BU played at Maine Friday night. They lost. End of Maine recap.
No members of BSRS were in attendance for this one because we are saving our vacation days for Philly in April. The last game no member of BSRS attended was last year at Denver(6-1 loss)...so basically we can't miss anymore games ever. This loss falls on us. Feel free to destroy us in the comment section.
On Sunday, UConn faced BU for the first time ever. BU played well for the first 40 minutes to jump out to a 3-0 lead through 2 and held on for a 4-1 win. With the win, BU improves to 5-6-0 on the year. The first period went scoreless but BU dictated the pace of play after goalie Matt O'Connor made a few huge saves early in the game. They also out shot UConn 17-8 in the first which Coach Quinn has to be happy with with after a few weeks of stressing more of a shooter's mentality.
The Terriers took the lead for good less than a minute into the second when sophomore Danny O'Regan made a few slick moves through the UConn defense and snuck it past goalie Matt Grogan at the right post. O'Regan had a nice celebration while still falling down to his knees from making the move on Grogan.
The second Terrier goal came from freshman Nick Roberto who admitted after the game that he was trying to direct a shot to produce a rebound to linemate Evan Rodrigues. The shot ended up beating Grogan under his blocker to extend the BU lead to two. Freshman Kevin Duane made it 3-0 when he deflected a shot after setting a great screen in front of the net on a Matt Grzelcyk shot.
Duane has found himself a role for the Terriers as a solid 3rd/4th line contributor while also seeing powerplay time due to his size and stick skills around the net. The third line of Moran-Lawrence and Duane had some great cycles of the puck throughout the game especially in the first period and made a good case for Coach Quinn to keep them together for this weekend vs North Dakota.
UConn cut it to 3-1 early in the third and made it interesting as BU took two penalties in the last 5 minutes(They only took one the remainder of the game). Freshman Robbie Baillargeon scored an empty netter to seal the game making a nice move around a UConn dman to score on the open net. Baillargeon is tied for the team lead in points 11 games into the season with 9 which is certainly a nice surprise. As the underclassmen on this team continue to grow and develop, they are going to get more and more dangerous heading into the second half of the year.
As a side note to the game, it was the first time UConn assistant coach Joe Pereira(BSRS interview) returned to Agganis Arena as an assistant coach for his home state Huskies. Tim Healey has a nice article from the Daily Free Press on Pereira who seemed to be having fun with his former coach in Quinn and teammates Garrett Noonan and Pat MacGregror after the game. There was a funny moment described after the game where Coach Quinn pulled Pereira into the press room and introduced him as "the best looking coach" in Hockey East while Pereira yelled that he was only the second best looking conceding that Quinn was a better looking coach. We obviously would be all for Joey Pereira returning to his alma mater as a coach someday in the future as he certainly has the mentality to be a great college hockey coach.
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