On the way out of the Bright Hockey Center after the Boston University hockey team’s demoralizing 5-2 loss to Harvard University Tuesday night that dropped BU below .500, Brian Mullen the father of BU captain Mark Mullen flagged down two very cold Daily Free Press writers.
‘This is their low,’ the elder Mullen prophesized in his thick Dorchester accent. He pointed out that BU coach Jack Parker tends to observe in the early season, and then make changes.
Mullen said he thought that observation period was over, and that Parker’s plan of action would be in effect Friday against Dartmouth College at Walter Brown Arena.
The Big Green tied the Terriers 2-2, pushing the BU (4-4-4, 2-3-2 Hockey East) winless streak to four. But if you look beyond the score, Parker’s boys played one of their best games of the year, putting 46 shots on goal while playing thorough hockey for the full 60 minutes.
And after a 7-2 drubbing of Yale University (3-8-0, 3-5-0 Eastern College Athletic Conference) at home on Sunday night, Mr. Mullen looked even more correct.
The three-games-in-six-days Ivy League stretch over Thanksgiving break started as low as it could have, as the Terriers’ offensive woes continued against Harvard (4-3-1, 3-3-1 ECAC). Just two of 36 shots (both by senior goals leader Kenny Magowan) beat Crimson goalie Dov Grumet-Morris. In net for BU, Sean Fields looked as shaky as he had all year, frequently appearing out of position and over pursuing Harvard chances.
It ended in a 5-2 Crimson victory Harvard’s first win over BU at home in six tries and 21 years and saw the ice littered with dejected men in scarlet jerseys.
When asked about the atmosphere at Bright, Parker said, ‘The atmosphere was we couldn’t score goals. That’s what I was smelling.’
But things got better Friday. Out of 46 shots and innumerable scoring chances, the Terriers only beat Dartmouth goalie Dan Yacey twice with a Whitney wrister and a Kenny Roche deflection. But despite the continued trend of frustration, Parker was very pleased with what BU brought to the table.
‘I love the way we played tonight. I loved everything about our game,’ the coach said Friday. ‘I tell our guys that one of the goals of the game should be that when the game is over, you want to come into the dressing room and say you deserved to win. And we deserved to win tonight.’
BU allowed the Big Green (4-1-4, 3-0-3 ECAC) to tie the game at two on a chaotic goal with a pulled goalie and just 14.7 seconds left in regulation. Still, the Terriers came away with more confidence.
The 2,720 in attendance also saw a second solid performance by goalie Stephan Siwiec, creating a mini-goalie controversy in the minds of much of Terrier Nation.
‘He played so well tonight,’ Parker said after the Dartmouth game. ‘Sean struggled against Harvard I thought, but we wanna get him straightened out, so we’ll see.’
Sunday saw Sean Fields back to his old self, despite the senior’s early-season slump. Last year’s team Most Valuable Player reestablished himself, allowing just two goals on a great move and a nice deflection from Bulldog senior Ryan Steeves.
‘I thought he made some big saves I thought he looked more in control,’ Parker said Sunday. ‘He wasn’t sliding and overplaying shots like he was against Harvard and the last couple games. So hopefully he’ll be ready he’ll definitely play against [Boston College Friday].’
But the story of Sunday night when the 1-1-1 ECAC stretch ended on a high note on the scoreboard was the offensive explosion from an unlikely source. Six of BU’s seven goals were scored by defensemen on a pair of hat tricks by Whitney and freshman Kevin Schaeffer an extremely rare feat that Parker at least said he had never seen in his 31 years of coaching.
Whitney and Schaeffer picked up the struggling forwards, whom Parker has repeatedly called ‘snake-bitten.’ The tandem scored early and often, with the junior getting two first-period goals and finishing off the trick late in the third and the freshman getting a goal in the first and two in the second, sending dozens of hats iceward from Section 8.
Magowan’s team-leading seventh goal off a nice feed from David Klema (who was playing against his brother Mike) was the only goal from a Terrier forward on the night.
Goal scoring has been all or nothing this year for BU. Since the opening-night win over Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Terriers have either scored at least six goals and chased the opposing goalie (Bobby Goepfert, Casey Guenther, Yale’s Matt Modelski) or come away without a win, often sending the opposing goalie (Michael Ayers, Chris Davidson, Dan Yacey) to the press room.
And though the Terriers did not play as solidly as they did against Dartmouth their three goals in the second period came on just four shots the outcome had to be more encouraging, as BU earned just its second win in November.
‘If you look at the shot chart, you could say, ‘Boy, this team [Yale] stinks’ in the first period,’ Parker said. ‘And then you could say, ‘Boy, this team [BU] stinks’ in the second period, and that’s what happened. But fortunately, we got some goals in the second period.’
Those goals, while looking nice on the scoreboard, still did not come from the ‘usual suspects’ Parker referred to after the Harvard game. The coach said the slump will be over when and only when such suspects start putting the puck in the net.
Senior Frantisek Skladany, who ‘could have had four’ goals Friday according to Parker, is still without a goal on the year. He missed a few stellar chances Sunday as well, including an empty net in the first period.
‘We would have been much better off if five forwards got those goals,’ Parker said. ‘We may have won 7-2 and we may have gotten a bunch of goals, but Skladany didn’t get any, Mullen didn’t get any, [Junior Brian] McConnell didn’t get any. When are we going to start getting some goals from these guys?’
And so a shaky early season hangs with Parker’s question fittingly at 4-4-4 going into what will be the defining weekend of the pre-winter break portion of the schedule. Ready or not, the Terriers head to Chestnut Hill Friday night before hosting the newest Hockey East power the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on Sunday afternoon. If nothing else, BU gets a pair of chances to pull itself back in the elite ranks of the conference somewhere the Terriers have not been this year.
‘It seems like every week when we have a good week of practice we play real well on the weekend, so we’re going to have to be real good Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and be ready Friday night,’ Whitney said. ‘[BC is] a great team. Tonight obviously helped, but either way it doesn’t really matter.
‘We could be 0-11 playing BC and we’re going to be ready to go.’
If they’re really ready to go, Brian Mullen could end up in the ranks of Nostradamus.
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