NEW YORK – During his postgame press conference, Boston University men’s hockey coach Jack Parker aimed to describe his team’s most positive feature during its 3-3 tie with No. 7/8 Cornell University. Try as he might to scour the English language for the perfect phrase, it simply didn’t exist.
Instead, he just made one up.
‘I thought the best part about the game was our ‘stick-to-itiveness,” Parker said.
The words ‘determination’ or ‘resolve’ might have worked as well, but suffice to say, as the Terriers attempted to dig themselves out of two separate two-goal deficits Saturday, their ‘stick-to-it-ness’ was undoubtedly tested.
Through two periods, BU let in two goals on four Cornell power plays, despite holding the Big Red to just three shots with the man advantage.
The first goal came by a stroke of bad luck and a moment of poor goaltending. Just 3:07 into the game, Cornell sophomore Sean Whitney clanked a slapper off the legs of BU sophomore Chris Connolly. The blocked shot kicked right back to Whitney’s stick, and the brother of Terrier alumnus, Ryan Whitney, skated below the right-side faceoff dot and smoked a wrister by sophomore goalie Grant Rollheiser, who was out of position for the poor-angled shot.
‘I’m sure Rollie would like to have that one back,’ Parker said. ‘It was a way off the angle wrist shot, and Rollie was way in his cage.’
‘Rollie’ would allow two more goals on the game, but neither was of the soft variety. Cornell’s second goal came on a breakaway about two minutes after Whitney’s tally, and the third was the result of a defensive blunder by the Terrier penalty kill. Rollheiser had little-to-no chance of making a save on either.
In the waning moments of the second period, with BU trailing by two goals, Rollheiser redeemed himself. The sophomore made a series of saves to deny senior Colin Greening, who has tallied 14 points in nine games this year, on three grade-A chances during a single shift.
Then, with just more than five minutes left in the third and BU still trailing by two, Rollheiser robbed Cornell junior Riley Nash to keep BU within a goal of the lead. As Nash and the puck moved from the right wing to the slot, Rollheiser slid from the post to the center of the crease to keep his angle.
Had Nash continued through the slot, Rollheiser likely would have been in fine position to deny his shot attempt. Instead, Nash, a right-handed shot, reached back behind BU sophomore Ross Gaudet, positioned between Nash and Rollheiser, and fired shot at the right post. Rollheiser, using every last inch of his 6-foot-4 frame, kicked out his left leg and preserved the one-goal deficit with his big toe.
The BU penalty kill also got its shot at redemption. With just more than five minutes left in regulation, BU senior Eric Gryba was sent off for elbowing.
Up to that point, the unit had, by BU junior captain Kevin Shattenkirk’s estimation, played well against one of the nation’s top power plays. However, the Terriers were still only killing Cornell’s power plays at a 50 percent clip, and, already trailing by a goal, couldn’t afford to spot the opponents any insurance.
The Big Red got off just one shot on their final power-play opportunity. Cornell spent the majority of the man advantage chasing the puck back into its own zone, including twice when it was escorted all the way to the Big Red net by BU junior Joe Pereira.
‘Bulldog’ couldn’t capitalize on either scoring chance, but each 1-on-1 rush helped to kill 10-15 seconds of Cornell’s power play, and energized an already buzzing Madison Square Garden.
Seconds after the Terriers finished killing the Cornell power play, BU junior Colby Cohen drew a cross-checking penalty from Cornell senior Brendon Nash. One minute, 22 seconds later, Big Red junior Patrick Kennedy was sent off for slashing BU freshman Alex Chiasson’s stick in two.
The Terrier power play, a lousy 0-for-5 through the game’s first 54 minutes, was getting its shot at redemption.
Parker pulled Rollheiser from the BU cage after Kennedy’s minor, giving the Terriers six skaters to Cornell’s three.
Throughout the game, the BU power play had showcased an ability to zip the puck quickly around the zone. What it hadn’t shown was an aptitude for using those passes to get the puck into scoring opportunities, and Cornell picked up many of its 27 blocked shots when BU pointmen fired directly into Big Red shins, sticks and bodies.
Cornell managed to hold off the Terriers through the end of Nash’s minor, but finally, at 19:09 of the third period, the BU power play, sticking to the game plan it had laid out before the contest, struck gold.
BU junior Nick Bonino, posted at the right faceoff dot, saucered a shot at net through a screen by BU sophomore Vinny Saponari. Saponari tipped the puck under Cornell netminder Ben Scriven’s butterfly spread, where it trickled through the crease until Connolly located it and tapped it across the goal line. The equalizer spurred an explosion of jubilant fist-raising from the Terriers on the ice and an eruption of cheers from the BU student section at the other end of the Garden.
For the second time in less than a week, BU managed to force overtime with a goal in regulation’s final minute ‘-‘- BU senior Zach Cohen sent Tuesday’s contest at Harvard University into extra time with 20 seconds left in the third.
‘We’re starting to get past the giving-up stage, you know, when things weren’t going our way in the beginning of the season,’ Shattenkirk said. ‘I think now we’re just trying to work through it and work hard and obviously you get good results when you do it.’
The shift in attitude ‘-‘- BU’s newfound ‘stick-to-itiveness’ ‘-‘- is a sign that BU’s season could be on the brink of a major turnaround following a 3-7-1 start.
‘We talk all the time about, ‘Attitude is everything,” Parker said. ‘We had great attitude this week against Harvard and in this one. We still have a long way to go to prove who we’re supposed to be. Although we’re going to be who we’re supposed to be, we got a long way to show that.’
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