As you can tell, I haven’t updated this blog in a while. It’s tough to maintain your focus when what you’re trying to focus on is just letting you down so much. Since I’ve last updated, the Terriers have played three games. They’ve lost two of them and won one. The one game they won was a blowout against Vermont, 9-1. After that game last Friday, I was thinking that this was the “turn the corner” that they needed so badly. It was almost justified when they took a quick 3-1 lead in the encore the next night. A few defensive breakdowns and stupid penalties later, Vermont held a 4-3 lead that they would not relinquish.

Then there was the game that was last night. BU taking on former ECAC rival Harvard University. Would the Terriers have what it takes to bring down the smart boys? After a wicked slapper from Pete MacArthur that beat Kyle Richter, I thought we did. BU was dominating in shots, and had a lot of very good possessions in the first, but only had one goal to show for it.  There were some interesting decisions made in that game, especially for personnel on the ice for that last faceoff.  Two of our worst faceoff guys, Pete MacArthur and Chris Higgins out there.  While they are great offensive players, they don’t win that many faceoffs.  In your defensive zone, with 1 minute left in overtime, you want to win that puck.

So where does this leave the Terriers right now?  They’re 3-7-2 now.  3-3-1 in Hockey East.  While their Hockey East Record is ok, it’s not great.  They are benefiting from the fact that Hockey East is so wide open this year.  However, those 4 out of conference losses will be sure to come back and bite them in the butt come tournament time.. that is.. if they make it.  What are your thoughs on what is wrong with the Terriers?  If this is the way the season is going to continue, it’s going to be a very long season.

Congrats to Boomer Ewing, who’s 7 points last weekend (two weekends ago) led to him being named Hockey East Player of the week and INCH player of the week.  Here’s to hoping that he continues on this trend.  He’s currently leading the team with 15 points, which is excellent for a Terrier, especially at this time of the year.  He’s actually up there for the nation as well, averaging over a point a game.

I’m going to be heading to the MSG game, so I’ll be blogging about that.  Hopefully the Terriers can muster a much better performance than they have been giving recently. The game is sure to be exciting.  I hope that the turkey doesn’t affect the boys too adversely.  I also hope that something is done by the captain to let his team know that the way that they’ve been playing is not acceptable.  They have the talent to take it to the next level, and it’s time to do that.  What better stage than the world’s most famous arena?

See you in New York!

This is becoming quite the theme with the Terriers here.  Two games this weekend and what were our results?

1. One loss and one tie.
2. Fell completely out of the polls (not even under “teams receiving votes”)
3. Goaltending issue again???

The first game this weekend featured the Terriers against the Minutemen of Massachusetts.  (That’s my Jim Prior for ya)  It started out with a bang, with Pete MacArthur potting one just 33 seconds into the game.  However, UMass was quick to come back and skated away with a 5-3 (ENG) win.  The things I noticed in that game were that the defense often seemed to be pushed off the puck and retreating back into the zone.  Also, UMass forechecked extremely hard and we seemed unable to counter it at all.

On the plus side, it was the debut of the alternate uniforms for the year, though I doubt with Jack Parker’s superstitious ways that we’ll see them for a while.  UMass had some nasty alternate uniform, I didn’t really like it at all.  It doesn’t counter what happened in the game though.  A defensive breakdown leading to a wide open player putting it in the open net.  The only thing about the game that was effective was our first line, which was really buzzing.

The second game this past weekend didn’t start any better.  Northeastern got off to a quick 2-0 lead before we managed to make any sort of attempt.  Luckily, we came off with a tie.  In a hard hitting game, it looked like the Terriers developed some legs toward the end.  We simply can’t give up the quick goals and have every game be a fight to tie.

It’s so frustrating to see what has happened to this team.  As a bright spot, the top line played well again, and were the sole reasons why we came out of this with a tie.  You can’t win with only one line putting pucks int he net though.  One thing I liked about this game from hearing it on the radio was how the crowd got into it.  I have to admit, it seemed like it was a great game.  I just wish that we could’ve come out with more than one point.

After this weekend, I’m not so confident about the Terriers anymore.  I know that there are going to be alot of people playing the “they’ll turn the corner” game, but it’s 9 games into the season and we’ve won 2.  That’s not saying that there is no talent on this team, there just seems to be no cohesion and confidence in this unit.  Of course, only time will tell what will happen, but I’m picturing another repeat of the 2003-04 season.  The only exception is that this team is, IMO, much more talented than that team and deserves a lot better.  They have many of the same characteristics, though.

As for my predictions!  I was … phew.  Only got 3 games right.  Not a good way to start the season.  Maybe I should predict the Terriers will lose more often.

Man, I forgot to do this last week. Oh well, I’ll have to remember for each week from now on. I haven’t had too good of a record so far, but hopefully it’ll be better this week.

Friday, 11/9 Games:
UMass Lowell at New Hampshire - UNH 4-2
Vermont at Northeastern - NU 3-1
Providence at Maine - UMO 4-1
Massachusetts at Boston University - BU 4-2 (ENG)
Merrimack at Boston College - BC 4-1

Saturday, 11/10 Games:
Massachusetts at UMass Lowell - UML 3-2
Vermont at Merrimack - UVM 2-1
Boston University at Northeastern - BU 3-2
Boston College at New Hampshire - UNH 4-3
Providence at Maine - UMO 5-2

There are my 10 predictions for the week. I know that there’s a thread on USCHO so nobody will probably comment here. Let’s hope that I do better this week than last week! For those of you who read this and are going to be at the game on Friday, I will see you there! Does anyone who read this go to the games at Agganis? Let me know!

David Van der Gulik was a great player for BU from 2002-2006.  He was Co-Captain along with Brad Zancanaro on a Terrier team that won the Beanpot,the Hockey East Regular Season Title, the Hockey East Championship, and made an appearance in the NCAA tournament, with one win before being bounced.  They were the end of the regular season #1 team in the country, and had a record of 26-10-4.

So what is David doing now?  He’s currently playing with the Quad City Flames, an AHL affiliate of the Calgary Flames.  David was chosen in the 7th round by the Calgary Flames in the 2002 NHL entry draft.  He had a very successful first pro season, scoring 80 points with the Omaha Knights of the AHL.  He also went to the playoffs with them, scoring 2 points in 6 games.

Here are some notes as to what he’s been up to:

Ranked fourth in the American Hockey League, and led the league’s rookies, in plus/minus with a plus 27 rating for Omaha…Tied for second amongst AHL rookies in shorthanded goals with four…Recorded three assists in a game for the second time during the 2006-07 season on March 24th vs. Houston…Recorded his third multiple goal game of the year, including the game-winner, on March 4th vs. Manitoba…Tied a season high with three points (all assists) on Feb. 2nd vs. San Antonio…Scored multiple goals in a game for the second time on the year on Jan. 10th vs. Toronto…Established a personal season high with three points (a goal and two assists) on Jan. 4th vs. Milwaukee…Recorded his first multiple goal game of the year, including the game-winning tally, in a 3-1 win over Iowa on Dec. 16th…Netted the game-winning goal in a 4-0 win over Houston on Dec. 2nd.

The Information above is from the Quad City Flames Official Site.

Dave had an incredible career at Boston University, and was the rallying call of the successful 2005-06 season.  A 500 team before he returned, the Terriers managed to run an 11 game win streak, and ended the season 20-3-2 in games that he played in.  He played with a broken hand, suffered during the Hockey East Championship game, and it showed as he did not really factor in the NCAA tournament.

Here’s to David Van der Gulik, and lets hope that he makes it into the big league one day.

The polls weren’t friendly to BU this week.  I’ll update the table with the poll tomorrow, but the Terriers didn’t crack the top 20 this week despite two strong performances.  It does make some sense, as UMass Lowell and Providence are not the two strongest teams in the NCAA.  With a few more wins, we should be able to eke our way to a ranking again.  The poll didn’t move around much either, with a few changes here and there, but the teams that were near the top stayed there, and there were no real dramatic changes, save Minnesota dropping 6 spots to 14.

Did I see any surprises in the poll?  Not really.  It does seem like Enrico Blasi gave his vote to Michigan State though.  I guess he thinks that they are the second strongest team, because without a doubt Miami is looking like the early favorite to take it all home.  They’re even doing without Nathan Davis, their preseason Hobey Baker favorite.  He should be back later on this season, and Miami will be even more dangerous.  Let’s just hope they don’t suffer a second half breakdown, unless it is in the favor of BU right?

It’s still early in the season, and the polls will be moving around a lot more.  There are some teams that have established themselves as the elite, and will have the targets on their backs.  You know who you are, Miami, North Dakota, Michigan, Michigan State, New Hampshire.  Boston University has definitely seen it from Michigan.  For us Hockey East fans, we have to worry about New Hampsire first, but all of them are strong teams.  I think what will determine who is the best is how the teams handle adversity.  Miami is doing that best right now, and so they are the best.  New Hampshire just had a tough loss at home to Northeastern, so we’ll see how they respond this weekend against a feisty Mass-Lowell team and the always tough Boston College Eagles.

Speaking of adversity, the Eagles are still without Brock Bradford (Broken Arm), Brett Motherwell and Brian O’ Hanley (Violation of Team Rules).  They are currently riding Goaltender John Muse and the strong play of their freshmen.  If I were an Eagles fan, I would be a bit concerned as to how they will handle the grind and more physical play of college hockey.  Does anyone know what happened with the two suspended guys?  I’ve been trying to figure it out forever but BC is very hush hush on it.  Not that its something to be proud of, but I’d still like to know.

Finally, while there are elite teams, we know that they are beatable (except for Miami so far).  North Dakota has lost.  Michigan has lost.   New Hampshire has lost.  They weren’t to the strongest teams either, so the parity is still there.  This is a good sign for college hockey.  I’m hoping for an exciting season, with plenty of good games to watch.  You can be sure that I’ll be catchin all of the BU hockey I can at Agganis, and as much as I can on TV.

I wish I could say more about the teams playing in the other conferences, but sadly I haven’t seen many of them play.  If you’re reading this and you have some words that you’d like to put in about your team, please let me know in a comment or go to the forums and leave a post!

The boys did it again, this time coming back in dramatic fashion, scoring 5 goals in the final frame to defeat the RiverHawks 7-4. It definitely didn’t look that way from the beginning, and the goaltending didn’t look strong again, but the Terriers did manage a win in a game that seemed like should’ve been over by the end of the second. Again, there were a lot of positives and a few negatives in the game.

First, the negatives:

• KG looks like he still hasn’t settled in well yet. Gave up 3 tough goals on only 6 shots, with one of em being a slow trickler that slid underneath his legs.
• Need to be more careful with the puck on the PP, and realize how much time is left.
• Our top line seems too need a bit of settling down so that they can score. MacArthur does have a bad wheel though, so that might have something to do with it.

Now the Positives

• 7 goals, from 6 different scorers (McGuirk, Popko (2), Wilson, Weston, Z. Cohen, Bonino)
• Bennett looked solid coming in cold.
• Zach Cohen demonstrated some nifty moves tonight, showing that he deserves some more time. Increased his speed a lot too.
• Jason Lawrence was buzzing all night, crashing the net and creating opportunities. Same with Ewing.
• Fourth line acted like a scoring line, controlling play and scoring opportune goals.
• Didn’t give up when they were down by 3.
• Powerplay looked decent, converting on one of four opportunities.
• PK was ok, did kill off one of the 5 v 3 situations.

Overall, the boys did a great job limiting the opportunities that Lowell had before they could really dominate the game, giving them only 4 in the first, and 4 in the 3rd. Luckily for us, it seemed as if Lowell let up a bit after taking a 3 goal lead, so that might have been their downfall. I didn’t see them play hard enough until there was only 2 minutes left in the game, so in my opinion Lowell deserved to lose. There’s too much talent on the BU team to let them take that many shots. I mean, a 42-17 shots advantage is huge. I can’t remember the last time we outshot an opponent by this much.

Also, I think that KG will be ok after this game, despite the poor play. Here’s a quote from Jack Parker after the game, he seems to think the same thing (From USCHO):

“I told him ‘You weren’t on top of your game; we had to get you out of there. You’ll be back in there, just keep working and don’t worry about it right now.’ That was all I said to him. As the game progressed, he was like another coach on the bench. He was pumping guys up, walking up and down, pounding on guys after they got goals, screaming at guys to play harder. I couldn’t believe that he could turn himself into such a great teammate after having such a disappointment like that. It’s a credit to him as an athlete and as a person.”

So it looks like Jack Parker still has confidence in Gillespie, so there’s no reason we shouldn’t… right? We’ll see what happens. I still see a split goaltending situation with it being leaned a bit towards Bennett. I was also extremely impressed with Zach Cohen, and sure enough, Parker had a great quote for him too:

“It was certainly a coming-out party for Zach Cohen,” Parker said. “I thought he looked like Frank Mahovlich a couple of times coming down the wing. I told him, ‘Geez, you actually are fast!’ We finally got him in shape; that’s why he’s fast.

He speaks truth, and I really did like what I saw tonight. The question remains now on who is going to sit next week, because Yip should be coming back. He’s going to bring back another huge physical presence. Our team does look bigger this year than it has in years past, so I do like that. One of our big men, Eric Gryba, does need to watch it a bit on his penalties, but it does seem like he is getting some of these penalties just for being a big guy, which could be an issue. (Photo Courtesy of The Daily Free Press)

Anyway, that’s it for me for now. Can’t wait till next Friday. Terriers will be taking on the Minutemen of Massachusetts, game time, 7:30 pm.

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Well, the Terriers finally got one in the bag, taking a game at Providence Thursday Night. After not winning ALL of October, they got one. 5-2 was your final score, and while I didn’t get to see the game, from reading the notes and looking at the stats, there were a ton of positives in this game. However, there were also some negatives, and we’ll look those as well.

I guess we’ll start with the negatives first. Two shorthanded goals. Two. Count em. And while they didn’t totally affect the outcome of the game, this is a 5-0 game without them. You just can’t give up those kinds of rushes when you’re up a man. There are far speedier and more skilled teams than Providence that will just tear you up if your power play doesn’t take care of the puck. It’s a risk that we’ve been living with for what seems like forever. It needs to stop. A power play should be an advantage, not something you have to weather through. Can you imagine what would’ve happened if a Nathan Gerbe had been there… or anyone from Boston College in general? They love the shorthanded game, and we can’t let that be as much of a weakness as its’ been.

Now we can get to the positives. The boys finally put the puck in the net! 5 different goal scorers tonight, and even one power play goal. The thing that struck me the most was that a lot of these points were coming from guys who are struggling to get them, like MacArthur, Higgins, and Strait. Even Gryba got in on the fun. It really looks like the guys are finding their legs and starting go gel as a team. This is the kind of offense that we’re going to need to compete in Hockey East.

Let’s hope they keep it up this weekend. Here are your five goal scorers tonight:

• Kevin Shattenkirk
• Eric Gryba
• Ryan Weston
• Pete MacArthur
• Chris Higgins

Congrats on the win, guys, let’s keep it up this weekend.Subscribe to my Feed, much more Terrier and Boston Sports news to come!

Not the greatest weekend for the Terriers, with two losses, 2-4 on Friday night, and 2-6 on Saturday night. I don’t really know who we can blame for this, but there were some positives that I could draw from the weekend (and what I saw). I wasn’t at either game, but I did watch the Friday night game, and read a lot about the Saturday night game.

From what I can tell, the Terriers mounted a tremendous amount of pressure to start the game on Friday. It looked from the way we were playing, that we would steamroll Michigan. However, Michigan was able to persevere and a huge reason for that is something that has been a problem for the Terriers for a couple years now. We could not put the puck into the net! Its tough to explain why this is. We have the talented forwards and skill players to bury it, and put up huge numbers. What I think it comes down to right now is confidence. Our guys have got to gut it out for a bit, and get those initial goals. Once that happens, we’ll be able to put a ton of pucks in. Dan McGoff already kind of got us started on this, firing one from the right faceoff circle, and buried it.

The second night seemed like it was a bit different. Having not watched the game (saw only the highlights), I can only offer some speculation. First, the goaltending was not as good as the previous night. I still think its a competition as to who is going to be the goaltender for the year, but Bennett definitely made a statement. His 60 minutes in net were much stronger in my opinion.

Back to the second night, the game stories make it appear as if Michigan caught up to us and “figured us out”. 6 different players scored for them, so it was no one single threat that put us down. We need to be able to contain an entire team, and help out our goaltending a bit this year. We don’t have an All American to back us up this year. Not that our goaltenders are incapable, but they don’t have the confidence that Curry did.

So basically we need to bury our opportunities, and not try to be so pretty, as coach Parker has been saying all season. They’ve got a chance against a Providence team who’s coming off a very strong weekend against Massachusetts, so you know that they’re going to provide some threat. We can’t take these games lightly anymore. Get one in the bag so that you have confidence coming into your second home game at the (seemingly not so friendly) confines of Agganis Arena.

Picks Record (7-6)

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They did it again! The Boston Red Sox have won the 2007 World Series! So much for that curse! It’s definitely not coming back now! Just an incredible series from end to end. Close games, blowouts, they persevered through it all. And an incredible reward to top it all off. I know that this blog is mainly for Terrier Hockey, but being from Boston, you can’t help but write about this.

Colorado definitely made it a tough one on us. Congratulations to the Rockies on their equally incredible season. They came out of nowhere, and were definitely a great team. They persevered, but just came up a bit short. It only puts a little bit of tarnish on what they did. I mean, 21 out of 22 to end the season, undefeated in the post season until the series. An excellent team, and a worthy opponent. They gave the Sox almost everything they could handle.

Mike Lowell as MVP. Great call. This guy did everything for the Sox this season. Clutch hits, huge defensive plays, and an overall class act. A rock for this team. A great honor for him, and I think he deserves every bit of it.

Can’t wait for the team to come back, and pick up my World Series gear. Let’s hope that the Terriers can pull a bit of confidence and learning from this. Fight through all the adversity, and good things will come. Terriers are gonna turn it around, starting Thursday.

Always kept (and keep) the faith. Go Red Sox!!!!!!!

15 Hockey East games this weekend, so lets get started on the predictions. My first time doing this, so bear with me if I’m totally off :-).

Friday Games:

Massachusetts @ Providence - 3-2 Massachusetts.
Maine @ Northeastern - 4-2 Maine.
Merrimack @ Boston College - 3-1 Boston College
Colorado College @ New Hampshire - 5-3 New Hampshire
Alabama Huntsville @ UMass Lowell - 3-2 UMass Lowell
Boston University @ Michigan - 3-2 Boston University

Saturday Games

Providence @ Massachusetts - 2-1 Providence
Maine @ Northeastern - 3-2 Maine
Colorado College @ New Hampshire - 4-3 Colorado College
Alabama Huntsville @ UMass Lowell - 3-1 UMass Lowell
Boston University @ Michigan - 4-2 Michigan

Sunday Games

Boston College @ Merrimack - 3-1 Boston College
Dartmouth @ Vermont - 2-1 Vermont

Thursday Games

Merrimack @ UMass Lowell - 3-2 Merrimack
Boston University @ Providence - 3-1 Boston University

Well that’s it for the games this weekend. I’m not going to say that I got the exact scores right, but we’ll base it on wins and losses. Lets see if I can end up better than 0.500 at the end of the season!