No rest for the weary

Rest, relaxation and a bit of chicken noodle soup are what most of the No. 20 Boston University men’s hockey team could use this weekend.

Instead, the team can look forward to a three-and-a-half hour bus ride, a weekend in blustery Burlington, Vt. (highs are projected in the 30s with rain/snow all weekend) and a key two-game set with the No. 18 University of Vermont.

The Terriers (14-13-3, 11-10-2 Hockey East) will make the trek to take on the Catamounts (13-11-6, 7-10-6) with a handful of players battling the same illness that held freshman forward Wade Megan out of the lineup for Saturday’s 2-1 win over Providence College.

“We had a shortened practice [Tuesday],” BU coach Jack Parker said. “We have a lot of coughing and hacking out there. We gave them a day off &-&- or two days off, actually &-&- then had a short practice [Tuesday], had a real good practice [Wednesday], and then we’ll practice for probably 50 minutes or so before we get on the bus [Thursday].”

Before Megan came down with the illness, junior captain Kevin Shattenkirk battled the same bug. Now, freshman defenseman Max Nicastro &-&- who Parker said was “hacking and coughing” in Wednesday’s practice &-&- is among a handful of players who could miss a game or two this weekend with the illness.

“Or it might be they’re all healthy &-&- who knows?” Parker said.

With two weekends of hockey left &-&- and eight key HE points up for grabs &-&- the Terriers are looking to maintain their current fourth-place standing (or improve it) to hold onto home-ice advantage for the conference tournament.

“There’s room to get less than eight points, but it doesn’t mean we’ll get as high as we want to get,” Parker said. “In all probability, we could probably get six points and still get home ice.

“It isn’t just home ice advantage, either. It’s about playing well. We could play real well and just get four points out of the two weekends and wind up in fifth or sixth. We still have to win two games [in first round HE action] &-&- it doesn’t matter. Our philosophy is just to play the next game and play it well.”

Last year, both the fifth-seeded University of Massachusetts-Lowell and sixth-seeded Boston College crashed the TD Garden party by upsetting higher-ranked teams. Still, holding home-ice in the quarterfinals &-&- a best-of-three series &-&- could prove crucial, especially considering HE’s volatile nature in 2009-10.

“I think it’s a disadvantage,” Parker said of not getting home ice. “I think you look at it and, I mean, it’s why we play all these games &-&- to get home ice. There’s no question about that, but it doesn’t mean you can’t get to [the TD Garden] from a visitor’s point of view.

“It happened last year and it’s happened last year and it’s happened in the past and we’ve done it ourselves.”

The Catamounts, meanwhile, hold the bittersweet distinction of sitting 18th in both the PairWise and NCAA RPI rankings, but ninth in the conference, and are at risk of missing the HE Tournament all together.

The first time Vermont and BU played, the squads skated to a 3-3 tie at Agganis Arena on Dec. 4. Senior defenseman Eric Gryba picked up his first goal of the year, and BU also got tallies from redshirt freshman forward Ross Gaudet and sophomore forward Corey Trivino.

Forwards Chris McCarthy, David Pacan and Wahsontiio Stacey netted goals for the Catamounts.

Despite outshooting UVM, 40-24, Parker expressed displeasure after that game regarding his team’s effort. Such irritation was a regular occurrence in this year’s first semester, but those lackadaisical efforts appear to have become a thing of the past for BU.

“There’s no question we’re a different team than we were last semester,” Parker said. “If we weren’t, we’d be in 10th place.

“We’ve come a long way from where we were first semester, but if we don’t finish it off in the right way, we could end up not so happy with the season anyway.”