Icedogs crumple in weekend pair

AMHERST – For Boston University hockey fans, buying tickets to a Terrier game right now is a lot like buying lottery tickets.

If you managed to score a seat at Alfond Arena last weekend, you might have felt like you just won Megabucks. But if you trudged out to Amherst Saturday night to bear witness to what coach Jack Parker called a “pathetic” performance by the Icedogs, then you might have felt you were driving home from Foxwoods – down big.

One week after a pair of stunning wins against top-6 opponents, the Terriers this weekend slouched back under .500 with two slow, disheartening losses – the first coming at home, 3-2, to the University of New Hampshire on Friday night, and the second at UMass-Amherst Saturday by a 4-2 count. In both games, the team was almost inexplicably lackadaisical early and throughout.

“I think this team is easily satisfied, that’s for sure. They work very, very hard against Vermont and they work very, very hard against Maine,” Parker said. “It must be, ‘OK, we must be good again. We must be the old BU hockey team.’ And then we get slapped around by UNH and slapped around by UMass.”

The games were remarkably similar in pace, but a one-goal loss to one of Hockey East’s perennial powers is hardly alarming. The loss in Amherst, though – when BU (3-4, 3-3 Hockey East) allowed 41 shots to a team that had lost six in a row (and is now 2-7, 1-5 Hockey East) – got Parker angry.

“We absolutely stunk the house out and especially we stunk the house out in our defensive zone coverage. We never controlled anybody. We gave up over 40 shots. We gave up over 40 shots, and that is absolutely bizarre,” he said (the team gave up 37 against UNH). “The most disheartening part of that game is how pathetic we are in playing people in our own end. And we did the same thing [Friday].”

At UMass, the Minutemen had nine shots and a goal before BU could put one on goalie Jon Quick. The goal came on the power play (BU gave up four power play goals on the weekend), when an uncovered Chris Capraro picked up an odd carom and slid it inside John Curry’s left post.

Things weren’t much better for the rest of the first period – the second straight first period that BU allowed 18 shots on goal. Later in the period, while the Terriers had a man advantage, Kevin Schaeffer whiffed on a pass, handing the puck to UMass captain Stephen Werner to cruise on a breakaway, leaving Curry (the No. 3 star in both games) with no chance.

But that wasn’t the goal that really irked Parker. Four minutes after Brian McGuirk tipped in a power play goal on the rebound of a Dan Spang shot midway through the second to make it 2-1, UMass freshman Scott Crowder scored the back-breaker on a frantic scramble to Curry’s right.

“That third goal is the epitome of what’s going on with my team,” Parker said. He followed with an extensive and animated description of the play, on which he wasn’t happy with his defensemen (Matt Gilroy and Sean Sullivan) or his center (Pete MacArthur).

Before the season started, Parker – and most of the BU fan base – figured the defensive unit would be one of the team’s best strengths. BU is without its best defensive forward in David Van der Gulik, but seven games into the season, the coach has no idea what went wrong. He’s been shuffling the bottom half of the defensive lineup almost every game looking for answers, but for much of the UMass contest, the Minutemen seemed to skate around uncontested and pelt Curry with shots.

“The most shocking thing about the way we’re playing is that, if anything, I thought that we would be able to play hard in our zone,” Parker said. “We have most of our defensemen back, we have most of our centers back. … And in general, those guys – with the exception of [captain Brad] Zancanaro – those guys have a different mindset this year, an unbelievably different mindset.”

In both games, BU still had a chance late in the third. Sean Sullivan’s perfect cross-ice pass to John Laliberte on the power play midway through the third against UMass brought the Terriers within a goal, but they struggled to generate chances the rest of the way until Curry was pulled, and then Werner buried an empty-netter from 100 feet out to seal it.

Before the game, former Terrier and current UMass coach Don Cahoon had approached Parker with frustrations about his team. Afterward, the tables were turned.

“I think both of us felt that our teams could be so much more than they were at this point in time, and that was kind of an open-ended conversation where neither one of us came up with an answer,” Cahoon said. “But the kids spoke for me. They put forth a type of effort that we need to win games.”

Parker’s players didn’t, and they didn’t on Friday night, either. Expected to come out of the gates flying from the previous weekend’s success and the sellout Agganis Arena crowd against a top-flight opponent, BU came out flat. Without being overly dominant themselves, the No. 13 Wildcats (6-3-1, 5-1-0 after beating Maine Saturday) still skated circles around BU for most of the first, and led 1-0.

“I couldn’t tell you what the reason was for that because usually we’re ready for a big game like this,” Curry said. “I don’t think it had anything to do with being down or not being excited to play – it might have been being too excited to play.”

The Terriers improved as the game went on, but a killer goal eluded Curry in the second to make it 2-0. BU came out on fire in the third, scoring off Brad Zancanaro’s skate on a Laliberte rebound 20 seconds in, and they tied it with eight minutes left, but poor defensive coverage on the power play – all three of UNH’s goals came on the man advantage – allowed freshman Jerry Pollastrone to slide home the game-winner off a rebound with six minutes to play.

It all left Terrier fans not knowing what to think – and wondering which team will catch the bus to Providence for Zancanaro-Zancanaro X (as Brad’s twin Tony captains the Friars) on Friday.

“I wish I knew,” Brad Zancanaro said Saturday. “I don’t know if it’s because last weekend we played really well and we were satisfied or whatnot. That’s what Coach has been saying all year, reverting back to that. I don’t know. I wish I could tell you.”

“I think it’s a team psyche kind of thing,” Parker added. “You can change some people in the lineup, you can move some people around, but I think more than anything else, it’s getting to people to realize what they’re not doing. We have to get them to realize what they’re not doing defensively. They haven’t realized that yet.”