It’s beginning to seem as if even three-goal deficits are just small bumps for the Boston University men’s hockey team to roll past on the road to the postseason.
After spotting the University of Massachusetts-Amherst the first three scores Friday night at Mullins Center, the No. 1/2 Terriers roared back to win, 6-3, behind a hat trick from senior forward Jason Lawrence. The offensive explosion carried into Saturday’s rematch at Agganis Arena, where six different scorers gave BU a 7-2 victory to secure a four-point weekend sweep.
‘As I’ve said many times, it doesn’t matter who you play in this league as long as it says Hockey East on their shirt,’ BU coach Jack Parker said. ‘In fact, I don’t want to get this team [in the first round]. Because of what happened this weekend, they’ll be a real tough opponent.’
UMass (14-17-3, 9-13-3), which handed the Terriers their worst loss of the season in a 5-1 thrashing in Amherst on Nov. 14, looked to be en route to a similar outing Friday night, grabbing a 3-0 lead 55 seconds into the middle period.
Freshman T.J. Syner and senior Topher Bevis put pucks past BU goalie Kieran Millan in the first period, but it was sophomore Michael Lecomte’s tally that chased the rookie netminder from the game. Millan smothered a soft shot from Bevis and tried to freeze the puck under his glove, but Lecomte skated in and jammed it through.
Parker pulled the ineffective Millan out of the game, replacing him with fellow rookie Grant Rollheiser. The Terriers’ luck turned almost immediately following the swap.
‘An awful lot of times when you make a change, you shake everybody up,’ Parker said. ‘And there’s no question that that helped us out. [It was] a combination of us ratcheting it up a little bit and them getting relaxed.’
On a BU power play less than two minutes after the goalie switch, senior Matt Gilroy followed his own slap shot by lifting the rebound over sophomore Paul Dainton with his backhand. Gilroy, a two-time All-American, strengthened his case for the Hobey Baker Award later in the period with another goal. Gilroy blasted a low line drive from the right point on the power play that whistled through traffic and into the net, cutting the UMass lead to 3-2.
Sophomore Colin Wilson, also a leading candidate to win the Hobey Baker, put on a display of his dazzling stickhandling and passing abilities to set up the next two goals. He pulled the puck off the half-wall and skated around two Minutemen before dishing to sophomore Kevin Shattenkirk, who fed Lawrence down low for a tip-in late in the second.
Early in the third, Wilson pulled up on the right wing and found Lawrence again with his stick cocked for a slap shot, which he rifled past Dainton to give BU its first lead. Lawrence added a third score three minutes later to complete the hat trick.
‘The guys never gave up,’ Lawrence said. ‘We’ve got two great goaltenders, and whoever’s in the net is going to play well for us.’
Saturday’s showdown at Agganis Arena was more of the same, as the Terrier offense had its way with a slow-moving Minutemen defensive corps. UMass right wing James Marcou fired a shot past Millan in the first, but, from that point on, it was all BU.
Freshman Corey Trivino was the beneficiary of a fine pass from classmate Vinny Saponari just 26 seconds after Marcou’s goal. More crisp passing from Gilroy and senior Brandon Yip gave sophomore Nick Bonino a point-blank shot in the second.
Wilson gave sophomore Colby Cohen a tape-to-tape feed to bury a shot, and Cohen passed the favor on, setting up Lawrence’s 20th goal of the season two minutes later. Yip, Bonino and freshman Chris Connolly added third-period goals in the Terriers’ most fluid offensive performance of the season.
BU’s power play, which has stagnated in recent weeks, was the key to the 13-goal’ weekend outburst, as the Terriers potted three power-play tallies each night. The team opened up the man advantage with a new wrinkle by focusing the play behind the net, but returned to the more effective overload strategy that it normally implements.
The only negative aspect of the weekend was a collision Saturday that left junior Brian Strait with a right knee strain that will force him to miss at least two weeks.
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This may be BU’s best shot at a national championship in the last 10 years. If they defend, we could see BU going to visit Obama in the White House this spring as NCAA champs.