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Six-game losing streak just one number to consider for BU

Question: what do the Boston University hockey team and former WWF champion The Rock have in common?

Rock bottom.

It could have been the week that the Terriers (2-8-1, 1-4-1 Hockey East) climb back up to the .500 mark with wins over Harvard University on Tuesday, University of Denver on Friday and nationally ranked Colorado College on Saturday. It could have been the week that BU moves a step closer to attaining placement within the top 15 ranking-worthy teams in the nation. Most of all, it could have been the weekend that BU coach Jack Parker and his staff plug up a few more holes in what is becoming an increasingly leaky team.

When all was said and done, when all the week’s goals were tabulated and then recounted, none of these things had occurred. And what was supposed to be a season full of promise and high hopes has quickly turned sour, and the prospects of any postseason accolades now appear bleaker by the game.

However, this past week was not all negatives for the Terriers. Freshmen forwards Kenny Magowan and Frantisek Sklandany scored their first collegiate goals against Colorado College while freshman forward Steve Greeley notched his first career assist in the same game. Also, against Denver and Harvard, BU outshot the opposition by a combined total of 73-42, never mind the fact the Crimson and Pioneers outscored the Terriers 9-5.

As for the play of junior goalie Jason Tapp and his freshman protégé Sean Fields, their numbers were less than stellar (13 goals allowed on 63 shots). Whether or not their play will improve this upcoming weekend against the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, BU fans can only hope.

But as they say, the numbers never lie:

• BU’s last six-game losing streak spanned the 1975-76 and 1976-77 seasons.

• The last six-game losing streak to occur completely within one season’s schedule was in 1972-73, the last full year Leon Abbott was head coach of the Terriers. However, that fiasco involved BU forfeiting the first 15 games of the season due to playing with an ineligible roster player. Abbott was later fired for this violation and a young, 28-year-old former Terrier captain named Jack Parker stood behind the BU bench for the first time.

• The last Terrier six-game losing streak not spanning two season and not caused by forfeit was in the 1963-64 season, a mere several months after Parker graduated from Catholic Memorial High School.

• The Terriers are 0-5-1 away from Walter Brown Arena this season.

• Opponents have outscored BU, 39-30.

• While BU’s power play is connecting at a robust 26.7 percent, opponents are also successful at a more-than-decent 21.5 percent clip.

• The Terriers have taken 33 more penalty minutes (224-191) than the opposition.

• BU is being outscored in every period this season except for the first (11-11).

• Only seven players on the roster are positive in the plus-minus rating.

• Senior captain Carl Corazzini and junior center Dan Cavanaugh are tops on the team in scoring (10 points) yet lead the Terriers in penalty minutes with 28 and 27, respectively.

• In five of this streak’s six losses, BU has given up at least four goals.

No, the statistics do not shine a favorable light on the Terriers or their now dubious six-game schnide. Then again, hockey games are most definitely not played on paper or stat sheets but on ice.

But then again, BU’s play on the ice hasn’t been that good either. Good thing there are 23 regular season games left to be played.

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