Men’s Hockey Notebook: No. 15 Terriers face toughest test yet in No. 1 BC
By Patrick Donnelly
The fifteenth-ranked Boston University Terriers (5-1-0) will return to action against the top team in the country in longtime rival Boston College (10-2-1) with a two-game, home-and-home series with the Eagles.
The Terriers are coming out of a university-wide pause on athletics in the wake of an overall spike in COVID-19 cases on campus at BU.
“It’s exciting to be back,” BU head coach Albie O’Connell said. ” I think [the pause] was cautious, but it was the right choice.”
The Battle of Comm. Ave. was originally scheduled to take place last weekend, but BU’s pause pushed the series back to this week.
The Eagles come into the series on a seven-game points streak, going without a loss in regulation since Dec. 12 against UConn. Most recently, BC thumped No. 14 Northeastern, winning 6-2, on Tuesday.
Junior captain Marc McLaughlin has paced the Eagles offensively with eight goals and six assists for 14 points in 13 games. Head coach Jerry York’s group has three more players scoring at or above a point per game clip in freshman forward Nikita Nesterenko (6-7-13 in 13 games), sophomore forward Matt Boldy (4-9-13 in 11 games) and senior assistant captain Logan Hutsko (4-7-11 in 11 games).
In goal, sophomore netminder Spencer Knight has been exceptional for BC this year with a 9-0-1 record to go along with a .944 save percentage, a 1.88 goals-against average and two shutouts. Backing him up is freshman Henry Wilder, who holds a 1-2-0 record, a .909 save percentage as well as a 3.20 GAA.
“[Knight] is definitely a puzzle that not a lot of people figured out,” O’Connell said. “So we’re gonna have to shoot a lot, try to get to the net, score on some rebounds and hopefully get some good traffic on him.”
BU is riding a five-game win streak, sweeping Maine and No. 10 Massachusetts, after splitting their season-opening series with sixteenth-ranked Providence College. It’s the first time the Terriers have one five games in a row since 2018.
“We’ve got a pretty good thing going right now, so I’m just pretty excited about where we’re at,” O’Connell said.
For the Terriers, senior assistant captain David Farrance has been off to an other-worldly start with four goals and six assists for ten points in six games, averaging 2.33 points per game as a defenseman. Sophomore forward Jay O’Brien (3g, 3a) and sophomore blueliner Dom Fensore (1g, 5a) are also scoring at a point per game pace with six points each through the team’s six contests. Freshman forward Luke Tuch has five points (2g, 3a) on the year.
Between the pipes, freshman goaltender Drew Commesso has been strong for BU so far this season with a 5-1-0 record, a .917 save percentage and a 3.08 GAA. In one appearance on the year, sophomore Ashton Abel allowed one goal on nine shots in just over 12 minutes of action. Last season, Abel made 35 saves (at least, that is what was recorded due to old NCAA overtime rules) in BU’s 5-4 double-overtime win over BC in the Beanpot semifinal.
Puck drop for Friday is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Conte Forum, while Saturday’s rematch is set to get underway at 7 p.m. at Walter Brown Arena.
More notes from around the rink:
It was the year without the Beanpot
With Harvard deciding to not play this season due to the pandemic, there will not be a Beanpot for the Boston programs.
During his time as a player at BU, O’Connell was fortunate enough to compete in, and win, four Beanpots. But which is his favorite?
“My senior year [1999] was probably the favorite of mine,” O’Connell, who captained the team, said. “We had a lot of attrition the year before, and it was a little bit of a rebuild. I think we had like 12 freshmen that year, we had a number of injuries and our D core was pretty decimated. But we had a good goaltender in Michel Larocque.”
That year, BU took down a “loaded” BC team in the semifinal before overcoming Northeastern to capture the Beanpot. O’Connell said he and his teammates were thrilled to not be the seniors, or the team, that broke BU’s tournament winning streak at the time (six-straight championships from 1995-2000).
“It was more relief than potentially excitement, than anything, to be honest with you,” he added.
No fans, no problem
Although not having fans in the arena this season has been jarring at first for many, O’Connell feels the atmosphere during games is just the same, especially during rivalry games.
“Once the games get going, the intensity is there,” he said. “You don’t really notice.”
“Guys are competitive and passionate, and at the end of the day points are on the line.”
Next man up
The Terriers have had players in and out of the lineup so far this season. O’Connell understands that given the nature of everything this year, his team has to be able to adapt to changes quickly.
“I think our guys have done a good job of kind relishing in some opportunities,” he said.”Some guys that maybe wouldn’t have gotten the ice time are pretty excited about that.”
As far as whether or not anyone who has missed time recently will be available this weekend (junior forward Jake Wise and senior captain Logan Cockerill, among others) O’Connell said the team can’t worry about who is or isn’t available.
“We get a new set of information every day.” O’Connell said. “Whatever we have, we work with.”
Potential for some midweek games
In an effort to have each program meet the NCAA’s minimum game requirement of 13 games, and meet the conference’s own scheduling logistics, Hockey East has been adding more midweek games on Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s as the season has gone along.
During the latest BU Hockey Show, Hockey East Associate Commissioner Brian Smith gave myself and Brady Gardner a detailed inside look at how the league pieces together its schedule each week. It’s well worth the listen.
O’Connell didn’t seem overly excited at the possibility of a midweek game next week as it would put the team into a lot of action after a period of down time, but he understands the league’s reasoning and the players’ desire to compete.
“We come off a 10-day pause . . . we’re gonna practice four times and play two games,” O’Connell said. “I don’t know that, logically, [a midweek game] makes a lot of sense this week.”
“If they give us a Tuesday or Wednesday game, so be it. I think our guys will be excited, no matter what. They just want to play.”
Featured Image: Sophomore defenseman Case McCarthy (2) and freshman forward Luke Tuch (11) line up before a face-off in a win against Maine at Walter Brown Arena on Jan. 23, 2021.