Wedged between the two games of the 57th Annual Beanpot Tournament, the Boston University men’s hockey team hosts the University of Massachusetts-Lowell on Friday night at Agganis Arena.
Emotions are still running high from the Terriers’ 4-3 win over Harvard University in the Beanpot’s opening round Monday, but the attention to detail and pregame preparation this week have settled BU back into its weekly routine.
With practice scheduled every day this week, the Terriers, who are all healthy despite last week’s locker room battle with the flu, got back to working on their penalty kill and defense.
‘We talked about coming out strong and changing our attitude,’ senior co-captain John McCarthy said. ‘We need to get going from the start. The only technical thing we talked about was the 6-on-5. Harvard ended up scoring when they had their goalie pulled. It was after the buzzer, but it’s something we had to work on.’
BU struggled on Monday night to generate any sort of rhythm on offense against Harvard.
‘We talked about our attitude,’ McCarthy said. ‘That was bigger for us than how we played physically. They jumped out to a 2-0 lead early in the game, so we know now that we need to come into the game more focused.’
With their troubles ironed out by mid-week, the Terriers have left matters concerning the Beanpot on the Garden ice, and are, at least for the rest of this week, geared towards UMass-Lowell.
Kieran Millan
After platooning starting duties in net, freshman Kieran Millan, who earned the starting role after fellow freshman Grant Rollheiser went down with a lower-body injury earlier this year, has taken full command of the Terriers’ ship
‘His numbers speak for themselves,’ McCarthy said. ‘He’s played well, and he played great for a freshman in his first Beanpot. He gave us a chance to win the game.’
Millan has not allowed more than two goals in a single period since BU’s 4-3 loss to the University of Vermont on Nov. 22.
Millan boasts the highest winning percentage in the nation so far this year at .889 (16-1-1).
Top Line
The Terriers’ top forward line of seniors Chris Higgins and Jason Lawrence and sophomore Colin Wilson has been the team’s bread-winner all this year.
Combining for 78 points through 24 games, the line has paced the play of BU coach Jack Parker’s other three lines.
Giving the team something to look at in terms of a solid example, the first line has driven BU’s offensive resurgence from last season.
‘They have been playing really well lately, and [Lawrence] came up with the huge goal against Harvard,’ McCarthy said. ‘It’s almost like we can count on them. They’ve been putting the points up and getting everyone going. [The forwards] all look up to that line ‘-‘-‘ see what they’re doing and why they’re playing so well.’
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
