BOSTON -- In front of a sell-out crowd of 6,150 at Agganis Arena Friday night, the No. 2/3-ranked Boston University men’s ice hockey team (7-2-5, 5-2-4 HE) laid its first “stinker” of the season, head coach Jack Parker said. Unfortunately for the Terriers, that “stinker” happened to come against cross-town rival Boston College (10-5-0, 8-4-0 HE) in the 251st installment of the “Battle of Comm. Ave.”
“I thought one team played very, very well tonight, and it wasn’t us unfortunately,” Parker said during his post-game comments. “I was really impressed with [the Eagles], I was really disappointed, and actually surprised, in our club…We haven’t had a ‘stinker’ all year, it’s just too bad we had a stinker in front of a big crowd in front or our big rival.”
It didn’t take long for the No. 8-ranked Eagles to get on the board. On the first power play opportunity of the night, BC’s junior right-winger Jimmy Hayes tipped, and re-directed, a shot from sophomore defenseman Brian Dumoulin past Terriers netminder Kieran Millan (10 saves). BU’s junior goaltender was beaten again only 23 seconds later by a wrister from junior left-winger Paul Carey.
Millan settled down a bit in net, making a beautiful save on a short-handed opportunity from BC, but the Eagles would strike once more in the waning minutes of the opening stanza – this time with 2:15 remaining. Junior forward Cam Atkinson – who leads BC with 13 goals scored – slapped a feed from Joe Whitney top-shelf, glove-side, to beat Millan and put BU in a 3-0 hole.
Parker replaced Millan with junior Grant Rollheiser (18 saves) to start the second period, but the switch did little (if anything) to change the momentum of the game. Just 2:29 into the contest’s second frame, Atkinson capitalized on another Terrier penalty when he slapped a shot from the left side that found its way past Rollheiser. Trailing 4-0 nearly midway through the second period, freshman left-winger Matt Nieto tried to give the Terriers some life – beating senior BC netminder John Muse (18 saves) on a two-on-one to cut the Eagles' lead to 4-1.
But, as was the case all night, the Eagles responded and deflated the hopes of Terrier Nation shortly thereafter. Less than five minutes after Nieto's third marker of the season, BC junior forward Barry Almeida lifted a short-handed shot over Rollheiser that found the back of the net with 12:58 gone by in the period. And, less than three minutes after that score, BC added its third power play tally of the night on Phillip Samuelsson’s laser from the right point (the goal was Samuelsson’s first of the season). The power play goal extended the BC lead to 6-1, and, after two full periods, BU found itself outshot 27-11.
In the contest’s final frame – one that was marked by an inordinate amount of stoppages of play and penalties (13 in total) – the Terriers finally showed some signs of life, outscoring the Eagles 4-3; but, by that point, it was too late (“the game was over,” Parker said). With just 1:03 gone by in the period, the Terriers finally broke through on the power play when senior co-captain Joe Pereira slapped a rebound past Muse (although they scored 3 power play goals, the Terriers continued to struggle with the man advantage, going just 3-of-15 on the night). The Terriers also got points from junior assistant captain David Warsofsky, sophomore defenseman Max Nicastro and junior winger Andrew Glass.
Unfortunately, BU also yielded three more goals – including Brian Gibbons’ penalty shot tally – thereby extinguishing any hopes for a possible Terrier comeback. Put simply, Parker said in his post-game remarks, the Terriers got out-played in every facet of the game by a team many picked to finish No. 1 in the nation.
“Pick a position,” Parker said when asked about the nine goals allowed. “We didn’t have a great night in the goal, that’s for sure, but we didn’t – that was helped along by how poorly we played in front of the net,” he added, noting that he couldn’t name a single BU player who had a “good night.”
The Terriers will lace up their skates again tonight (Saturday, December 4th) to take on the Eagles at Conte Forum. Puck drop will be at 7:30, and the contest will be aired on the CBS College Sports Network.
“I told [the guys] to forget tonight, it was a stinker,” Parker said after the game. “It isn’t what happened to us tonight, it’s how we react to what happened to us tonight – that’s the only thing that’s important to us right now.”
NOTES –
BU and BC combined for 29 penalties in the contest…The home loss was the Terriers’ first of the season…After Friday night’s loss, the all-time season series now stands at 125-109-17 in favor of BU…The Eagles are now 6-2-1 at Agganis Arena…The Terriers are now ninth in HE with the man-advantage (10-for-78 – a 12.8% success rate)...The loss was Grant Rollheiser's first of the season (3-1-0).
No comments:
Post a Comment