Why I Have a Quiet Confidence About Tonight

Well, for starters, I am one of the few people out there who picked Lowell in two straight, and I nailed that.

But seriously, while I have a nervous energy about me knowing that in the same way that Appalachian State CAN beat a Lloyd Carr-coached Michigan team in college football team, anytime young men align on opposing sides – yes – conceivably, any result is possible tonight.

And while I certainly underestimated the talent and ability to execute of this Maine squad (and probably most importantly their sheer will and unqualified doggedness NOT to have their season come to an end NOR to have a senior class pass through having never once beaten Boston University), the reason that BU will be playing in the semifinals for the fifth straight year, and the reason that in four of those seasons it took a third and final game before BU won its quarterfinal and advanced to where they fully expect to be and will be next weekend: At the Garden in Boston playing a very stout Lowell squad for the chance to take on the winner of the semi between BC and the winner of tonight’s rubber match between UMASS and Northeastern.

Coach Parker himself went on record last night as saying that before the season this team had six goals, so far they have achieved four of the four, and despite the lackluster performances of the last two evenings he expects that they will be able to advance to the semis – and by no means is he diminishing the amazing run of play that Maine has had over the last 48 hours – and here is why.

To be honest, despite putting together an impressive winning streak, losing last night was in some ways the best thing that could happen to Terrier squad and here is why: The team has been playing rigid and uninspired hockey since the tie at Maine following the first game of that two game series in Orono. And while a good team goes out every night with the expectation of winning, the truth is this team has been playing tighter than Marie Osmond or Valerie Bertinelli PRIOR to joining their weight loss clubs trying to squeeze her way into her “skinny jeans”.

As I just eluded, this team started the season with the goal of winning the tournaments it played in, winning the regular season Beanpot, winning the Hockey East Regular Season Title, winning the Hockey East Tournament Title, and winning the NCAA Title. How have we fared so far? Icebreaker - Check; Denver Cup – Check; The Beanpot – Check; Hockey East Regular Season Title – Check. That is four for four, with two to go. Matt Gilroy and Coach Parker spoke to the team before the season and listed these goals. They have achieved a perfect four for four so far, and with their backs against the wall FOR THE FIRST TIME ALL SEASON tonight there is not a better combination of Coaching and player talent and desire than I would rather have than Coach Parker, and a roster full of Hockey players who shine bright in these types of situation. Led by Mattie Gilroy and fellow Captain John McCarthy, along with future NHL stars like Colin Wilson and Kevin Shattenkirk; coupled nicely by top flight playmakers in Chris Higgins and Nick Bonino and David Warsofsky, and combined with finishers like Jason Lawrence and a reborn Brandon Yip, and I think that this team will relish the challenge of having been outcoached, outhustled, outperformed on Special Teams, showed mediocrity at best in the goal, and they will want to prove to America, but more importantly, prove to Coach and the Agganis faithful that this truly is a team of destiny and that having the ALBATROSS of a winning streak loosen the vice grip on their creativity and their ability to convert at ridiculous levels on the Power Play, that is why I am confident that you can take the last two nights, throw them out the window and this team will do whatever it takes to get to next Friday ON THE ICE in the semis, and the only way to do that is to win BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY tonight, which indeed they will.

The pressure under which this team has thrived all season, the student body being back from break, the players knowing that they let one get away from them last night when they should have buried Maine once gaining a three to one lead, the hapless PK and despite some beautiful passing and execution the inability to finish on the Power Play is not gonna happen for a second straight night at Agganis. So BU might win Big, they might win easily, or they might need a game-tying goal in the final minutes to find a way to send it to overtime and win it their. But I leave for the game tonight knowing that with a SENIOR CLASS led by Messrs. Gilroy, Higgins, Yip, Lawrence, McCarthy, and Smolinsky will not allow this team’s Hockey East run to come to an end.

Scott Martineau is a Regular contributor to Let’s Go Terriers.  You can find him on Twitter at SCOTTCMARTINEAU.

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#1 BU v. Maine: Hockey East Quarterfinal Preview

#1 Boston University Terriers vs. #8 The University of Maine Black Bears

Boston University has been involved as an eight seed that upset a one seed in the quarters previously and The Terriers have also been a one seed upset by an eighth seeded Merrimack.  Not this year, not this time, not this Team.  It ain’t gonna happen.

To show just what different directions these programs are going in, Maine has been on an eight game winless streak that started exactly a month ago when BU went to Orono and took a win handily over the Black Bears on Friday, February 13th when Maine raised the white flag less than a minute into the second period as Colin Wilson paced BU with a goal 16 seconds into the first period and topped by his second and the team’s fourth on a goal 11 seconds into period number two.  Maine pulled starting goalie Scott Darling at that point as the route was on with a 4 goal deficit. Over the next 26 minutes of play, the teams traded a total of four goals, and after Maine cashed in on a power play cutting the lead back to four at 6 to 2, Kieran Millan came out of the pipes for the first time since his freshman record 18-1-1 start had become a multi-game starting streak to get Grant Rollheiser some much needed work.  BU won easily by a final score of seven to two.  For the second game of the two straight played in Orono, Maine and BU both made wholesale changes.  Both starting netminders were given the night off and Rollheiser was granted (no pun intended) his first start since the injury that was the precipitant of Millan taking over the number one goalie chores as opposed to the rotation they used for the first third of the season.  And Darling was replaced by a game Dave Wilson who was ready to shine after losing the battle for the number one job in pre-season camp.  Wilson was steady enough to lead Maine to a 2-2 tie with a tight, conservative defense.  While that point was the last one earned by Maine and has been followed by eight straight losses to some opponents that they should have emerged victorious against, BU has gone in the opposite direction taking four points in three of their four weekend series and playing to two exciting ties in a home and home against Northeastern, the team that had held BU at bay until the final game of the regular season before finally relinquishing its spot atop the standings the very day the regular season came to a close.

So let’s try to look at this series objectively.  Inside College Hockey, one of the three major national publications devoted solely to NCAA Hockey, just within the last 24 hours named its All Hockey East First Team players, and it is hard to argue with a single name on the list.  Colin Wilson, Kevin Shattenkirk, Mattie Gilroy, and Kieran Millan made up 4 of the 6 slots all from BU, and Viktor Stalberg of UVM and Brock Bradford of BC rounded out the squad, but truth be told Btadford has no business on that team – for a second forward slot as well should have been filled by another Terrier, either the rapidly improving Nick Bonino, or the sniper who benefits from the great playmaking of Wilson and Chris Higgins – Number 21 Joey Lawrence who is the team leaders in goals scored and second in the nation with thirteen Power Play goals.

The reason that BU is different this year from BU teams that have won conference titles in the past is because of the emergence of a second goal scoring line that is every bit as lethal as the first line.  Center Nick Bonino has been on a tear: having a five point evening in the penultimate game of the season and having been named Reebok’s Hockey East Player of the Month with 14 points and scoring in 8 of 9 games while leading BU to a 6-0-3 undefeated record over that time, and Senior Winger Brandon Yip now consistently scoring and reminding us of those flashes of brilliance he showed while earning Hockey East Rookie of The Year Honors as a freshman, including a Hat Trick in his final road game eclipsing the 100 point mark on his career, and Captain Forward John McCarthy as the workhorse on the line, regularly battling in the boards to keep the puck in the offensive zone and be persistent on the fore-check allowing Yip and Bonino to score with such aplomb.  Add to that the increasing load that freshman forwards Chris Connolly and Vinny Saponari have taken on, and we have three legitimate scoring lines. Luke Popko’s opening salvo in the clinching Providence game reminded everyone that BU doesn’t just dress a fourth line to sit on the bench.  And we have nine forwards and five defensemen who can all legitimately play on the Power Play with virtually little to no dropoff.  That is impressive.

With Strait still a question mark while rehabbing his leg from the injury in the UMASS series, Coach Parker is so confident in his blue-liners that he says only half-jokingly, “I am not sure Strait would win his spot back even if he is ready to go with the way Smolinsky has played in his absence.”  Gilroy and Strait (or Smolinsky) as one pair, Kevin Shattenkirk and Colby Cohen as the second pair, and David Warsofsky and stay-at-home NHL prototype blue-liner Eric Gryba are all so impressive that one NHL director of player personnel has told me he expects all six to not just make it to the NHL, but to be first and second defensive units at that level almost immediately after finishing (or leaving) school.

You really have to nitpick to find any flaws in BU’s game.  Going into the UMASS series I guess one complaint I could have had is that they had not yet come back to win a game when trailing by two goals after the first period, but that myth was shattered when BU had a third goal scored on them early in the second period and instead of tanking they instead scored six unanswered goals.  Their power play is tops in the nation and HE, while their PK is second in conference play by a couple tenths of a percentage point to Lowell BUT is right at the tops overall nationally when non-conference games are included.

And while there is some promise on the horizon in Maine’s feeble offense in that their three leading scorers Gustav Nyquist, Brian Flynn, and Tanner House (the only three players on the Maine Squad to reach 20 or more points) are Freshman, Freshman, and Sophomore respectively, and despite hitting a slump down the stretch Scott Darling seems to be the real deal as a goalie, but there is just too much to overcome for Maine to have a snowball’s chance in Miami of making a game of it on either night.

In their three previous meetings this season BU won at home 4-1, on the road 7-2, and tied the second day in Orono 2-2.  One of the things that speaks volumes to BU’s selfishness despite its star power is in its ability to spread the scoring around.  Colin Wilson, by many accounts the leading Hobey Baker Candidate in this year’s race, is actually 4th in goals scored on his team, and BU has 10 players with 20 or more points.

Look for BU to win both games easily, and to maybe even split the goaltending duties assuming that they win as easily as they ought to so as to have two elite goaltenders for the playoff run.  Also look for BU to be working on aspects of their game that have slipped a little of late (PK is down –need to work on that, Colin is not finishing as often as we’d like, stop taking so many penalties, and stop taking for granted our stick-handling prowess as we have had way too many turnovers in our own defensive zone simply being lazy on the first pass of the breakout).

Ever since Matt Gilroy, a Hobey Candidate and probably our best defenseman both on the ice and as an ambassador to the program, announced he was passing up 23-24 professional contracts to return for his senior season as a Captain himself, you had the feeling that this might indeed be The BU Squad that puts it all together.  The scary thing is even had Gilroy not returned, with the giant leaps that Shattenkirk and Strait have made since each had his trip to the worlds, coupled with Gryba’s consistency and Warsofsky’s emergence coming quicker than expected, and BU would still have the best defensive corps in the country SANS Gilroy.  Thankfully, that is only a hypothetical but it does bode well for next season.  BU has been remarkably healthy this season.  Sure, a lot of players are dealing with nagging injuries at this time of year, but to have Strait sit out for a second weekend as a precaution is our most significant injury this season of which to speak.  Couple that with goaltending that can steal games for you for the first time since we had Curry in the net, and I don’t see anybody (with the possible exception of a no longer intimidated Northeastern Huskies Team) even coming close to mounting a challenge against The Terriers in either The Hockey East Finals OR The NCAA tourney.  And I am writing using deductive reasoning, not letting my rooting interest come into play at all in my analysis of this series.

Still, by far and away the easiest series to pick

My prediction: BU in two, 6-0 and 6-1.

Scott C. Martineau is a contributing columnist to this site. If you have interest in adding him as a tweeter follower, his Twitter address is SCOTTCMARTINEAU

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Handicapping the 2009 Hockey East Quarterfinals: Another Perspective

#4 UVM vs. #5 University of Lowell
The University of Lowell River Hawks and The UVM Catamounts played to a perfect 1-1-1 draw in three games this season. Look at the games and not just the box scores from Lowell’s trip to Burlington only three weekends ago, in which they took three out of four points, and the game that they won they won handily and the tie could have easily resulted in a four point weekend had the River Hawks have had only the Catamounts and not the Refs as well as their opponent(s).

With the exception of two losses against a team that rivals any in the nation – Northeastern – Lowell has been hotter than a short order cook’s griddle in the last half of the Season, particularly in the last month of Conference play. Vermont has been steady, but has several holes in their game that if exploited will make followers of this series forget early and often which team has the Home ice ‘advantage’.

Lowell is one of the toughest outs in the league if not the country, and not to look ahead but I would much rather them having finished third or sixth than fifth as a BU supporter because: a) They are the only team that I favor to win as a road dog; and b) by being in the 4-5 series that sets them up to play BU in the semis, and honestly I think that with the exception of BU and NU, the Lowell River Hawks are playing at a level far better than the five other teams which make up the 3 through 8 seeds and the numbers back me up.
The players on the Lowell squad are a veteran bunch. Their roster is littered with physical Canadians who are no strangers to the long seasons of Canadian Junior hockey (11 having played in Ontario, with all but 2 veterans of the elite Ontario Junior Hockey League; and another three from the British Columbia Hockey League, making 14 of their players experienced in the physical type of play that generally comes to the forefront in playoff college hockey) , and that is a huge part of the reason that as other teams seem to be tiring by this team in their season’s Lowell is just hiding its stride, ready to peak. Guys like Nick Shaus and Captain Gary Bauers are players who are not intimidated easily – for that would have to mean that they can be intimidated at all – which they cannot. Couple that with workhorse forwards such as Scott Campbell, David Vallorani, and sniper Kory Falite (the only true finisher in that he is only player on team in their top 15 in scoring who has more goals than assists – and at a two to one margin, no less) and you have a formidable threat on any given night. The Lowell Squad is so balanced that it has eight players with 19 or more points – three of their top six in scoring are defenseman – led by blue-liner Maury Edwards, with 27 points overall and one of only three PLAYERS on the team that has double digits in goals. In the River Hawks, you have a scoring attack that does not rely heavily on a line or a pairing to get their goals. This team rivals only Northeastern in the SUM is significantly better than the whole of its parts category. Add to that the second best group of blue-liners in Hockey East, and you have a team who might not finish Grade A scoring chances pretty, but more often than not (although not as often as Coach Blaise MacDonald would like), finish they do. The two question marks that I see that might tilt the series for Vermont to win this series at home (incidentally, Vermont has not won yet in the two games they hosted Lowell at Gutterson, and Lowell failed to win the one matchup played at Tsongas) are a) turnovers, as Vermont’s Coach Kevin Sneddon and Lowell’s MacDonald both cited that the team that wins the turnover battle will have a huge upper hand; and b) post-season experience. Despite being new to Hockey East, Vermont made it to The Semis in Boston just last season whereas there has been a seven year draught since Lowell made it out of the quarterfinals. Playing for the pressure of the final weekend and a bid at the NCAA tourney might prove too much pressure on this Lowell team that hasn’t really played for anything in years, whereas UVM has experience winning Conference Tournament Series, even with their infantile status as the newborn to Hockey East play.

While I am not hiding the fact that I think Lowell will win this series, there is no doubt that the most dangerous player on the ice for either team is UVM Forward and Hobey Baker candidate Viktor Stalberg. The other column where the checkmark clearly has to go next to The Catamounts is Forward and Goal Scoring capability. Stalberg and fellow UVM forward Brian Roloff are the two most talented players in this series. However, while I would expect a lesser team to come out and shadow Stalberg in the way so many BU opponents shadowed Colin Wilson this season, I expect for Lowell to stick to fundamental defense and not to use anything gimmicky against Stalberg unless and until he shows that they need to do something drastic to shut him down, and I do not expect that to happen.. One reason I really like Lowell is they know that if they lose this series their season is over, while the same cannot be said about Vermont. But an even bigger reason I like Lowell so much in this series is the disparity in special teams. Lowell is first in conference play in the penalty kill and second in Power Play Conversion, while Vermont is abhorrent in Penalty Kill and mediocre in Power Play Conversion. Vermont gives up twice as many goals on the PK than does Lowell, 30 to 15, with the two teams taking almost an identical number of shorthanded situations in conference play making the example so vivid. This is the difference maker in the series, and this is the primary reason why I like the lower-seeded Lowell River Hawks to travel to the large but not Olympic-sized sheet at UVM and leave as the winners of the series.
I see this quarterfinal going into the books with a lot more confidence than I have in my pick in the UNH-BC series, and just shy of the confidence that I have in my Northeastern-UMASS pick. Not only do I look for Lowell to pull the ‘upset” by winning this series on the road at The Gut, I look for the River Hawks to win two straight (one close, one by at least three goals) and there will not be a need for a Sunday game as Lowell will be smiling on their bus trip home; hoping that BU has somehow gone three games so as to tire – anything for an edge – and knowing that they have just earned a berth in the Semis at The (TD Banknorth) Boston Garden. You better believe that Coach Blaise MacDonald (whose apprenticeship under Coach Jack Parker has proven invaluable) will waste no time, spending the long bus trip already preparing see how they might be able to throw the kitchen sink at the Terriers in the semis and somehow – they hope – escape their one gamer with a W and a birth in the Finals, as it is the only way that they keep their season alive. But that is getting way ahead of themselves; for now – Lowell should be satisfied being the only road team earning a spot in the Semis.

Scott’s Pick: Lowell in Two

#3 UNH vs. #6 Boston College
I know… this is the time of the year that Boston College realizes that if they don’t go on a double digit win streak they won’t be making what they now believe to be practically a rite-of-passage for The Eagles: A trip to The Frozen Four. But this isn’t your Older Brother’s BC Squad. In fact, it is not even your older Irish twin’s Eagles for although, just like in the case of Irish Twins, both The 2007-8 Eagles and The 2008-9 Eagles are remarkably similar on paper (subtract Hobey candidate Nathan Gerbe, insert redshirt Pre-Season All America Candidate Brock Bradford) and to stick with the analogy – less than twelve months removed from last year’s title run, this Eagle Team has not responded to Coach York’s easy demeanor with the press, calling a two point weekend (a split) against Northeastern ‘a turning point’. Yes, they have last year’s unlikely hero John Muse back manning the pipes, but perhaps he was indeed a one year wonder who should be playing baseball, the sport he went to BC with the intention of pursuing until the hockey gig last season ran into the start of baseball practice. Muse is a shadow of himself this season. Four times he has given up a game winning or game tying goal in the final minute of a game, and in the first Northeastern game last weekend he pulled off the rare double, giving up the game-tying goal with less than 30 seconds left, and then in OT he gave up the winning goal with 50 seconds left. Muse is clearly mired in a sophomore slump, but Coach York has either a belief in this kid no one else does, or an absolute fear of shaking things up for he did not even start Muse’s backup in the Consolation game of the Beanpot; which is practically an unwritten rule for the BC’S and BU’S of the world so that the backup can get a chance to say, ‘I played in the Beanpot’ as it is likely the highpoint of the backup’s career.
And yet you here all the pundits saying, ‘The one team I wouldn’t want to face at this time of year is an underachieving BC. For they are as talented as anybody and all they have to do is turn it on and they are suddenly a viable Frozen Four caliber team.” Really, just how many BC games have these experts watched this season. They seem to have a Matthew McGonaughey “Well alright!” too-cool-for-school attitude since the very beginning of the season I find this both ludicrous and offensive. Ben Smith has not only not picked up where he left off last season, rather he has exposed himself for just what a marginal player he is without a star on his line benefitting his game and his numbers putting no-look between his leg feeders on Smith’s tape without a defenseman or a goalie in position, for example, and Benn Ferriero has shown no signs of improvement and neither had Nick Petrecki, unless you count the number of cheap hits and PIMs increasing somehow showing a progression in his game.

So along with BC’s seeming lack of urgency when the rest of the Hockey World sees it, there is also the small matter of how are they going to win now that they are going to Durham to play The University of New Hampshire Wildcats on their Olympic-sized ice sheet at The Whittemore Center. Most teams tend not to win there … As a matter of fact, in a recent home and home versus Boston College, UNH indeed defended home ice at Whittemore and, for good measure, took the Conte forum game for a four point weekend sweep.

Before the season, when BC was number one before a puck had been dropped, Ben Smith and Benn Ferriero were expected to have Brock Bradford slide in and potentially be THE BIG THREE for BC of the 08-09 season. The truth of the matter is that the offensive trio of Peter LeBlanc, Mike Sislo, and oh yeah, first round draft pick James Van Riemsdyk are playing to their potential, and The Ben(n)s are regressing and Bradford is not even a fraction of the player, even if he has all the potential, that Gerbe ever was. Ergo, I don’t see how BC can expect to take two games at Whittemore in a single weekend. The BC forwards, along with young blood infusion like Cam Atkinson and Jimmy Hayes are unquestionably talented, and Muse and co. can occasionally play inspired hockey like they did on Saturday night at home versus a motivated Northeastern team that felt they had been given a death row reprieve when they managed to grab two points in a game they were thirty seconds away from getting none in only a night prior, and for that reason, and that reason alone, I figure that a team that has been to three Frozen Fours in the last four years will show some pride and at least take a game at UNH, but truth be told it will just be window dressing making what had the potential to be a history making year a little less abysmal as it will not look as if they just rolled over and gave up, but I see BC having very little to no chance at being able to steal a second game at UNH, and Coach York, usually the master of motivation with understated, easy going comments like the one he made to his team last season in the midst of a January slump when he said:” I am going to Denver the weekend of the Frozen Four because I have to attend a coaches conference. It is a shame that you guys won’t be joining me…” and the rest was history – he may have well been Knute Rockne. But York has not been able to get the pulse of this team going all the way back to the pre-conference schedule when his team was embarrassed by Notre Dame in a rematch of last year’s championship match. He kept saying we’re about to get it turned around or we’re on the verge and now The Eagles are a team that on paper still look solid, but can’t be counted on to take three points in a home and home, and thus expecting them to win two at one of the toughest venues to play a road game in (let alone two) just is beyond even what the paper version of BC is capable of achieving.

Series pick: UNH wins in three; would not be shocked if UNH wins in two
#2 Northeastern vs. #7 UMASS
Headline to the lead story on College Hockey News “Northeastern vs. Massachusetts comprise one of the more intriguing Best-of-3 series this weekend …” Huh? What am I missing here? I KNOW that UMASS took two of three against Northeasten this season, but the long and the short of it is that Northeastern wins games it is supposed to win. So much so, in fact, that it actually has hurt them in PWR which is not relevant for this debate except for pointing out one simple fact. Back on February 24, the last time that UMASS was still a TuC, or a Team with an RPI of 25 or better, Northeastern had a perfect record of 13-0-0 with zero losses to teams that were not in the RP1 Top 25. In other words, they don’t just win most of the games they are supposed to, they win all of the games they are supposed to.

So now UMass has slipped just outside the TuC, ergo no longer does Northeastern have an unblemished record against Teams not under Consideration, as UMASS falls into that latter category. And of the games between the two this season, none have been close, a 2 goal in a high scoring affair for UMASS at home, a two goal game in another high scoring match at UMASS with Northeasten getting the victory, and in the rubber match a 3 goal victory at Matthews with UMASS winning 4-1. What can you surmise from three games played in a 16 day period from the last Friday of January to February 14. NOTHING. The January 30th win by UMASS at UMASS on a day where Northeastern participated in The Beanpot Luncheon only hours before hopping a bus and losing at UMASS. I would have been surprised if they didn’t come out flat. The first full weekend of Hockey AFTER the Beanpot starting with a statement game from Northeastern at UMASS winning easily and letting the world know that they now know they can compete at that level. A GREAT WIN. The next day the second half of a home and home and UMASS blows Northeastern out of a game that they were never in from the beginning, SURPRISING.
We know Thiessen, we know Vitale, we know Toot Cahoon and his top players. So what can we validly look at to see if one team is obviously superior to the other? How about records against common opponents.
ADV  UMASS    OPPONENT           NU
PUSH 1-2-0 Boston University 0-2-2
NU      2-1-0 Maine                         3-0-0
NU      1-2-0 Mass.-Lowell           3-0-0
NU      1-2-0 Boston College        2-0-1
NU      1-2-0 Merrimack               3-0-0
NU      0-1-2 New Hampshire      1-1-1
NU      2-1-0 Providence              3-0-0
NU      0-2-1 Vermont                   2-1-0
PUSH 1-0-0 Rensselaer               1-0-0
Coach Cronin is arguably the hottest coach in the nation. Thiessen is a Hobey Baker Finalist. Northeastern has a better first line, a better second line, and a better third line.  ‘Nuff said.

Oh yeah, they also are the grittiest team in Hockey East and despite not having beaten our Terriers this season, they know after 130 minutes of electrifying tied hockey three weekends back that they can play with us, and in all likelihood will get to play us at least one more time, and depending upon the way the brackets are set up BU and NU could meet for a sixth time this season in Washington D.C. I certainly don’t see any team (including Notre Dame) other than each other knocking either BU or NU out of what I think will be a matchup of Destiny in The NCAAs. It will likely occur in the Frozen Four; I pray the brackets are set up so that it takes place in the NCAA Championship game.

Series Pick: Northeastern in two – likely giving up no more than 2 total goals.

For a different perspective, be sure to check out Joe’s 2009 Quarterfinal Preview and picks.

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Game 35 recap - BU 8, Providence 2

Having just returned from a trip down I-95 to Schneider Arena at Providence College, in a game the Terriers knew that they needed and thus could not concern themselves with Payback from the only loss that they have suffered since Thanksgiving when newcomer Friar Goalie Alex Beaudry previously looked to be every bit the second coming of former Friar Great and Hockey East legend Chris Terreri Read more

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Seniors, Trusted Second Goalie Keys to Friday’s Comeback Win

After possibly leaving a point on the ice, frankly, by inexplicably sitting Kieran Millan while on his way to improving his greatest winning percentage to start an NCAA career start record that he set (breaking BU’s own and current Terrier Women’s Ice Hockey Coach Brian Durocher) after getting Grant Rollheiser much-needed ice minutes the previous evening when The Terriers jumped out to a multi-goal lead and had a four goal insurmountable lead less than 20 seconds into the second period in the first game at Orono two weekends ago, Read more

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