By Arielle Aronson/DFP Staff
General thoughts on the game
I thought we played really well in a whole bunch of areas. I was happy with the way we competed. It’s hard to play when you get jobbed like we did tonight, and we got jobbed tonight. But other than that, I like how hard we played. I liked how competitive we were in every phase of the game. But it was not an even match.
On whether pulling Rollheiser sparked the team
I think we did it for that reason. Rollie, they got a shorthanded goal and two power play goals on him. I don’t think he had any choice. They weren’t bad goals that he gave up. We had no choice and I thought we just wanted to change momentum by putting Kieran in, and that certainly did do that for us. He made a couple of big saves later on, but we started playing better when we played in front of him. Actually, I thought we were playing well the whole game.
On how Rosen’s line played
They played well. They played well last game too. I think Ben Rosen is really coming on. He got some good opportunities playing really smart, and his wings are working hard for him. It was a good effort in a lot of ways by those guys. I don’t think we had a guy even come close to not playing well tonight.
On how they played in the second period
I think we just got after them a little bit more, and I think we thought it was more urgent now. We had chances in the first period. Like I said, at no time did I think we had a hard time in the first then we came back and played well in the second . . . I thought we played well all three periods. We didn’t play well last game when we won, we played pretty well tonight and lost, so that happens sometimes.
On how RPI’s speed compares with BC
Not even close. Not even close.
On an 8-4-5 record going into break
I told the team, our objective tonight was to get the W and to finish off playing real well. We got half of that done. We really played well tonight. If you would have told me before the season started that this would be our record at the break, I’d be pretty happy with it, especially our record in the league.
On whether the ending leaves a bad taste in their mouths going into break
No. I was glad to see our guys stick up for everybody. They realized what was happening to them, and you couldn’t not get frustrated. I should not because I’m older than those guys, but it’s hard to not get frustrated when you’re getting a bad deal. We got a bad deal and they knew it.
On what the team, aside from the power play, needs to improve on
Power play. Power play, power play. Other than that, we got to get more offense out of this team. We’re not scoring a lot of goals. We got five the other game, but we didn’t make a lot of plays through center ice today because the way they played, so we had to dump it in a lot. We made some plays back from the point. They blocked a lot of shots though too. Give them credit. They played very, very hard. You can see why they’re undefeated at home.
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I would just like to personally thank the imbecile(s) who decided it would be funny to post disgusting Travis Roy remarks on every post and thus ruin commenting for everyone.
All comments will now be moderated, so if you’re in the 99% of our readership that has a maturity level higher than that of a 4-year-old and posts intelligently, I apologize. Your comments will not show up right away, and you have these morons to thank for it.
-Scott
What we saw @ the end of the RPI game was, IMO, the culmination of all the recent frustration the team has experienced. At a micro-level, the team definitely let the shoddy officiating in that game get to them and it boiled over after the non-call when Escobedo got hit from behind into the boards. At a macro-level, I think the team was overcome from the frustration from not executing well on special teams and the defensive zone breakdowns over the past 5-6 games.
I think this break will be good for the team and hopefully they can regroup w/ a strong effort and execution @ the Shillelagh, and build upon that.
I find it interesting that the coach blames the loss on how many penalties the refs assessed in this game…let’s recap shall we?
In the first period, RPI was assessed 4 penalties, BU 3. RPI had more penalties, yet they managed to score 2 goals, one of which was short handed. During the second period the refs evened it up handing out 1 penalty to RPI and 2 to BU. RPI scored 1 and BU scored 1. The first 15 minutes of the 3rd were fairly uninteresting, 2 calls on BU and 1 for RPI, all for tripping. It was then that the game started to get interesting. BU had been playing rough all night, but they got called for a blatant interference and suddenly the game turned to fisticuffs. BU got a penalty for mouthing off to the refs, and from then on it was like watching the chiefs game strategy. BU blatantly cross checked an RPI player leading to a fight and 2 10s for RPI and only 1 for BU but because BU was serving the interference and cross checking concurrently, RPI managed to get a 4th goal in (not as if that was a game changer). Then BU got a bunch of penalties for fighting after the goal, and the coach got one for having to be physically separated from Hicks. To summarize, the game was won in the first period when RPI had MORE penalties than BU. When BU had more penalties than RPI in the 2nd period was when they actually managed to score. Therefore the team with the most penalties seemed to score the most goals. Parker should have been BEGGING the refs to give BU more penalties. If the coach is really blaming the loss on the last 5 minutes of the game AT MOST (it was really only like the last 2-3 minutes) then I think he needs to rethink his strategy. The refs can perhaps be blamed for it being a 4-1 game instead of a 3-1 game, but as someone who was in attendance, the 2 calls were blatant.
I have read from numerous blogs that the officiating was iffy at best(including one by some RPI hockey followers). It isn’t why BU lost the game as our special teams were horrific. Parker never complains about the refs in his press conference which he did in this one so it is hard to believe the officiating at the end of the game was all that good. He was complaining about the lack of a call before that not those actual calls. You also forget to point out that Escobedo got hit from behind into the boards which is always called because of the potential serious injury resulting from it.