{"id":10818,"date":"2017-10-19T21:34:43","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T01:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sportswtbu.com\/?p=10818"},"modified":"2020-01-09T17:49:06","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T22:49:06","slug":"no-78-terriers-regrouped-for-hockey-east-opener-with-connecticut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2017\/10\/19\/no-78-terriers-regrouped-for-hockey-east-opener-with-connecticut\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 7\/8 Terriers Look to Regroup Against Connecticut"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"37682721321_c0608fd6d0_o\"<\/p>\n

By: Jarett Leonard<\/p>\n

BOSTON \u2014 The No. 7 Boston University men\u2019s hockey team will look to rebound from a weekend sweep to Minnesota State when it begins Hockey East play this weekend. The Terriers will begin a home-and-home series against the University of Connecticut on Friday before heading down to Hartford, Conn. on Saturday.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s series with UConn (2-2, 1-1 Hockey East) will provide a young BU team with its first opportunity to respond to adversity, but there will still be valuable conference points on the line in the Terriers\u2019 (2-2) league opener.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery game is important when you play the season we play,\u201d BU coach David Quinn said. \u201cEvery game is impactful, whether it be from a national tournament standpoint or a Hockey East standpoint. Obviously last weekend was extremely disappointing and surprising, but we\u2019ve got to move past it. We had a good week of practice and I\u2019m very confident that we\u2019ll see the team we saw the first two games.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Terriers jumped out to leads of 1-0 and 2-1 before allowing four straight goals to Minnesota State in a 6-3 loss in game one. The Mavericks continued their success into the series finale, grabbing a 3-0 shutout win and completing the sweep. Quinn said he views the result as a learning experience and he is confident his team will bounce back this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working on the areas we need to get better at,\u201d Quinn said. \u201cWe\u2019re a work in progress just like everybody else, but I think we got our eyes opened last weekend. I think part of our problem was we might have believed we were really good. I knew what we were in store for last week, I don\u2019t know if our players did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Huskies enter the weekend coming off of a split in a pair of non-conference games. Sophomore Alexander Payusov\u2019s hat trick paced UConn in a 6-4 win over American International on Friday, before suffering a 3-1 setback to Sacred Heart the next night. Sophomore goaltender Adam Huska made 17 saves in relief of Tanner Creel to earn the win Friday, but allowed a trio of goals on 22 shots to the Pioneers.<\/p>\n

The two teams split last season\u2019s series with the road team winning each contest. First period goals from Jordan Greenway and Gabriel Chabot were enough for BU to escape the XL Center with a 2-1 win in the first game, as Connor LaCouvee made 28 saves in net. The Huskies were the aggressors the next night, however, as Huska\u2019s 37 save shutout led UConn to a 4-0 win at Agganis Arena.<\/p>\n

\"37650060402_bfc26877dc_o.jpg\"
Oettinger makes a save in last weekend’s series with Minnesota State Mankato. (Matt Dresens\/2017).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The goaltending matchup will likely feature Huska against fellow sophomore Jake Oettinger, and while Oettinger and BC’s Joseph Woll were widely praised for their freshmen seasons in net, Huska had a quietly successful rookie campaign as well. He posted a 2.87 goals against average and a .916 save percentage in 21 starts last year, and will have a larger role this season with Rob Nichols graduated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t get in front of him and take away his eyes, we\u2019re going to have a hard time,\u201d Quinn said of Huska. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get at the net-front, we\u2019ve got to screen him, we\u2019ve got to win battles at the net and we\u2019ve got to be ready to shoot quickly and get rebounds, because rarely does he get beat by the first shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The early departure of Tage Thompson to the St. Louis Blues removed a chunk of the Huskies\u2019 offense from a year ago. Thompson recorded 32 points in 34 games last season, while Evan Richardson \u2013 who was lost to graduation \u2013 accounted for 22 points.<\/p>\n

Still, UConn returned a solid core this season, including forwards Max Letunov, Karl El-Mir, Spencer Naas and Kasperi Ojantakenen. On the defensive end, Johnny Austin and Miles Gendron return to Storrs for another season. The Huskies also added a pair of USHL forwards in Brian Rigali and Zac Robbins, while Adam Karashik joins an experienced defensive unit.<\/p>\n

\"37650061252_0ac32a6102_o\"
Senior Nikolas Olsson staples Minnesota State’s Connor Mackey in a 6-3 loss to the Mavericks. (Matt Dresens\/2017).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to be physical on them,\u201d senior captain Brandon Hickey said. \u201cThat\u2019s the most tiring part of hockey, so if we\u2019re physical on them and wear them down up front they won\u2019t be able to sustain their level of play through the weekend. So we\u2019ve got to make sure we\u2019re leaning on them and making them battle and not giving them anything easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The teams will open the series on Friday night at Agganis Arena at 7:30 p.m. before traveling to the XL Center in Hartford for the final on Saturday at 5 p.m.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[soundcloud url=”https:\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/347722137″ params=”color=#ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” \/]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Jarett Leonard BOSTON \u2014 The No. 7 Boston University men\u2019s hockey team will look to rebound from a weekend sweep to Minnesota State when it begins Hockey East play this weekend. The Terriers will begin a home-and-home series against the University of Connecticut on Friday before heading down to Hartford, Conn. on Saturday. This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17192,"featured_media":10843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1028],"tags":[1053],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10818"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21978,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10818\/revisions\/21978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}