By Arielle Aronson/DFP Staff
Early in the first period of Friday night’s game against the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, freshman forward Matt Nieto skated along the boards in the offensive zone and toyed with the puck for a moment before a teammate came rushing into the zone. Nieto fed none other than freshman defenseman Adam Clendening a centering pass, which Clendening took through the slot before firing it on UML goaltender Marc Boulanger.
The slot is not a typical hangout place for a BU defenseman – aside from perhaps junior assistant captain David Warsofsky – but Clendening was just one of multiple BU defenders to jump up on the play for the Terriers Friday night.
Both sophomore defenseman Max Nicastro and freshman blue-liner Garrett Noonan scored goals by leaving their typical posts and joining the rush. Their aggressive playing style was the difference as the Terriers won, 3-1.
“Coach Bavis always emphasizes on getting a fourth player on the rush,” Nicastro said. “Tonight we just tried doing that as much as possible. They weren’t back-checking as hard as we thought so we were open most of the time.”
Noonan was certainly wide open on his goal, which came on a power play at 14:59 in the second period. With Clendening manning the blue line, Noonan moved up toward the net. Junior forward Corey Trivino threaded a pass through traffic to Noonan, who was camped out by the left post and simply had to tuck the puck past Boulanger.
Nicastro’s goal came off a tic-tac-toe play that started because of a nice Nicastro pass from the defensive zone up to senior captain Joe Pereira, who skated in and dropped a puck for junior captain Chris Connolly. Nicastro had plenty of open ice in front of him, so he charged into the slot, caught the pass from Connolly, and buried the puck top shelf for the score.
“Nicastro got the nice goal because he jumped in the play on the offensive end and he also jumped in the play on the defensive end,” BU coach Jack Parker said. “It was real nice passing from his own end. He almost could have gotten an assist on his own goal because he made such a great play coming out of the zone.”
It is not just the solid defensive play from the defensemen themselves that has allowed the blue-liners to increase their activity in the offensive zone. Junior goaltender Kieran Millan has been playing so well recently that his play has relaxed his defensemen and allowed them to be more creative on the ice.
Millan gave up a goal on Maine’s first shot of the game last weekend and then proceeded to oversee a 123-minute shutout streak. The run came to an end on Friday only when UML was able to get a 6-on-3 in the waning minutes of the game.
“When your goaltender is playing the way Kieran’s playing, [the team thinks] ‘eh, he’ll get it,’” Parker said. “Everyone thinks we can take a little extra chance or if it doesn’t go well, ‘eh, that’s Kieran, he’ll take care of it and then we’ll get ourselves going.’ And that’s what happened tonight for sure.”
Love how offense is so easy when the team you play against (like Lowell) has a crap offense and the defensemen can ignore all defensive responsibility.
The Islanders need to hire Jack Parker so he can get rid of useless and overpaid Rick DiPietro on some made up transgression like he did with Glass.
At least Glass made it onto the ice. DiPietro gets dropped with just one punch in a fight then is out 6 to 8 weeks!
DiPietro was one of the most hated players ever at BU. I wasn’t surprised at all when he couldn’t leave BU fast enough. He was a definitely loner on the team and the team loved the backup goalie.
BU surrendered that late goal against Lowell because they were so worried about Andrew Glass and his lawsuit.
Did you hear that Glass hired Johnny Cochrane to represent him?
What, Cochrane is dead?
So is any lawsuit from Glass. He kept his scholarship, he has no case.
Glass was a nonfactor on the ice and a nonentity off the ice with his teammates.
As for Ricky DiPietro, we loved him at BU!
Didn’t Johnny Cochrane only represent scumbags and the guilty?
That would make him a more appropriate lawyer for Jack Parker.
BU loved DiPietro’s backup? Jason Tapp? He might’ve been the most hated BU player in the past 15 years.
I love current students who make posts here but really have no clue on anything BU hockey related before their time as a BU student.
Any chance of the post-gaame interview videos being posted for Friday night’s game?
Mark- We didn’t have the flip cam with us Friday night. Sorry about that. We’ll definitely have postgame video for the Beanpot.