Saturday, March 17, 2012

BU falls to Maine 5-3 in HE semis, prep for NCAA's begins

BU dropped a HE semifinal to Maine 5-3 and finished their conference schedule. They now must wait and see where they will be seeded for the NCAA tournament which will begin next weekend. The game started off well for the Terriers as Alex Chiasson put BU up early with nice move and beat Maine goalie Dan Sullivan 5 hole. That was the score at the end of 1 but Maine quickly tied it up in the second on the powerplay when Joey Diamond got credit for a goal that was the result of Ross Gaudet falling and hitting Millan and the saved puck into the net. Gaudet seemed to fall after coming in hard to help clear the puck. That goal was a tough break for the Terriers especically since the call that put them on the penalty kill was questionable at best. Sahir Gill was called for slashing when he stick lifted a Maine player who then "lost" his stick resulting in a slash call. BU retook the lead a few minutes later on a great pass from Gill to a one timer for Matt Nieto. Maine controlled the rest of the second period with some help from the referees. Maine tied it up 2-2 when a clear interference call was missed a Maine player who took Chiasson out of play on the PK which allowed Will O'Neill to snipe one top shelf. Maine then took the lead on another PK after Alexx Privitera was called for the softest slashing call of all time. He got beat short handed and Millan made a big stop but because the ref felt like it. Easily the worst call I've seen all year.

In the third, BU tied it up on a nice play from Nieto who had his first career two goal game. Maine fans bitched and moaned on the play because HE Player of the Year Spencer Abbott went down when he lost an edge and headbutted Escobedo's elbow. Tim Whitehead was still bitching after the game when he said "It was an elbow to the head". Dear idiotic Maine coach, when you lose and edge and fall into an elbow, that doesn't make it a penalty. Maine fans continued to bitch despite the fact that Diamond boarded Escobedo right after this play and that was not called either. Maine went up for good on the powerplay once again when Justin Courtnall was called for elbowing because he hit someone too hard. It was another sad display of officiating by Hockey East officials but the bottom line is that BU must play better to do well in the NCAA's. They will certainly be helped by avoiding Hockey East referees in the NCAA tournament(hopefully).

BU now only has a 12.1% of a remaining a 2 seed. BU would need the higher seeds to win out tonight to remain a 2 seed but most likely will be seeded in the Worcester region whether they are a 2 or a 3. BU cannot fall to a 4 seed and thus will most likely be seeded in the East since a majority of the teams around them in pairwise are western teams including Minnesota duluth, Denver, Maimi, and Minnesota.

The NCAA tournament show is tomorrow at 12 on ESPNU and will be interesting to see where BU goes. Worcester regional with BC seems likely to give the regional an attendance boost and likely will keep the bracket integrity intact. Stay tuned to see where the Terriers get placed and anything else we have to complain about.


3 comments:

  1. Regardless whether this was a penalty or not (it was, the BU player went to the head with an elbow), this play should have stopped immediately after Abbott went down. College hockey is an amateur sport. The Maine player suffered an apparent head/neck injury right in front of the ref and the play should have been stopped right there. The ref’s actions potentially put a player’s health and safety at risk, which is an inexcusable error.

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  2. Above,you are wrong. I have officiated college and junior and pro hockey for over 25 years (no I was not this game's official). The rule is that play is only stopped if a player is lying motionless and may have suffered a significant injury that is construed to be life threatening OR the injury was not seen by any on ice official so how the injury occured is in question as it relates to the aforementioned. In this case the play was seen by the officials (plus 10,000 others). The player went into the boards FEET FIRST (watch the reply), so under the rules and guidelines, the attacking team may continue it's play until possession is gained by the other team. This is exactly what occured and the on ice officials got this right. The only call they messed up was stopping the play to review the potential Maine goal. They must wait until the first stoppage in play to review a potential goal, which they didn't do having blown play dead during a BU rush up ice after the post play.

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  3. Completely disagree. The BU player’s elbow and then forearm first made contact with the Maine player’s head and then the BU player basically wrapped his arm around the Maine’s player head throwing the player off balance. On the replay, it also shows the Maine player’s helmet becoming partially dislodged (7:07 on the video) when his head hit the ice. Thus, the referee who was standing right there should have A) called a penalty for an elbow to the head; but, more importantly, B) stopped play for a potential serious injury when the player hit the ice with his helmet pulled forward over his face exposing the back of his head and neck to the ice on impact.

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