No. 5/7 men’s hockey drops third straight to Maine

ORONO, MAINE ‘-‘- Early penalties doomed the No. 5/7 Boston University men’s hockey team yesterday afternoon in a 3-2 loss at the University of Maine.

Penalties called on BU sophomore forward Vinny Saponari (boarding) and BU junior defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk (cross-checking) just 14 seconds apart led to a 5-on-3 goal by Maine junior defenseman Jeff Dimmen 8:06 into the game. Maine sophomore forward Gustav Nyquist made it 2-0 Black Bears (3-5-0, 2-2-0 Hockey East) 1:27 later when he scored just five seconds after Shattenkirk’s penalty expired.

‘One of our goals before the game was not to beat ourselves, and I thought we beat ourselves pretty good tonight with some of the stupid penalties we took,’ BU coach Jack Parker said.

Up two men, Maine sophomore forward Brian Flynn took control of the puck at the left side of the BU (2-5-0, 1-4-0) net and found Dimmen streaking into the slot from his right point position. Dimmen took the pass and roofed it over BU sophomore goalie Kieran Millan’s (15 saves) glove to make it 1-0.

Just as the second penalty came to an end, Maine struck again. BU sophomore defenseman David Warsofsky, who was playing despite an injury to the adductor muscles in his hip, tried to clear a puck in the crease to the left corner. But Nyquist grabbed the puck, wrapped around to the right side of the net and stuffed it inside the post before Millan could get across his crease.

‘Those two penalties put us down two goals,’ Parker said. ‘Now, you’re trying to come back on the road being down two goals [nine] minutes into the game.’

To the Terriers’ credit, they came on strong in the second half of the period and answered with a power-play goal of their own at the 14:06 mark. Freshman defenseman Max Nicastro laid a pass over to sophomore forward Corey Trivino in the right circle after a nice puck rotation. Trivino faked a one-timer and then slid a slick pass to the left doorstep that freshman forward Alex Chiasson buried for his team-leading fourth goal of the season.

BU appeared to tie the game 6:20 into the second. BU senior defenseman Eric Gryba ripped a slapshot from the right point that Chiasson redirected past Maine sophomore goalie Scott Darling (26 saves). But after further review, the referees waved the goal off because Chiasson made contact with Darling in the crease.

The no-goal seemed to completely swing momentum back to Maine. Instead of letting the Terriers tie it up after leading 2-0, the Black Bears regained their two-goal lead just 3:11 after the review. Nyquist stormed down the left wing on a 2-on-1 and slid a pass through Warsofsky’s legs after the defender overcommitted to the pass. Maine sophomore forward Spencer Abbot found himself all alone in the slot and wasted no time in beating Millan top shelf.

‘Nyquist comes down the wall and squeezes by one of our defensemen, but he’s off the angle,’ Parker said. ‘From where he has the puck, he couldn’t have put the puck past my goaltender once in 100 times. But my defenseman went over to play him and left the other guy wide open ‘-‘- the opposite way of how you’re supposed to play a 2-on-1.’

The Terriers cut the lead to one on a power-play goal with 6:59 left in the game. Shattenkirk held the puck at the right point before sliding a pass over to BU junior Colby Cohen at the left point. Cohen one-touched the pass diagonally across the ice to Chris Connolly at the right faceoff dot, and the BU sophomore forward ripped a one-timer just under the crossbar for his first goal of the season.

‘To be able to set it up, you have to go and work hard to get the puck,’ Connolly said of the team’s power play, which went 2-for-9 and recorded 12 shots in the game and has shown steady improvement over the last couple games.

‘Once we had it, we wanted to just work it around and make as many clean passes as possible to get their penalty kill moving around. We were fortunate enough that Colby made a nice pass to find that hole there, and I was able to catch the goalie off guard.’