Hockey has time on its side; Whitney honored

With 22 regular season games still to play, time may be on the side of the Boston University hockey team, but history is certainly not.

Since 1990, the Terriers have only twice missed qualifying for the NCAA Tournament, with those sub-par seasons coming in 1998-99 and 2000-01. BU went 14-20-3 in each of those seasons, the only two of the last 12 years the Icedogs lost five of their first 14 games.

That’s bad news for the boys on Babcock Street, who find themselves at 7-5-2 after being dominated and disposed of by Cornell University in a combined 9-2 two-game sweep last weekend.

‘We’re not too happy. It was obviously not fun,’ said sophomore defenseman Bryan Miller. ‘We hit kind of a low point in the season, some tough times. You can’t take anything away from Cornell. They’re a tough team, but we didn’t play as well as we could have.’

Cornell outplayed BU so badly it looked like a matchup of men against boys, Terriers’ Coach Jack Parker told U.S. College Hockey Online after Sunday’s game, when BU’s lone tally in a 5-1 loss came when junior forward Mark Mullen converted a shorthanded chance provided by a Doug Murray turnover.

Mullen’s goal came with BU already down 4-0, the result of a Big Red blitzkrieg that gave Cornell a 3-0 lead at the end of the first period. The Red did the same thing the previous afternoon, as well, sitting on those scores until an empty netter secured a 4-1 win.

‘Personally, I think they’re the best team we’ve played all year,’ Miller said of Cornell. ‘They don’t have any superstar individuals, but together as a team, they forecheck and pressure like crazy. They get two to three guys on you in their defensive zone. They have a great goalie, and they’re unbelievably physical.’

Recent BU teams have never been a bunch to shy away from physical play, but last weekend Cornell maintained a ‘big-time’ physical edge, according to Miller.

‘Our immediate goal is to learn from the past weekend and see what Cornell did to us,’ he said. ‘I know when we played [the University of Massachusetts at] Lowell [and won 3-2], we got lucky to tell you the truth. They outplayed us. BU teams are usually physical and we need to get that back in our game.’

BU — which beat No. 12 Harvard University last Tuesday — fell two spots in this week’s www.uscho.com national poll, to No. 13, while Cornell remained steady at No. 7. It’s still a spot among the nation’s elite for the Terriers, but it’s a distance from the No. 5 ranking and national title hopes with which the season opened for the Icedogs.

Against teams in this week’s top 10, BU is 1-4, beating the University of New Hampshire before losing to Boston College, the University of Maine and twice to Cornell. BU could play as many as eight more games against America’s brass, with the results of those games likely dictating the Terriers’ inclusion in, and preparedness for, the NCAA Tournament.

‘If you want to compete for the title, you’ve got to beat the teams ahead of you as well as the teams behind you,’ Miller said.

NUMBING NUMBERS A look at the Terriers’ statistics, compared to the 60 Div. I teams across the country:

* No BU player is among the top 116 points-per-game scorers in the nation, encompassing those players averaging at least a point in every game. Twenty-three Hockey East players made the list, including at least one from every team other than BU and Merrimack.

* Senior forward John Sabo is tied for 67th in goals per game (seven in 14 games), while no Terrier is in the top 108 for assists per contest. Sabo is also tied for 43rd in power play goals, sharing the spot with teammate Justin Maiser. Each have three power play tallies.

* Sean Fields is 45th in the country with an .897 save percentage, and 29th with a .583 winning percentage.

* The Terriers’ offense is 32nd, averaging 3.14 goals per game. The national leader, Colorado College, is scoring at a 5.14 clip.

* Defensively, BU is allowing 3.21 goals per game, ranking 28th, while Cornell allows 1.33 per night to lead the nation. With Sunday’s 5-1 Big Red win, the Icedogs goal differential turned negative (-.07), which is 29th nationally.

* Averaging a period per game, the Icedogs are the fourth-most penalized team in America, logging 280 minutes through 14 games.

* On each of the specialty teams, BU ranks in the bottom fourth. The Terriers are successful on only 14.5 percent of their power play chances (11-76; 47th), and they’ve killed only 74.7 percent of penalties (65-87; 50th). That makes BU a combined 76-163 on special teams, a 46.6 percent clip placing it 46th.

Ironically, and perhaps most importantly, the team statistic the Icedogs rank highest: winning percentage. They’re 21st, at .571.

WHIT OR WHITOUT YOU For the second straight season, sophomore defenseman Ryan Whitney will miss collegiate action in late December while playing for the U.S. team in the World Junior Championships. Whitney will be available for BU’s next three games, but will miss the Great Lakes Invitational, and if the national team advances far enough, the Terriers’ Jan. 4 game against Northeastern University. A graduate of the U.S. National Team Development Program, Whitney will join the team of teenagers for its Dec. 26 opener against Russia. This year’s tournament is in Halifax and Sydney, British Columbia.