BU Splits Weekend: loses at Merrimack, beats Denver

The BU Terriers split their two games on the weekend to move to 3-3-0 on the season. The Terriers lost Friday night at Merrimack 4-3. I thought they played better than the score indicated. Sean Maguire had a tough night in net for the Terriers and was pulled in favor of Connor LaCouvee in the second period. It was the first time where Maguire had showed any sign that he took a year off from playing due to injuries last season. He certainly will bounce back from this performance as he was pretty good in each of his first two starts against Wisconsin and Union.

BU bounced back to beat Denver 5-4 in OT on Saturday night. They got a strong goaltending effort from LaCouvee to hold a high powered Denver team down for a majority of the game and stay in it long enough for Ahti Oksanen to score his second goal of the night and the game winner. BU also got goals from Ryan Cloonan, Robbie Baillargeon and Brandon Hickey with Hickey's being top 10 goals of the year worthy. Denver came back from a 4-2 deficit in the third to tie the game just to send it to overtime which is concerning to watch BU blow a 2 goal lead but you also have to consider that is one of the top offensive teams in the country and BU was still missing Matt Grzelcyk who should be returning to action in the next few weekends. The win was huge for pairwise implications down the road as Denver is a quality out of conference opponent who pushed BC to the edge on Friday night as well.

BU splits with UConn, Bracco gone from Newton Community College

The BU Terriers split their Saturday/Tuesday home and home with the UConn Huskies with each home team holding serve on their home ice. On Saturday, BU played UConn even through two periods before taking over in the third thanks to some good plays to draw penalties and then taking advantage of those powerplays. Sean Maguire was solid in goal making 16 saves on 18 shots with neither goal by former BU commit Max Letunov being his fault. BU got a big goal from freshman Ryan Cloonan, who has been impressive thus far, early in the game to get on the board. BU would add powerplay goals from freshman JFK and sophomore dman Brandon Fortunato whose improved shot is notable if you watch him play and his stat line as he has already double his goal output from last year. Brandon Hickey added an empty net goal to solidify the final 4-2.

Wisconsin Review: Wisconsin is BADger at hockey

The BU Terriers responded from a less than 100% effort against the U-18 team on Friday with their first win of the 2015-2016 season Saturday night versus the University of Wisconsin. The Terriers' goalie Connor LaCouvee gave up a fluke goal early in the contest but the Terriers responded with four goals of their own  over the next 58 minutes. They would outshoot the Badgers 44-18 and dominate play throughout the contest. The tying goal came from senior Matt Lane who now has two goals in as many games. I'm not saying he is going to put one in the net everygame for the rest of the season but I'm not saying he won't either.

The game winner was from new found dman sniper Brandon Fortunato who scored his first goal of the season after working on his shot since arriving at BU. He was heavily criticized for his lack of a shot at times last year but that no longer seems to be an issue after he went bar down on Saturday. Chase Phelps and Bobo Carpenter added insurance tallies to make it 4-1. I thought Phelps played the best game of his collegiate career as he was all over the Wisconsin D and created numerous scoring chances before potting one off a Fortunato shot. Phelps seems set to have a big improvement in production from last year when he had 4 points in 38 games as a true freshman.

Weekend Preview

The BU Terriers host two opponents to Agganis Arena this weekend as they look to bounce back from their loss at Union last weekend.  The USA U-18 team aka BU Jr comes to town for an exhibition game tonight followed by lowly Wisconsin tomorrow for a game that counts unfortunately for the Badgers. The US U-18 team has four BU recruits for next season on it with forwards Clayton Keller and Kiefer Bellows as well as dman Chad Krys and goalie Jake Oettinger. All four of these players are projected to be first round picks with Oettinger not being eligible until the 2017 NHL draft. Keller, Bellows and Krys are 1,2,and 4 in scoring on the team filled with NCAA recruits. Oettinger is 4-3 with a 2.72 GAA. It should be noted that Keller, Bellows and Krys have each individually outscored their three BC commit teammates(McPhee,Walker, Campoli) combined and that Oettinger starts over Wohl in goal. Another notable on the U-18 team is BU freshman Jordan Greenway's younger brother JD who is still uncomitted. As a defenseman, it is hard to see him coming to BU for next season with the guys they got coming already(Krys, Fabbro, Kolias) but Quinn never seems to have too many top end defensemen so you never know. This game will certainly be the more competitive game of the weekend and should be a good test to see how BU has improved it's d-zone coverage since last weekend where they had a few breakdowns.

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.