Forget the notion of a ‘Thanksgiving Break’ for the Boston University hockey team. When the Commonwealth Avenue campus clears out later today, the Terriers aren’t going anywhere.
Instead, they’ll be preparing for the start of the smart part of their schedule, a three-game set against Ivy Leaguers and ECAC academics Harvard and Cornell universities beginning when the Crimson come to Walter Brown Arena tonight at 7.
It will be the first nonconference game in a month for the Icedogs, who last ventured outside the close confines of Hockey East on Nov. 25, when the University of Nebraska-Omaha made the trip from the Midwest. But while Hockey East coaches and players always reiterate the league’s depth, and the dangerousness of any given team on any given night, getting out of the league does not get a team out of trouble.
No. 7 Cornell (6-1-0) and No. 13 Harvard (5-2-0) were both NCAA Tournament qualifiers last year, with the Big Red advancing as far as the Terriers before losing to the University of New Hampshire in the elite eight. Harvard lost an overtime thriller in the first round to the University of Maine, and in case you forget, that’s the very same Maine team that dropped BU a day later.
‘[The Harvard and Cornell games] are going to be important games come late in the season, when they’re looking toward tournament time and the picking,’ said sophomore forward Justin Maiser. ‘They’re both top-20, top-10 teams.’
That’s what makes this a crucial week for BU. Wins against top-ranked opponents can go a long way come March because of the PairWise Rankings, college hockey’s cousin of football’s BCS and basketball’s RPI.
Designed as a device to rate every team with a winning record, one piece of the equation is a team’s record against other teams under consideration, or those at or above .500. Because both Harvard and Cornell are predicted to finish well above .500, BU’s games against these teams could hold substantially more say in its post-season placing than, say, the Terriers’ win against Nebraska-Omaha, currently 5-7.
Since its inception, the PairWise has been near perfect in picking which teams will play for the national title and where each team will be ranked. The Icedogs know this very well, receiving the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye last season, ahead of Maine, despite going 0-2-1 against the Black Bears within the three weeks prior to selection Sunday.
‘We were just talking about that, actually,’ Maiser said yesterday, minutes after a team meeting that followed practice. ‘This Harvard team is a really good team this year. They’re the real deal, and this one will be important PairWise.’
Last year’s annual Tuesday-before-Thanksgiving matchup between BU and Harvard showcased Terrier center Gregg Johnson’s first career hat trick and the Icedogs’ biggest single-period offensive explosion of the season; five goals in the second stanza to erase a 1-0 Crimson lead and win 8-4.
Then a freshman, Harvard goalie Dov Grumet-Morris allowed all eight scores. But with another year under his pads, he boasts 2.15 goals against average and has stopped 92.6 percent of the shots fired his way, making another eight-goal outburst unlikely for a sputtering BU attack.
‘We’d love to, but I think it’s going to be a little bit closer game than that,’ said sophomore center Brian McConnell.
Harvard’s offense is a triple threat, with Tim Pettit, Dom Moore and Tyler Kolarik leading the team with 10 points apiece. Pettit (two goals) and the Crimson (9-for-32) are especially potent on the power play and have converted on five of their last 11 chances.
After starting the season with a loss, Harvard had won four straight until it traveled to western New York last weekend and skated right into the bruising Big Red. Led by captain Doug Murray, Cornell plays extremely physically in front of arguably the best goaltender in America, Dave LeNeveu (1.14 GAA, .936), and has outscored opponents 32-10 this season.
BU and Cornell meet Saturday and Sunday, in Ithaca, N.Y., forcing the Icedogs to not only stay in Boston for Thursday’s holiday, but to practice on Thanksgiving day. By Sunday night, the Terriers will have played four games in 10 days, but according to McConnell, that’s not a bad thing.
‘The guys like it because there’s not as many practices,’ he said. ‘You don’t get bored with just practicing all the time, you just get into the games more.’
BU last played Thursday, a 3-2, come-from-behind win against the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. By the Icedogs’ own admission, it wasn’t pretty, but after displaying resiliency and halving their penalty minutes, the game could be a stepping stone to success.
‘We’re just trying to get back to having fun out there,’ McConnell said. ‘Making simple plays. Not being nervous or worrying about things that are going on, or penalties, on anything else. Play loose, and everybody play their own game. Hopefully we can build off the fact that we actually did win that game even though we only played good for about 7-10 minutes.’
Tonight marks the end of a five-game homestand for BU, which plays at home only once more before Jan. 5, and after splitting the stretch so far, Maiser said he is looking to ease the concerns of the fans.
‘Hopefully we’ll get a win [tonight],’ he said. ‘We’ve disappointed the fans a little bit the past few games, and that’s in the back of our minds obviously. We’d like to get another win at home before we go away.’
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