BU IS DANCING

John Holland put the team on his back dude. Insane victory for the BU men's basketball team, still cannot believe they came back and pulled that off. I'm sure feliz miguel will have a solid wrap up for us later today, but I had to post simply to get this picture up:

BU, NU Split First Two; Game 3 On Sunday

These dogs just don't want to make it easy on themselves.

Northeastern and Boston University have split the first two games of the Hockey East quarterfinals and will play the deciding game 3 Sunday night at Agganis Arena.  The Huskies of NU took the opening game of the series 4-2 on Thursday night, and BU evened the series up with a 5-2 win on Friday night.

On Thursday, Northeastern took advantage of some solid play in the last few minutes of the first period and the first few minutes of the second period to build an insurmountable 4-1 lead. The game was tied at 1-1 until the Huskies rattled off 3 goals from 1:55 left in the first 8:42 in the second to more or less put the Terriers away.  Ryan Ruikka scored his second goal of the season to bring the game to 4-2, but the Terriers couldn't take advantage of some powerplays on the stretch and the Huskies pulled out the win.

Friday night was a much different story.  After letting NU take a 1-0 lead only 3:25 into the first period, the Terriers scored 3 goals in under 7 minutes (Ruikka, Nieto, Gilroy) and never looked back.  The Huskies brought the game to 3-2 late in the second period on a Jamie Oleksiak tally, but two 3rd period goals by senior Joe Pereira (one being an empty netter) shut the door on Northeastern.

Game 3 will take place Sunday night at 7 pm to decide who heads to the Garden for the semifinals. I'll put up highlights and press conferences as they come, so check back for those.

THURSDAY NIGHT
HIGHLIGHTS





FRIDAY

I miss these days

In case you forgot what it was like to have a full student section... lets forget about tonight...hopefully see you all tomorrow at the game.

HE QF Preview

So here is a little Monday night preview of the Hockey East Conference Quarterfinals that begin this Thursday and continue through until Sunday night. I will include my predictions and do my best to give some unbiased analysis.

8 UMASS @ 1 BC (Fri, Sat, Sun)- UMASS dug out of a 3-0 deficit Saturday against Maine to sneak out PC for the last playoff spot by a point. They played BC tough twice two weekends ago and with a strong goaltender like senior Paul Dainton. BC is still simply too skilled for UMASS but I think UMASS finds a way to make it go 3.
Prediction- BC wins in 3 (4-0, 2-3,5-2)

7 UVM @ 2 UNH(Fri,Sat,Sun)- UNH is called the University of No Hardware for a reason...they choke in March year after year. This year's team has been no different but they do enough to get by UVM in 3 before getting killed at the Garden in the semis.
Prediction- UNH win in 3(4-3,3-4, 5-3)

6 NEU @ 3 BU(Thur,Fri,Sun)- This is a series sure to be filled with physical play and skirmishes after the whistle. BU freshman defenseman Garrett Noonan will be serving a suspension for the first game after receiving his third game misconduct against NU on Saturday. Coack Parker has said he will appeal the decision so it will be interesting to see if he or junior defenseman Dave Warsofsky will play(concussion). This series seems bound to go three as the teams always seem to play one goal games. This loss could force the Terrier to get to the final if not win the HE tournament to get into the NCAA tournament.
Prediction- BU wins in 3 ( 4-2, 2-3, 4-3).

5 Maine @ 4 Merrimack College(Fri,Sat,Sun)- This series should be filled with physical play as well as Merrihack will attempt to bait Maine into stupid penalties as they did when Maine swept them up at Alfond. Look for goon Kyle Bigos to be going full throttle and after Maine start Gustav Nyquist. This should be another interesting series...that Maine shocks the homecrowd with a win.
Prediction- Maine wins in 3( 7-3, 3-4, 5-2)

This would set up the following semifinal games

5 Maine vs 1 BC- A rematch of last year's HE tourny final should be a thrilled
3 BU vs 2 UNH- BU gets a team they matchup with well and is famous for choking so they have no excuses to no make it to the HE final for a fith matchup with BC in the final. More on this once it happens though.

Northeastern salvages a split...prepare for 2-3 more with BU next weekend

The Boston University Terriers dropped a 4-3 decision to the Northeastern Huskies last night at Agganis Arena. The Terriers held leads of both 1-0(on a Max NiCastro pp goal) and 2-1(on Chris Connolly's pp goal) but then proceeded to give up three straight goals to face a 4-2 deficit with five minutes left before KGilroy pulled the Terriers within one. BU could never scramble to grab the tying goal and lost watching themselves slip into #3 in HE and t16 in the Pairwise. With a win, the Terriers would face UVM in the HEA playoffs next weekend as opposed to 2-3 more with NU. Coach Parker descibed the team's play as casual and taking too many stupid penalties. The dumbest of which was Alex Chiasson's roughing penalty with six minutes to play. Chiasson could be seen getting chewed out by Parker while he was in the box. This was a poor effort by the Terries combined by poor officiating(who refused to call embellishment while NU players flopped all over the ice). Hopefully next weekends crew will take a better control of the game and not let it get to the chippness level it did both nights. Garrett Noonan is facing a one game suspension for his third game misconduct this season that Parker said he will appeal with the league office this week. None of this surprises me when I know how much referee John Gravalese hates BU with a passion. Here is Parker's presser below:



BU had stayed in third in conference thanks to a PC victory over Merrihack. BC also finished their sweep of UNH to grab their first regular season title since 2005. The HE quarters look like the following:
8 UMASS@ 1 BC
7 UVM @ 2 UNH
6 NEU @ 3 BU
5 Maine @ 4 Merrihack

Stay tuned for previews and predictions for the playoff hockey that awaits