For 71 minutes and 42 seconds, the University of New Hampshire hockey team unsuccessfully threw everything it had at Boston University junior goalie Sean Fields.
And then, at 71:43, cruel irony took over in the form of BU sophomore Ryan Whitney’s big yellow Easton stick to give New Hampshire a 1-0 win and the Hockey East championship.
Wildcat defenseman Tyson Teplitsky took the puck and rushed from his own zone down the boards. Teplitsky threw a backhand toward the net. The puck appeared to be going wide until it deflected off of Whitney’s blade on the ice to prevent a crossing pass in front of the net and fluttered past a helpless Fields.
‘The puck was just sitting there; they were on a line change,’ said Teplitsky. ‘I took advantage of it and grabbed the puck, went wide. We were on a line change too. I was just trying to bring it in and get it on net, and fortunately it went off their player and in.’
‘Unfortunately, we put it in they weren’t going to put it in our net by Sean tonight,’ said BU coach Jack Parker. ‘They were going to have to drill something by him, I thought, and it turned out to be something even weirder than that.’
‘Whenever you get into a playoff game and go into overtime, it seems goals go in that way,’ Fields said. ‘Between the third and overtime, we were saying to throw everything at the net and maybe get a bounce. I’m sure they [said that], too. And they’re the ones that actually got the bounce.’
Despite coming out the loser, Fields earned Tournament Most Valuable Player honors after making 86 saves in two nights, including a 46 save performance on Friday as BU defeated Boston College in the semifinal, 6-5. Fields became the third player to win the trophy for the runner-up. The first two, Dwayne Roloson of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell in 1993, and Bob Bell of Providence College in 1995, both saw their teams lose, ironically, to BU.
The MVP was well-earned but tough to appreciate for the soft-spoken Fields, who wished he had gotten a chance to hold another trophy Saturday night.
‘I’d rather be holding the Hockey East championship, personally,’ Fields said.
And while Fields would have deserved that honor, it is hard to argue against the result. New Hampshire was able to take advantage of BU’s fatigue after the double-overtime thriller against BC the previous night, and the Wildcats controlled play from the second period on.
BU started out strong, with 12 shots to New Hampshire’s five in the first frame, but Wildcat goalie Mike Ayers was up to the BU challenge, and the Terriers would struggle the rest of the way to mount any kind of a decent attack.
‘I liked the first period, we had some legs, we had some jump, we were controlling the game and then I though the second period slipped away and it just looked like we hit a wall,’ Parker said. ‘From then on, it was really a struggle to get offense going, to get the puck through the center ice area.
‘I thought UNH played extremely well and it looked like we had two gears of slow tonight.’
All night the Wildcat attack was led by two speedy, small forwards: 5-foot 7-inch junior Steve Saviano and 5-foot 9-inch sophomore Sean Collins. Both players had numerous chances but were denied time after time as Fields rose to the challenge as his teammates struggled to keep up with New Hampshire.
While Fields wouldn’t make excuses for himself or his teammates, saying a couple times that ‘tired is an attitude,’ it was clear that the 85 minutes of tough hockey had taken their toll on BU. UNH was more than able to take advantage of that, outshooting BU 41 to 24.
‘In general, I thought UNH played with a lot more zip than we had tonight,’ Parker said.
Fields played brilliantly all weekend save for the early going against BC, when he let in two soft goals and looked shaky as the two cross-town rivals battled furiously for the right to play for the championship.
After senior center Brian Collins blasted a slapshot that trickled through BC goalie Matti Kaltiainen’s pads to give BU a 1-0 lead in Friday’s semifinal, BC tied up the game when forward Ned Havern caught sophomore defenseman Bryan Miller flat-footed at the blueline and skated in on Fields alone, wristing a shot stickside against the helpless keeper.
One minute into the second frame, Fields made a mistake when he came out to play the puck, and BC’s Chris Collins saw the puck deflect off of Fields leg and go in to give the Eagles a 2-1 lead.
From there, BU scored a couple of beautiful goals, as freshman forward John Laliberte found senior defenseman Mike Bussoli skating in alone on Kaltiainen. Bussoli made a nice deke and knotted things at two just one minute after Collins put BC on top.
Freshman center Brad Zancanaro took a backhand pass from junior left wing Kenny Magowan and tucked in his fourth goal of the season after Miller made a great centering pass to Magowan just 1:31 after Bussoli’s goal.
The one goal lead once again didn’t stick as BC’s Ty Hennes took advantage of two misplays by Fields. First, Fields failed to clear the puck. BC defenseman John Adams controlled the puck and lobbed it toward the net. Fields got his glove on it, but couldn’t control the puck, which went right to Hennes, who had an easy tap in to tie things at three. The mistakes were Fields’ last of the weekend, as he seemed to focus from there.
Justin Maiser backhanded a rebound off of Bussoli’s blast from the point that found Kaltiainen’s five-hole with 3:21 left in the second frame to give BU a 4-3 lead.
Defensive breakdowns saw BC wing Tony Voce score two third frame goals, with Fields helpless against two point blank shots. On Voce’s first goal, Fields made a brilliant save, but with no help out front to hit Voce or clear the puck from danger, the Philadelphia native easily tucked in his 21st of the year. On the second Voce tally, he made his way unimpeded to the net, where BC forward Stephen Gionta’s pass from the boards found him alone.
Maiser scored his second of the night on another backhander with 3:22 left in the game to tie things at five. After knocking the puck down, Maiser banged it past Kaltiainen. The officials reviewed the play for about five minutes to see whether the Minnesota native had knocked it in with a high stick. But replays showed that while Maiser may have knocked the puck down with a high stick, it was already on the ice when he took his shot.
‘I thought for sure it would be called a goal,’ said Parker. ‘I don’t know if it was high sticking, but I knew he didn’t high stick the puck into the net. You can only call goals back on certain criteria. When you high stick the puck and then shoot in into the net, you can’t call that back because then you’d have to review every play.’
The game headed into overtime, where, in the first extra period, the Eagles controlled play. If not for the brilliance of Fields, foreshadowing his Saturday night performance, BC would have gone on to face New Hampshire. Voce had several chances to get his hat trick, but Fields was up to the task.
In the second overtime, a hat trick was completed, but not for Voce. Maiser took a beautiful pass from sophomore forward Brian McConnell, and with a full windup, blasted a point blank one timer from 10 feet past Kaltiainen.
‘McConnell hit some guy nice and hard and created the turnover,’ Maiser said of his game-winner. ‘I was screaming in front of the net and he gave me a great pass. I just tried to shoot it as hard as I could.’
The jubilant Terriers mobbed Maiser after yet another brilliant FleetCenter performance from the Minnesotan who has come up big every time BU makes its way to Causeway Street.
‘Maiser has had the tendency to score in games like that,’ Parker said. ‘But you have to credit his linemates, too. [Brian] McConnell is a big-game player and Mark Mullen has had a good year for us.’
BU reached the FleetCenter after a convincing sweep against Providence at Schneider Arena.
Magowan starred in the first game, scoring his first career hat trick as BU survived a terrible penalty-killing night to win 5-4 in overtime, as Miller made a great move to get in on the net and score BU’s first overtime winner in over a year.
The next night, no extra frame was necessary as BU dominated the game the whole way and exploded for five third period goals as the Friars quit on their senior goaltender, Nolan Schaefer. The 7-1 Terrier win saw seven different Icedogs find the net.
Senior captain Freddy Meyer sat out the last three playoff games after sustaining a hit to his already injured shoulder in the first Providence game. Freshman Dan Spang replaced him in the lineup.
While the playoffs ended on a down note with the loss to UNH, Parker was happy with the intangibles he saw in his team as the NCAA Tournament and a possible No. 1 seed beckons.
‘I felt bad for our guys because we lost the game, but not because of our heart and not because of our effort,’ he said.
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