Play at the Plate

If I were to tell you a hockey team was 4-3-2 against teams currently in the top 20 of the USCHO.com/CSTV Division I Men’s Hockey Poll, with a goal differential of +5, you would probably think this team is a pretty good one. After all, they have a winning record against the best teams in the nation.

They must, then, be a very good team themselves.

And if I were to tell you that another hockey team was 1-3-0 against teams that are unranked with a goal differential of -4, undoubtedly you would think that this team was not very good, probably well below .500 and sitting at the bottom of its conference.

And now the shocker: These two teams are the same – and they are none other than our beloved Icedogs.

If you’ve been paying attention to the season thus far, you will know that games against the good teams aren’t the ones the Terrier faithful worry about. The Icedogs have shown the ability to play with the big boys, and in many cases beat them. And when they lose, it’s close. All of the Terriers’ losses to ranked teams this season have come by one goal.

Instead, the fans have been sweating the games against teams like Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, UMass-Amherst and UMass-Lowell. These three teams, with a combined record of 15-23-3, have handed the men half of their losses, while getting 20 percent of their combined wins against the Terriers.

It’s enough to just make you scratch your head and wonder what’s going on this season.

If the Terriers would have gone just 3-1 against those teams, they would be 7-4-2, sitting closer to the top of Hockey East and higher in the national polls. The Terriers are lucky to be 18th in the nation right now, as they are the only team in the top 20 below .500. Their record against the top 20 teams is the only thing keeping them ranked at all.

The whole thing just doesn’t make any sense to me as a fan. It’s reminiscent of how the Yankees couldn’t beat the lowly Devil Rays last season, and those struggles almost cost them the playoffs. Although the Terriers aren’t in too much danger of missing the Hockey East playoffs (Merrimack College and UMass-Lowell seem to have a stranglehold on the bottom of the standings), the team’s inability to win the games it should may cost BU a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

That’s why this upcoming set of games is so important for the Terriers. After a tough stretch of five contests in which the lowest-ranked opponent was No. 15 Harvard University, the Terriers now hit a softer spot in their schedule, with a pair against No. 19 Providence College as the only ranked team in the next five games.

The Terriers have to start playing as well as they do against the country’s top teams in this upcoming stretch against Providence (8-6-1, 7-2-1 Hockey East), Dartmouth College (4-5-0, 5-5-0 ECAC), Merrimack (4-7-2, 1-5-2 Hockey East), Providence again and Northeastern University (1-8-4, 1-5-4). If they do, they should be able to move themselves up the national polls and Hockey East standings.

Although the Friars stand atop the conference standings right now, their Hockey East record is deceiving. Their seven wins include two against UMass-Lowell, two against UMass-Amherst, one against Merrimack and one against Northeastern. That’s six out of seven wins against the four worst teams in the Hockey East this year. Other than that, Providence has not been overly impressive. (The Terriers tied the Friars, 2-2, earlier in the year.)

And it’s for that exact reason that PC is scary to the Terriers – PC isn’t one of the best teams. You can blame it on playing down to competition or looking ahead on the schedule, but the fact is the Icedogs are struggling against lackluster opposition. But they get to play five games against unimpressive teams, and these are wins they desperately need. Now, sitting at below .500 in December, they might finally wake up.

James Schneider, a sophomore in the College of Communication, has been a weekly sports columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at jschne@bu.edu.