After grinding through a stretch of five games in 10 days, the Boston University hockey team has an easy go of it over the next month, only playing three games in the next 28 days.
Sounds like a piece of cake, right?
Wrong.
While they will have some time to relax (and take exams) during the month of December, the Terriers will have some work to do as they take to the ice for two of those three games in a 42-hour span beginning tonight at 8 p.m. in Chestnut Hill. Once they’re done with the No. 2 Eagles of Boston College, the No. 15 Icedogs (4-4-4, 2-3-2 Hockey East) will come home for a 1 p.m. matinee with the No. 10 University of Massachusetts at Amherst Minutemen at Walter Brown Arena Sunday afternoon.
Still want that cake now?
The Terriers’ struggles of late have been well documented, especially those having to do with their anemic offense. And while goals are somewhat important when trying to win a hockey game, BU’s top priority against the high-flying Eagles (9-2-3, 5-0-2) will be stopping an offense that has as many All-American candidates two as BU has conference wins.
‘And as long as the effort is there and the defensive game that we want to play is there,’ said junior forward Matt Radoslovich, ‘then we should be able to compete with them.’
The ‘effort’ that BU’s third-leading scorer mentioned was a resounding 7-2 victory over Yale University last Sunday at Walter Brown. While the still-struggling offensive front scored just one of those seven goals, a five-goal win will give any team a boost especially one that was coming off a devastating tie against Dartmouth College and its first loss at Harvard University since 1982.
‘It was great to watch the ‘D’ get some goals, it was a lot of fun watching everybody score,’ Radoslovich said. ‘Hopefully the forwards can help out this weekend and we’ll just keep doing the things that we’re doing now and hopefully the pucks will start going in and we’ll get some bounces.’
If anyone knows about bounces at Conte Forum, it would be senior goalie Sean Fields. The last time the Terriers hopped on the B-Line on Jan. 17, 2003, they came home hanging their heads after BC scored two goals in the third period to snatch away a 3-2 win. But it was Fields who watched in vain as a 100-foot Ben Eaves knuckler hopped over his stick and into the BU net halfway through the third period to tie the game at two. One Ryan Murphy goal later, BU fell to .500 in conference play for the season.
While the Terriers and the rest of the nation know that they need to watch out for Eaves, Tony Voce, Stephen Gionta, Ryan Shannon, Chris Collins and the rest of the BC offense, they may find some resistance from an unlikely source.
Hockey East Goaltender of the Month Matti Kaltiainen.
Yes, you read that right. The Finnish netminder has a goals against average of 1.89 and a save percentage of .897 to go with his nine wins. And while he was only forced to make more than 20 saves once during the month (23 in a 4-1 win over Maine on Nov. 7), Kaltiainen has only allowed more than two goals twice in his last eight games. And with the invisible wall that seems to keep every BU shot out of the net, the last thing the Terriers need is for a goalie on a hot streak to dominate in front of a national television audience.
On Sunday, the Terriers will have to face the upstart Minutemen (9-3-2, 5-2-1) and another Hockey East honoree, defenseman Thomas Pöck. The Minutemen played nine games in the month of November, and Pöck tallied at least one point in all but one of them. The Terriers were 2-1 last season against Massachusetts, falling 5-4 in Amherst in overtime before winning the next two. Earlier this season, the Minutemen jumped ahead of BU in the national polls for the first time in history.