Tale of Two Contests

On the surface, the No. 5 Boston University men’s hockey team’s two games this weekend were polar opposites.’
Friday night, the Terriers (3-1-0, 1-1-0 Hockey East) knocked off Merrimack College, 5-2, at Agganis Arena behind a 23-save performance from freshman goaltender Kieran Millan.
Last night, the Terriers dropped their first conference game of the season to the No. 6 University of New Hampshire (3-0-0, 1-0-0), 2-1, despite 22 saves by BU’s other rookie goalie, Grant Rollheiser.
Buried beneath the split nature of the Terriers’ weekend billing, however, was the effect of this year’s NCAA rule changes.
As of July 2, placed in effect for the 2008-09 season, the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Ice Hockey Rules Committee approved changes in an effort to protect the puck carrier as well as revamp the league-wide interference call.
The calls have become more cut-and-dry, with any hooking motion sustained for more than two seconds whistled for a minor penalty. Unfortunately for BU, it has taken four games for the Terriers to adjust to the new system.
‘There’s a new way they’re calling penalties in this league,’ BU coach Jack Parker said. ‘We’re going to have to play more defense with our feet, not with our sticks. We’re all going to have to deal with it. They know it. We’ve showed it to them, we’ve talked about it. But it’s difficult to change habit.’
Friday night, BU was called for a season-high 10 penalties ‘-‘- eight of which put the Terriers down a man on the basis of hooking, holding or interference.
‘That was never a penalty before,’ Parker said, gesturing a hooking motion with his hands. ‘If the guy comes down and passes the puck by me and I hold him up for a second, that was never a penalty before. Now, if you hold him up for two seconds it’s a penalty, and we had two of those [Friday].’
While BU held the Warriors to just one goal over an entire period of short-handed play, the stop-and-go rhythm resulting from this year’s officiating changes has hampered the Terriers fast-paced style.
‘They frustrated us,’ Parker said of the Warriors. ‘They played very well in front of their goaltender when we had a man up and they kept it real simple when they had a man up. If it wasn’t for the special teams, that would have been a much easier game.’
Penalties handcuffed the Terriers from the opening period of last night’s contest against UNH. With sophomore forward Joe Pereira in the box for a hooking penalty, junior defenseman Eric Gryba put the Terriers in a 5-on-3 situation with a holding penalty 40 seconds later.
‘We felt we did a pretty good job killing the penalty,’ BU co-captain John McCarthy said. ‘They had a couple 5-on-3 chances and with the big ice surface up there it’s harder to kill in the zone because there is so much room. They have a good power play and they look for one-time shots.’
The Wildcats made use of the two-man advantage, as forward Phil DeSimone beat Rollheiser one second after Pereira stepped out of the box.
UNH forward James vanRiemsdyk stretched the Wildcat lead to two five minutes into the second period. With BU defenseman Brian Strait watching from the sin bin, vanRiemsdyk buried a pass from Kevin Kapstad past Rollheiser to put UNH ahead, 2-1.
‘We know that next weekend we have [the University of] Michigan,’ McCarthy said. ‘We are pleased with the effort we got. It’s not like we got blown out or outworked. It’s early in the season. We’re going to see them twice again.’
Senior forward Jason Lawrence scored the Terriers’ lone goal last night, connecting with sophomore forward Colin Wilson to cut the lead in half with seven minutes remaining in the period.
That was all the Terriers could put past UNH goalie Brian Foster, who turned away 31 of BU’s 32 shots.
‘Their goalie played really well,’ McCarthy said. ‘We had a good amount of our shots, but we could have done a little better with traffic in front of the goalie. Unfortunately we just missed a couple, which would have been nice to have. But it’s a long season. We just have to go from here.’