By Arielle Aronson/DFP Staff
After a “bizarre” tie against the University of Massachusetts last Saturday, the No. 8 Boston University men’s ice hockey team rebounded on the road Friday night and beat the Minutemen 4-3. The Terriers (3-0-1) are off to their best start to a season since 2001-02.
Freshman forward Charlie Coyle, junior forward Andrew Glass, senior captain Joe Pereira and freshman forward Sahir Gill scored for the Terriers. Junior goaltender Kieran Millan stopped 23 of 26 shots.
The win was a come-from-behind effort from BU. The Minutemen jumped ahead in the first period when Pereira took a roughing penalty to put UMass on the power play. The Minutemen converted only 32 seconds later. UMass forward Darren Rowe caught a pass in the lower right faceoff circle and roofed a wrist shot past Millan for the score.
While the Terriers went into the locker room down 1-0, BU coach Jack Parker still said he felt they played a strong period.
“I went into the dressing room and said, ‘Guys, that was a better period than you played all last weekend against them,’” Parker said. “We were down 1-0, we were up 2-0 against them in the first period [last weekend]. That was a very, very solid period.”
BU distanced itself from the Minutemen in the second period. Coyle tied the game on a power play a little more than four minutes into the frame. Coyle tipped a pass from junior captain Chris Connolly past UMass freshman goaltender Jeff Teglia.
Glass chipped in with the go-ahead goal a little past the halfway mark of the period. Redshirt sophomore forward Ross Gaudet got the puck to Glass on a give-and-go, and Glass buried it top-shelf before flying through the air Bobby Orr-style to give the Terriers the lead.
Pereira put the exclamation mark on the period. After serving his second penalty of the night, Pereira snuck onto the ice without getting noticed by a Minuteman. Connolly passed to Pereira, who broke into the zone on his own and shoved one through Teglia’s five-hole to put the Terriers up 3-1.
“Pereira put a pretty strong move on Teglia,” UMass head coach Toot Cahoon said. “He went backhand back to his forehand, but went very aggressive and just jammed it home five-hole. It was a good goal.”
The goal was a redemption shot for Pereira, who had cost the team a goal in the first on a penalty and was serving the penalty immediately prior to his goal for charging the goaltender.
“It was a tough call, but it actually worked out,” Pereira said. “I told the referee he did a good job for me. Connolly made a nice block and happened to spring me.”
But while BU controlled the second period, UMass made a game out of it in the third. The Minutemen came back from a 2-0 deficit the week before to force a tie game, and down by two goals entering the third this weekend, the Minutemen came out firing.
They scored 1:48 into the period when Darren Rowe gathered a puck at the blue line and fired it on net looking for a tip or a rebound. The puck, however, blistered its way through traffic and found the back of the net all on its own, tightening the game to a 3-2 BU lead.
The Minutemen appeared to tie the game with 13:26 to go when Michael Pereira snapped a shot past Millan, but a late whistle for offsides on UMass negated the tally.
“I was crossing my fingers,” Joe Pereira said of his younger brother’s no-goal. “I didn’t want it to [be a goal]. That’s all I would have heard the whole time, that he tied the game up.”
BU netted an insurance goal at 18:23 of the third when Gill stole a puck, entered the zone and toyed forehand-to-backhand to draw Teglia to the left side of the goal, then flipped it into the empty right side, putting the Terriers up 4-2.
They needed that insurance. With only 19 seconds left in the game, UMass’ Michael Marcou beat Millan with a slapper from high in the slot, tightening the score to 4-3.
But it was too little, too late. The Terriers drained the clock to come away from the Mullins Center with their third win of the season. After what Parker called an “unthorough” game against the Minutemen last week, this win was especially pleasing for him.
“You give us that effort and that brains for the rest of the season, we’re going to win a lot of hockey games,” Parker said.
From my seat, it was pretty clear the offside call on UMass’ 3rd no goal came way before the shot was fired and Millan didn’t really react. In fact, we were laughing at the UMass fans for all thinking it was a goal when it was an obvious offside and very audible whistle in the last year.
Also, in reference to the comments on the blog about the UMass too many men call in the third, it was another obvious call, there was a rush into the UMass zone, then all of a sudden a guy trailing the play at center ice turned and made a B-line for the bench because he saw that he was player #6. While he wasn’t in the play, he was nowhere near the bench and wasn’t coming off for a change, and the trailing official immediately saw it and rightfully called it.