Weekend Recap- Puck Don't Lie

The BU Terriers showed the resolve and determination this past weekend in Orono,Maine as they took 3 of the possible 4 points from the Maine Black Bears. The Terriers gritted out a 3-3 tie Friday night and scored a 5-4 OT victory on Saturday night. The 3 points on the weekend leave the Terriers 4th in Hockey East with 24 points but they have one game in hand on the 3 teams ahead of them(Merrimack, BC, and UNH). Needless to say, these 3 points were huge for this team in a multitude of ways. They needed 3 to keep pace in the standings for sure. More importantly, they needed to get that confidence back that had been lacking as of late. They dug and clawed throughout the weekend and earned those 3 points.

Friday night started off great for the Terriers as Matt Nieto and Wade Megan scored within the first 10 minutes of the game. Nieto's goal was off a great pass from Evan Rodrigues. That wouldn't be the last time they would connect on the weekend. Megan scored 10 seconds later off a good forecheck from Cason Hohmann. After this goal, Maine benefited from BU penalties. Maine scored all 3 of their penalties from powerplay opportunities.  Maine scored the next 3 goals and was 3 for  8 powerplay on Friday night. BU finally scored on the powerplay with 12 left in the third on an Ahti Oksanen wrister from the point. Ben Rosen set a great screen on the play. The teams went scoreless the rest of the way after a Maine goal was called back due to goalie interference with 5 left in regulation. It was a huge point for the team as they took too many penalties but they played a solid game overall.


Below are the video highlights courtesy of our good friends over at Hockey East and post game interviews from the Boston Hockey Blog











Saturday night was a more high scoring affair for both sides. Maine jumped out to a 1-0 lead on a powerplay goal late in the first that I'm sure goalie Sean Maguire wants another shot at. The rebound trickled through his body and found it's way into the net. BU would go on to score the next 4 goals though to build a 4-1 lead early in the third. Danny O'Regan scored the first of his two goals on the night on a rebound backhanded goal. Cason Hohmann then made a nifty move to roof a shot on a semi-breakaway less than 4 minutes later. Matt Grzelcyk let off an absolute snipe with less than a minute left in the third to make it 3-1. The Terriers continued the pressure to begin the third and O'Regan scored his second powerplay goal of the night on a great pass from Ahti Oksanen. Maine then responded with 3 goals of their own. Joey Diamond, Devin Shore and Steven Swavely added the goals for Maine. Shore's goal seemed to be exhibit A of a crease violation but it was upheld after a lengthy review. Diamond and Swavely's goals were nicely tipped shots and really nothing could be done by Maguire on those.

Overtime was up and down and seemed destined for another tie. With ten seconds left, Maine attempted to dump the puck in and rushed all 5 guys down low. The puck took a weird bounce off the glass(which happened quite often over the weekend) and found Danny O'Regan who quickly fed Evan Rodrigues. Rodrigues started a 2 on 0 breakaway with Matt Nieto, who was right off the bench. Rodrigues faked a shot and slid the puck across perfectly to Nieto who slammed home the game-winner. The pass from Rodrigues was perfect as it just missed a back-checking/diving Devin Shore. The weekend started and ended with Matt Nieto goals on nice passes from ERod. Good to get the 3 points this weekend for this team.

This was a huge win for this team and leaves them feeling much better about themselves heading into a huge 3 games on their schedule this coming week. Lowell twice this weekend and Merrimack next Tuesday are huge games in the conference standings as the Terriers could easily finish anywhere from 1st to 6th in conference in addition to being on the Pairwise bubble. We will have an offensive Lowell Preview later in the week but for now, we're going to enjoy what happened this weekend and try to sober up. Puck Don't Lie.