At this time last season, the Boston University hockey team was 9-3-2 with a 4-0-2 Hockey East record. The Terriers were giving up 2.8 goals per game while scoring 3.9 per contest.
As everyone knows, BU is 2-8-1 this season with a 1-4-1 league mark, good enough for next-to-last place. The offensive attack is putting in only 2.73 pucks per game, while the defense has allowed 3.55 goals per outing. In both of these departments, the Terriers likewise rank next-to-last in the Hockey East.
However, little does everyone realize that BU’s opponent this upcoming weekend, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst does not have a successful record against BU. The Terriers are 25-2 against the Minutemen since the series began in the 1919-20 season, while BU coach Jack Parker has a superb 22-1 record against Amherst.
So will the Terriers be playing the right team at the right time?
“I don’t think any team is our team to play,” said junior defenseman and alternate captain Chris Dyment. “Our league is so strong right now, it doesn’t matter who we’re playing. We just need to look at it as two league games and two games we need to win.”
“I think that our team is just going to go out and try to work hard,” said sophomore forward John Sabo.
The Terriers will have to work very hard Friday night at the Mullins Center if they expect to come out with their first road win of the year. BU still has a goose egg in the wins column even after six battles away from Walter Brown Arena (0-5-1).
“I think it’s the team in general right now,” Dyment said. “We’re struggling to get wins, key wins in league games. Right now, it doesn’t matter if we’re at home or on the road. We’ll take a win wherever we can get it.”
“It’s hard to play away from home, but we’re just going to keep working hard to get a win,” Sabo said.
BU will also need to stay out of the penalty box, a task easier said than done this season, and keep working on its league-best 26.7 power-play percentage.
“We’re trying to play hard and trying to be aggressive when we’re out on the ice,” Sabo said.
“I think we’re in a situation right now where it’s a do-or-die weekend,” Dyment said. “We need these wins, especially since they’re both league games. I think a lot of it is frustration. The guys are out there on the ice, working hard and nothing is going our way.”
THE ULTIMATE GOAL
Saturday at Colorado College, the first period and opening seconds of the second belonged to three excited rookies.
Freshman forward Kenny Magowan netted his initial goal with 5:22 left in the first period to send BU to the locker room with a 1-0 advantage. Freshman forward Steve Greeley, who has impressed many so far with his quickness and maturity, also collected his first collegiate assist on the score. After the Tigers scored it up on forward Justin Morrison’s goal only 22 seconds after the intermission, another Terrier frosh — winger Frantisek Skladany — gave BU the lead right back only 16 seconds later.
“It was good to see the new guys scoring,” Dyment said. “The rest of us haven’t been contributing a lot and we’re not proud too much point-wise.
“It usually takes a month or two for [the freshmen] to get used to [the system], but they’re feeling more comfortable every game.”
Before Saturday, the only Terrier freshman to have scored to this season was forward Gregg Johnson, who now has one goal and two assists this year.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
