Icedogs Sweep, Advance To Semis

Revenge is sweet, and so this time around it will be Providence College with a sour taste in its mouth during the off-season.

Avenging last year’s quarterfinal loss, the Boston University hockey team swept aside Providence this weekend, winning the first two games of the best-of-three Hockey East series, 3-2 and 4-2, at Walter Brown Arena on Friday and Saturday nights, respectively.

The Icedogs advance to play the Black Bears of the University of Maine in this Friday’s Hockey East semifinal at the FleetCenter. BU and Maine actually tied for second place in the regular season after Maine took a win and a tie with them back to Orono on the final weekend of the regular season.

Maine’s 9-6 win on March 1 halted BU’s nine-game winning streak, but needing only a point to clinch the No. 2 seed, the Icedogs salvaged a 4-4 tie the next night, giving them 33 league points and setting up a showdown with the Friars for the third time in four years.

The Icedogs had several good chances early on Friday night, including three odd-man rushes in the first five minutes of the game, but they were unable to capitalize. Both sophomore Kenny Magowan and junior John Sabo were denied by Friar goalie Nolan Schaefer, who used everything from his glove to the toe of his skate blade to make seven first-period saves.

BU did get one shot by Schaefer, though, coming on the power play after Ryan Whitney was taken down near the blue line as he crept into the play to join a developing three-on-three.

After the Terriers crisply moved the puck through the neutral zone, co-captain Chris Dyment sent a pass to freshman center David Klema near the boards at the top of the left faceoff circle. Klema got the puck, spun to face the middle of the ice and saw freshman forward Justin Maiser bursting through the slot. Klema flung a pass to Maiser, who redirected the puck along the ice, by Schaefer’s skate and just inside the far post.

BU kept its 1-0 lead and controlled the game until almost midway through the second period. The Friars were held without a shot for the first 7:26 of the frame, but a little more than a minute after they got their first shot of the period, they got their first goal.

Jon DiSalvatore picked the puck near center ice and rushed toward the net with Devin Rask on a semi-breakaway. Sean Fields made the save on DiSalvatore’s effort, but Rask was there to roof the rebound and tie the game at one.

Providence took a 2-1 lead with 2:49 to play in the second, resiliently throwing pucks at Fields, with sophomore defenseman Stephen Wood eventually banging one over Fields’ blocker side from just outside the crease.

So, despite outshooting the Friars 18-6 in the second period, the Terriers entered the third period trailing 2-1. It stayed that way until home ice advantage took on a whole new meaning for BU.

Eleven seconds into a power play, Whitney dumped the puck in along the glass to Schaefer’s right. The junior goalie, anticipating the puck would ride the dasher to the far corner, moved behind his net to play the puck before Klema could get to the boards to pick it up.

But as Schaefer went behind the net, the puck ricocheted off a divider in the glass and to the slot at the front of the net, where Klema was skating through and found a gift on the blade of his stick.

“I didn’t see it come off the boards, but I heard everybody,” Klema said. “I was kind of watching it, but I had my eye off it when I hit the boards. I saw it coming toward me, so I just turned … I almost whiffed on the puck. I did a little bit. It fluttered into the net.”

With 5:28 to go, BU took the lead for good courtesy of some old-fashioned hustle by sophomore forward Mark Mullen. Junior center Brian Collins battled for puck along the boards after a faceoff, getting the puck to co-captain Mike Pandolfo.

The senior forward threw a wrister on net and Schaefer made the stop, but before he could smother the puck with his glove, Mullen crashed and chipped the puck out of his control and over his shoulder.

Providence couldn’t muster much of an attack the rest of the way, and wasn’t even able to clear the zone in enough time to get Schaefer out of his net until there was only 13 seconds to play. Parker was pleased with the effort of his team and was pleased with his team’s numerous offensive chances, but realized his team was fortunate by getting a quirky goal after Schaefer had so many times denied more conventional chances in making 34 saves.

“That was like pulling teeth,” Parker said. “I would just as soon be willing to let a dentist do his drilling than to play Providence.”

Parker certainly wasn’t smiling the next night, when his team again fell behind 2-1 as the third period approached, the product of David Carpentier and DiSalvatore goals sandwiching Collins’ 10th of the season, a pretty tally over Schaefer’s left shoulder that the junior center wristed from his knees.

But, for the fourth straight meeting, Providence could get only two shots past Fields, who made 25 saves. It looked like the two goals would be enough to give the Friars the lead heading to the third period, but senior forward Jack Baker’s wrist shot from the boards near the right faceoff circle beat Schaefer’s glove and tied the game 2-2 with just 40 seconds to play in the second period.

“We always talk about the first three and the last three minutes of a period,” said Magowan, who stressed the importance of the goal though he was in the dressing room and didn’t actually see Baker score.

Magowan was in the locker room having his neck iced after he had his “bell rung” earlier in the game. A self-proclaimed power forward, Magowan missed only a few shifts and was back on the ice for the third period.

Good thing for BU. “Guys on the bench were saying I should get hurt more often,” Magowan said.

The sophomore forward had two goals in the final frame, twice stuffing rebounds from close range to record the first multi-goal game of his career.

The game-winner came early in the third, when sophomore center Gregg Johnson carried the puck across the slot before unloading a wrist shot from the right circle. Schaefer got a piece of it, but Magowan was there to slide the puck off of the goalie’s pads just enough so that it trickled through them and over the goal line to give BU a 3-2 lead.

“I don’t care how I get them, as long as they go in,” Magowan said.

Magowan added the insurance himself less than six minutes later, cleaning up the garbage after Schaefer stoned Johnson and sophomore forward Frantisek Skladany. The puck sat alone near the right post while a pile of bodies, Schaefer included, was stuck at the left post. Magowan came crashing in, falling before he tucked the puck neatly inside the pipe.

BU threatened to end Providence’s season before the buzzer sounded, getting four shots on a three-minute power play that resulted from Jason Platt’s hit-from-behind on John Sabo that got him ejected from the game. Sabo went down but did not miss any action.

For the game, BU had 48 shots, the 11th time this season they’ve had at least 40 shots in a game. Schaefer, however, was more than respectable in net, making more than 40 saves for the fifth time this year.

“We had more depth than them last year, and they had more depth than us this year,” said Providence coach Paul Pooley.