McAvoy thrives in NHL debut, Greenway staying at BU

Charlie McAvoy played very well in his NHL debut tonight for the Boston Bruins in a 2-1 victory where he logged over 24 minutes of ice time and had a +1 rating(+/- rating is still a stupid stat). McAvoy made his NHL debut after signing with the Bruins and playing in the AHL concluding the BU season ending two and a half weeks ago. McAvoy joins fellow underclassmen JFK and Clayton Keller in playing in an NHL and BU game this season. These three will join the seniors in not returning to Comm Ave and it is difficult to find flaws in any of their decisions since they are all seeing NHL time right away. It is obviously not ideal for BU's success for players to leave Comm Ave before graduation but it is a fact of life when you recruit top end players who drafted to play in the NHL. These three coming out of BU ready to contribute at the NHL level does nothing but build the brand that BU hockey is the place for top end talent to go and develop into NHL caliber players and ideally win while they are doing that.

McAvoy rolling into the playoffs making his NHL debut like pic.twitter.com/Qrdbths3p7

— Matt Dresens (@TheBUHockeyBlog) April 12, 2017

NHL Draft Preview

The best offseason weekend of the year in college/professional hockey is approaching with the NHL draft taking place this Friday and Saturday in Buffalo, NY.  BU will likely have four first round picks in this year's draft with 1-3 others taken in later rounds. The four first round draft picks will be sure to be the buzz of the draft as it will most likely be the most from any NCAA or CHL team and because #BUtwitter is going to be lit. London and Winsdor(back off Keller please) each look like they could have 2-3 guys go in the first as well but nobody will touch the 4 BU is going to have and no other college program will have more than one. The job Quinn has done on the recruiting trail over the last three years has been unreal to say the least. Friday night is a night to enjoy it and make fun of all the other peasant college and junior teams with less than 4 first round picks(hint that's all of them).

Projected Draft Rankings
1. Clayton Keller- Top 10
2. Kieffer Bellows- Top 15
3. Charlie McAvoy- Top 15
4. Dante Fabbro- First round
5. Chad Krys- 2-3 round
6. Johnny McDermott- 4-7th round

Here are a few mock drafts(TSN- Craig Button, Draftsite) so people know what to expect Friday night.  Official DrunkCast Drinking Game rules after the jump!

Weekend in South Bend Recap

The Terriers split a weekend road trip in South Bend, Indiana with the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. As a BU fan it is tough to be mad about the effort as the Terriers left it all on the ice both nights. They came out on the right end Friday night behind goals from Ahti Oksanen, Mike Moran and Charlie McAvoy. Oksanen and McAvoy's goals were absolute bombs while Moran's was a beautiful greasy jabbing "shot" from the goal mouth. All three goals were critical as the Terriers held on for a 3-2 win which was their first in the history of Compton Ice Arena.

Weekend Recap: Terriers tie twice with PC, continue to improve

The BU Terriers continue to improve as the season rolls along battling to two ties with the #1 ranked Providence College Friars this past weekend. The Terriers fought back from deficits in the third periods of both games as they failed to score in either of the first two periods of either night. The Terriers knotted it up on a late Ahti Oksanen goal Friday night after trailing 1-0 for over a period of hockey with a majority of that spent short handed because the refs got a little whistle happy. BU freshman Charlie McAvoy was thrown out(and later suspended) for a hit on Brandon Tanev midway through the third. BU killed the two 5 on 3 powerplays though and gave themselves a chance to tie the game which Oksanen eventually did for them. They show an unbelievable amount of fight just to stay in the game down two skaters as Nik Olsson left the contest with an upper body injury. It was definitely a hard earned tie for the Terriers who even had chances to win OT as well.

On to the McAvoy hit, it was definitely a borderline hit and most likely a (minor)penalty. However, I do not think it was warranting of a major penalty. It appeared that Tanev dropped his head at the last moment, most likely when McAvoy was already committed to the hit. The major point of contact appeared to the be the shoulder and body but since Nate Leaman whined about it after the game, the conference felt obliged to respond and handed down the suspension. Leaman really is becoming more unlikeable the longer he is in the league.. Take the national championship game last season out of this and he is still creeping up there as whiny as all the other annoying coaches in the league(York, Dennehy, Sneddon etc). You aren't allowed to call a borderline hit "one of the worst I have seen" when your guys are taking cheap shot swings after the whistle all night long. Regardless of whether you are getting away with it or not, you are certainly not in a position to criticize a kid like McAvoy for trying to play hard and physical between the whistles while your goons are waiting to take their shots until after the play ends.

With that said, I felt like Quinn would have benched McAvoy on Saturday for a few reasons anyway. First, McAvoy is a 17 year old freshman and sometimes they can benefit from watching a game from the stands. I know AJ Greer said this just last year when he was a healthy scratch for a game. Second, he took a bad penalty before the hit that got him thrown out while responding to a cheap shot from a PC player(one of many). You still have to keep your cool there and can't take a penalty to go down 5 on 3 for a full two minutes even if it was referee assisted. Third, Brien Diffley definitely has earned the right to get some ice time with his play last year and earlier this season. There are going to be injuries throughout the year and Diffley needs to be ready to play.

BU Hockey Drops Season Opener to Union

The BU Terriers dropped their season opener 5-3 to the Union Dutchmen out in Schenectady, NY last night. Union scored the first goal of the night on a rebound powerplay goal by Ryan Scarfo. after an AJ Greer slashing penalty which the coaching staff probably wasn't a fan of since it was 200 feet away from the BU goal.  BU bounced back with goals from senior Matt Lane and freshman Ryan Cloonan(his first collegiate goal) on nice plays by Doyle Somerby throwing the puck on net to set up rebound opportunities. The game was a different story in the second as goalie Sean Maguire was forced to stand on his head at times and made one of the best glove saves I have ever seen. Union would eventually put two more past him, one in the late second and one early in the third. BU would eventually tie the game up on Charlie McAvoy's first collegiate goal as he jumped into the rush to bang home the game tying goal. BU's d-zone coverage would fail to keep Union off the board as senior captain Matt Wilkens scored the game winner off a rebound from Maguire and Union would add an empty netter to end the game with a 5-3 win.

Overall, I thought the team played better than they did against Acadia in the exhibition game and there were plenty of positive to take from the game. Coach Quinn seemed to have a similar attitude and he is much smarter than me so it must be correct. Union had 6 powerplays to BU's 2 which was a huge advantage for the home team who definitely got the benefit of the doubt on a few 50/50 calls. I am not saying the refs cost BU the game but they certainly didn't do them any favors. I thought Charlie McAvoy was way better than he was in the exhibition game even before he scored the game tying goal in the third. There was a sequence on the powerplay where he walked the puck in the from the point past three Union penalty killers and dished a slick pass that just missed being buried by O'Regan and Greenway. Jordan Greenway was also a huge physical presence down low as he basically did what he wanted with the puck. He is going to be a force for the Terriers this year for sure. I still love the third line of Olsson Lane Carpenter as they keep the game simply and generate scoring chances while being physical with the opponent. Coach Quinn will certainly have some tough decisions to be made on defense with it seeming that Brandon Fortunato will return to the blue line this weekend after missing the game Saturday for a violation of team rules. His fill in, Shane Switzer, was very solid in his collegiate debut and certainly did nothing to warrant being pulled from the lineup. Fortunately for Quinn, Friday night is an exhibition game so he can dress 7 D and Saturday he could dress 0 D and still beat Wisconsin since they are garbage.