For the first time since February of 1998, the Boston University hockey has won seven straight games.
But while Saturday’s 5-3 win over the University of Massachusetts at Lowell was lucky number seven, it had little to do with good fortune. Instead, the Terriers stuck to an odd formula that has worked for them all season: fall behind early, play more physically than their opponent and then score quick, successive goals to put the game out of reach.
Justin Maiser, Jack Baker and Kenny Magowan all scored third period goals to break a 2-2 third-period tie and keep the No. 6 Terriers (21-7-2, 13-5-2 Hockey East) within a point of league-leading University of New Hampshire.
Some expected Saturday’s game to feature round two of a brawl that erupted near the end of Friday night’s 5-1 BU win at Walter Brown Arena, but rather than beating them with their fists early on at Tsongas Arena, the Icedogs took it to the River Hawks with hustle.
Continuing to forecheck even as his linemates skated to the bench at the end of their shift, sophomore forward Mark Mullen got BU on the board by picking the puck from Lowell senior Kevin Kotyluk and blasting a wrist shot by goalie Cam McCormick from between the faceoff circles.
BU limited Lowell to just three shots in the first 14 minutes of the game, but Lowell’s fourth try tied the game with just under six minutes to go in the first period when sophomore forward Peter Hay intercepted a pass in his own zone and beat goalie Sean Fields with a forehander that whistled by his glove.
Lowell kept the pressure on, and two-and-a-half minutes later, junior Steve Slonina found a loose puck behind the BU net and was able to drag it out front and under Fields’ pads as the goalie tried to close the left post.
Slonina almost put Lowell up 3-1 before the frame was over, sending junior Ed McGrane in alone on Fields for a short-handed bid. Lowell’s leading scorer tried to go underneath Fields, but with the play developing quickly and Fields flopping in an attempt to stone McGrane, it was unclear whether or not the puck got by Fields.
Video replays after the game reportedly showed the puck did indeed hit the back of the net before bouncing underneath the BU goalie and out of the net, but watching it real-time, referee Conrad Hache allowed play to continue. Lowell coach Blaise MacDonald said if his team had ended the first period ahead by two instead of one, it would have been “gargantuan.”
“There’s no replay in this league, anyway, so it wouldn’t have made a difference,” said River Hawks captain Yorick Treille.
“I thought they did a very good job of weathering the storm in the first period,” MacDonald said. “Clearly it was a period that haunts us as we sit here with a big loss, because we could have easily been up 4-1 going into the locker room. The puck was on two of our leading scorers’ sticks and we were not able to convert.”
In the second period, BU took advantage of its apparent break. With the River Hawks band playing “Iron Man” and a pale Icedogs fan waving his shirt in homage to the hairier Walter Brown fixture “Sasquatch,” Gregg Johnson drew a faceoff back to Freddy Meyer at the point. Meyer let fly a slapper that had eyes for the net and made its way past McCormick.
“I thought their second goal was the absolute game,” MacDonald said. “We get through that period 2-1 we’re in fine shape. But they get a faceoff goal that goes right into the middle of our net. That’s just unacceptable.”
The Terriers not only got the equalizer in the second period, but they were so dominant the River Hawks could manage only one shot on Fields for the entire frame.
“I thought we might have had one of the greatest periods of hockey we’ve had in a long, long time in that second period,” said BU coach Jack Parker. “We only got one goal, but we changed the tide around.”
Maiser put BU ahead to stay six minutes into the third period. After freshmen Matt Radoslovich and Ryan Whitney chipped the puck ahead to David Klema, the freshman center drew the defensemen toward him before slinging a pass across the goalmouth to Maiser, who redirected the puck past McCormick.
Five minutes later Baker scored BU’s second goal of the night on a forecheck steal, taking the puck from junior defenseman Josh Reed on a Lowell power play and deking McCormick for the eventual game-winner.
“We get beat to the net on a backcheck – they out-will us – and then we giftwrap a goal to make it 4-2,” MacDonald said. “We kind of imploded, I might say.”
With 2:06 to go, Magowan stuffed home a Frantisek Skladany rebound to give BU some insurance before Lowell’s Tom Rouleau scored a meaningless goal with less than three seconds to play.
“I thought it was a great game for us, playing on the road like we did,” Parker said. “We’ve had four or five great third periods in a row.”
That stretch dates back to the beginning of BU’s winning streak, which began at Merrimack College on Jan. 30. Saturday’s come from behind win was the fifth time in that span the Terriers have stormed back from a deficit, but that’s something they’re accustomed to, going 11-4-2 after falling behind.
When the streak began, the Terriers were somewhat reeling, the sour tastes of a disappointing sweep to the Wildcats still in their mouth. At that point, Parker deemed New Hampshire the best team in Hockey East, but since then, the Terriers have proved their fast 6-0-1 start was a better indication of their capabilities than the 8-7-1 period that followed.
“I think what’s happened is we’ve gotten a lot more confidence,” Parker said. “Because of that, we’ve played with a lot more poise. We’ve become a solid forechecking team. Most importantly we’ve become a real solid team regrouping and moving the puck out of our zone and through center ice. Our defense has really matured and played with a lot more poise. I think our forwards are making some great plays through center ice.
“Once we changed the lines – we were in a little rut when we had the lines the same for a while – once we got [Brian] Collins back with [Mike] Pandolfo, I put [Brian] McConnell with [John] Sabo and Baker, and those two lines seemed to click like heck.”
At Matthews Arena Friday night, Northeastern University beat New Hampshire in overtime, and with its win BU pulled within one point of the league leaders. “We wanted to keep pace with UNH and we knew we had to come up with a great road game,” Parker said Saturday. “Our guys really responded tonight.”
With Saturday’s win, BU clinched home ice advantage in the first round of the Hockey East tournament. With a two-game set still to come the first weekend in March, the Icedogs are two points ahead of the Black Bears of Maine for second place. That means that if the playoffs were to begin today, BU would face Boston College in round one.
“I’d rather play UNH or Maine, or anybody than BC in the first round,” Parker said. “To wind up second place in our league and end up getting a fully healthy BC team – that’s our big rival, and we’ve done this all year long to end up with BC? But really, do you want to play Lowell again? Do you want to play Northeastern? Do you want to play Providence, a team that’s really had our number the last couple years?
“We want to play the Belmont Bantams, but they’re not available.”
The Icedogs put themselves in position to clinch home ice by ending the River Hawks’ four-game dominance of the series at Walter Brown Arena on Friday night.
After a slow first period, things heated up progressively as the game went on, and BU avoided a letdown just four days after claiming its 24th Beanpot championship.
“I was real happy with the first period,” Parker said. “I was wondering how we’d come out and get going. We talked about that all week.”
BU got two goals in the second period, the first by senior co-captain Pandolfo, who opened the scoring by tipping a Mullen pass past McCormick almost six minutes into the middle stanza.
Lowell held a territorial advantage and was outshooting BU 15-14 about halfway through the game, but Miller gave BU a 2-0 lead when he roofed a rebound after Collins and Pandolfo were stoned with about five minutes to go in the second.
A little more than a minute later, Kotyluk answered with a rebound goal of his own, but then Sabo took over.
After never having scored twice in a game before the Beanpot opener, Sabo netted two goals in 16 seconds, the first coming off a feed from McConnell that Sabo redirected past McCormick’s right leg before the junior forward fell on top of the goalie.
Trying to slow BU’s momentum, MacDonald called his timeout at that point, but it only gave Sabo a chance to stay on the ice. Off the faceoff, Sabo was able to get behind the Lowell defense and when Miller sent him in alone, he put a nifty deke on McCormick before he backhanded a shot by the goalie to give BU a commanding 4-1 lead with 12:50 to play.
“Both D’s were kind of parallel to me and I ran a route up-and-out,” Sabo said. “Miller hit me – I was yelling for it – it was a great pass.”
That goal may have been the figurative dagger that killed Lowell’s chances, but they wouldn’t go down without a literal fight.
With 7:30 to play, a skirmish that started in the corner between Sabo and Kotyluk turned into a brawl that would send eight players to the showers and turn a well-played game into one that featured 155 minutes in penalties.
“Me and that one kid had something going, it was fine, we were on the ground and some things happened that I don’t want to discuss, but I don’t know what happened out there,” Sabo said of the melee that resulted in 26 penalties for 116 minutes – including 16 for himself. “We hadn’t been out against that line, so it’s just kind of weird that they were out there. Just hockey I guess.”
The bad blood boiled over, and with 5:17 to play, River Hawk senior Laurent Meunier received a five-minute major for slashing. Magowan took advantage by scoring his third goal of the year on the power play.
“I thought it was a really well played game. I thought we played real hard all three periods,” Parker said. “It was a real hard-fought game and all of a sudden tempers flared. We weren’t trying to make a mess out of it, we were happy – it was 5-1.”
Parker said his club was expecting a physical game, and thought Fields (29 saves) played well despite MacDonald’s assertion that the sophomore netminder looked shaky.
“The difference in the game tonight was their ability to get to our net, and their ability to keep us from getting to their net,” MacDonald said. “I thought we had some good opportunities, some good puck possession time. We played as well as we could possibly play.
“The score is not an indication of how the game went. They did not outplay us 5-1. We were competing to the very last second, and that’s what we need to do.”