscored opponents by a goal a game, allowing just 11 scores through seven games this season. Their less-potent, man-down likenesses, however, have given up more goals in less time, surrendering 12 goals and killing not even a quarter of their opportunities.
‘We haven’t been smart about our penalty kill,’ Magowan said. ‘It’s not so much how hard you work or how fast you skate; it’s all smarts.’
Magowan said early in the year the Icedogs were zipping around ‘at 100 miles an hour,’ but have since started to play better positionally and forecheck more intelligently. The stretch he was referring to left the Terriers at 1-0-2 despite not yet allowing an even-strength goal.
Now at 4-1-2, BU has had a month of official practices to learn BU Coach Jack Parker’s system, and things could be starting to turn around. Last Saturday at New Hampshire, BU shut out the Hockey East’s third-best power play on six chances, including two five-on-three situations.
‘We pressured a little bit more,’ Whitney said. ‘We’ve got to look to pressure three guys at one time. When a guy looks up, he’s got to have someone on him and see the two guys near him are covered. That’s what worked at UNH.’
But as good as BU looked killing penalties against New Hampshire, they were equally poor the night before at Northeastern University. The Huskies converted three of nine opportunities, and never took more than a minute to do it.
All season, the Icedogs have struggled to settle into playing five-on-four. Of the 12 power play goals they’ve allowed, 10 have come in the first half of the advantage. Nine have been scored in the initial 45 seconds, and seven of those have come within 30 seconds of the penalty.
‘That’s probably because a lot of the penalties taken are in the defensive zone,’ Whitney said. ‘We’ve just got unlucky the way it happened. If the face-off is in the zone, they win it back and they’re already all set up.’
When the puck is dropped in its own zone, BU’s contingent of feisty forecheckers are relegated to becoming shotblockers and lane-fillers rather than nuisances in the open ice. Whitney suggested the forwards may actually be more important to a penalty killing than the defensemen because they track the puck the length of the rink and can tick off valuable seconds in slowing play through the neutral zone. The forwards can also as BU has already done three times turn the tide with a shorthanded goal.
BU’s own power play is ranked fifth in Hockey East, its 17.1 percent success rate slightly worse than the league-wide 20 percent average. Before last weekend the Terriers were just 3-for-30, but Friday night’s 3-for-6 against the Huskies could jumpstart a part of the Icedogs’ attack that has been the focus of the team’s special teams practice time.
‘We’ve worked more on [power play] offense [than the penalty kill],’ Whitney said. ‘We have players who can do a lot more than we’ve been doing on the power play. We’ve been doing a lot of nothing. A lot of passing to the corner and then nothing.’
FRIES WITH YOUR McBEATING?
BU’s penalty kill woes could be worse. Because opponents are scoring power play goals so quickly, the Terriers have been spared of spending a league-leading 24 minutes per game with a man in the penalty box.
The worst offender is sophomore center Brian McConnell, who carries 10 penalties for 28 minutes along with his tag as the team’s leading scorer. Projected over the course of the Icedogs’ 36-game regular season, that’s 144 minutes of discipline, shattering the club record 112 Doug Friedman hammered his way to in 1993-94.
Senior captain Freddy Meyer is also on pace to set the mark, but his 22 minutes in penalties were exaggerated slightly by the 10-minute misconduct he received for a tussle with Northeastern’s Jason Guerriero with seven seconds to play Friday.
Meyer was one of four Icedogs sent to the Matthews Arena dressing room last weekend. McConnell and Whitney both sat for involvement in the same second period skirmish.
And junior Frantisek Skladany, ‘The Slovakian Slasher,’ lived up to his billing in the third period Friday, getting the gate for a whack with 12:02 to play.
OVERTIME
BU averaged 3,106 fans per home game last season, the fifth-best support in Hockey East … Junior Steve Greeley made his season debut on Saturday, taking two shots in the third period but failing to account for any of the scoring … Sophomore Justin Maiser’s two game-winning goals tie him for the lead nationally … BU’s penalty kill is ranked 48th of 60 teams in the nation. Its power play is 36th.