#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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