BU, Defensemen Take Down Lowell in Beanpot Tune-Up

It was the quintessential trap game. Last place UMass-Lowell coming to town three days before the Beanpot, a little less than a week after BU came out of Maine with an impressive 3 points. And according to Coach Parker, the team's practice on Thursday gave little reason to assume this wouldn't be a scary trap game: "We just had the worst practice of the year," Parker told the Boston Hockey Blog. "I'm real concerned about where our heads are at" (to see the full article, click the link above).

And for the first period against ULowell last night, Parker's fears were realized. Lowell hit a couple of posts, and the only real good chance BU had was a Coyle to Chiasson rush that resulted in a Marc Boulanger save. If not for Kieran Millan in the first period, BU is probably down 1 or 2-0 instead of the 0-0 tie it actually was. The Terriers found their sea-legs in the second period, luckily, and put up 2 goals in a matter of 4 minutes. The first resulted from a beautiful tic-tac-toe passing play: Joe Pereira hit Chris Connolly with a pass, who then delivered a strike to charging Max Nicastro, who buried the puck top shelf to give BU the 1-0 lead. The second goal came on the powerplay (for a change), when Corey Trivino found Garrett Noonan through all 4 Lowell penalty killers with a pass, and Noonan just tapped it in for his second of the year.

BU expanded their 2-0 lead in the third period, again on the power play. Adam Clendening fired one on net that Pereira deflected past Boulanger for his team leading 12th of the year. On the night, Clendening had two assists and Joey had a goal and an assist. Lowell got the last goal of the game on a 6 on 3 advantage, as they pulled their goalie after Nicastro and Escobedo each committed penalties. The goal ended a 120 minute shutout streak that Kieran had going, dating back to the Maine game last Saturday.

The story of the night, besides the incredible Kieran as always, was the defensemen scoring. Clendening's two assists as well as Noonan and Nicastro's goals were a welcome sight for BU. Nicastro explained it to the Boston Hockey Blog after the game: "Coach Bavis always emphasizes on getting a fourth player on the rush,” Nicastro said. “Tonight we just tried doing that as much as possible. They weren’t back-checking as hard as we thought so we were open most of the time.”


BU is next in action Monday, against BC in the first round of the Beanpot. Here's to hoping we don't go 0-4 against them this year...