By Sam Dykstra/DFP Staff
AMHERST – Even before the puck dropped on Friday night’s Hockey East matchup between No. 14 Boston University and University of Massachusetts at the Mullins Center, it was obvious that special teams would play a crucial role in the outcome. That’s the case for most games involving ice, a puck, a couple of sticks and two nets, but Friday night seemed like it should have been different.
The game was set to include the 51st (UMass, 12.7 percent success rate) and 52nd (BU, 12.1 percent) best power-play units in the country out of the 58 NCAA Division-I men’s hockey teams. Something didn’t necessarily have to give, but it certainly felt like it. One of the teams would have to take advantage of the other’s inefficiency on special teams and produce with the man advantage.
The only problem was neither did precisely that. The two teams combined to go 0-for-12 before the Terriers scored the game-winner in overtime to capture a frustrating game for both sides by a 4-3 margin. That horrid performance dropped the teams 53rd and 54th in the country respectively, leaving only four worse D-I men’s teams on the power play than those two.
The ineptitude of the power play became especially troubling for BU late in the third period and spilling into the extra frame. The Terriers were coming off a 3-2 overtime loss of their own to No. 1 Boston College Monday in which they had two separate man advantages with five minutes to go in overtime but never broke through.
On Friday, BU found itself in a similar situation when the Minutemen were penalized for having too many men on the ice with only 1:48 left in regulation and the score notched at 3-3. In the game’s most crucial moments, the Terriers were set to have one more man than their opponents. But they could never muster much more than a one-timer by sophomore defenseman Ryan Ruikka that was kicked away by UMass netminder Paul Dainton, and the late-game advantage went by the wayside late for the second game in a row.
“Our power play isn’t effective,” said BU coach Jack Parker. “There’s no comment to make other than that. We haven’t been effective all year on the power play. We appear at times to be getting better at it and then we take a step backwards.
“I thought we had some real good chances in the third period against BC and didn’t put it home. I thought we had a few chances tonight but nowhere near the puck possession or pressure that we have to have on the power play.”
UMass coach Don “Toot” Cahoon had his own theory about the failures for his squad’s power-play unit, and that theory all comes down to youth and inexperience.
“There’s about seven freshmen on the power play [for UMass],” Cahoon said. “People don’t want to hear that. I don’t care they don’t want to hear that. But it takes time for guys to have consistent poise in power-play situations before you go out and run a power play at 25 percent.
“You show me a freshman group of power play people that run at 25 percent and you’ll have bring me back to ’91 when [University of Maine great Paul] Kariya was playing. That’s the truth of it.”
Although Cahoon, a former BU player and assistant coach, never extended his theory to his former squad, the Terriers’ own youth could form an explanation for their failures with the extra man.
In 2009-10, BU had a power-play success rate that was more than seven points better (19.1 percent) than it does following Saturday’s loss. On that squad, only three of the 15 Terriers to register a power-play point (Wade Megan, Max Nicastro and Alex Chiasson) were freshmen. This year’s squad has had to rely on five rookies to score a point, and only to drive home the point more, the top two BU scorers on the power play are in fact freshmen (Charlie Coyle and Adam Clendening are tied for the lead with nine points apiece). A season ago, Nicastro led all freshmen in power-play points with seven but was tied for eight on the squad in that category.
That dependence on first-year players who have had less than a season to grow into the NCAA level of play could be BU’s biggest hindrance to a successful special teams unit.
For now though, Parker won’t offer up any excuses except for the same old line.
“Our power play is frustrating,” Parker said. “We can almost get it there, but we don’t quite get it.”
So what’s the Warso? Why did he get benched?
At what point does Parker realize that the PP is NOT working at all? He changed up the lines to get more spark, why won’t he do that with the terrible power play? Same old same old. Try some new things. The blue liners don’t seem aggressive enough, not willing to shoot and looking for cute passes. I have heard several suggestions and the best option from those is to put Rosen back on the point on the PP. He has a fast heavy shot and is not afraid to use it plus great passing and ice vision. Being a career d man who apparently put up a lot of PP points in juniors, he is being under utilized. Gotta do something, and the team ain’t going far in the playoffs or, if lucky enough, the NCAA’s, without a decent PP.
Parker’s explanation for benching Warsofsky: “We wanted him to play a little bit harder. We talked to him about it. He’ll be back in the lineup Monday and I’m sure he’ll play the way we want him to play. When he’s playing up to his capability, he’s the best defenseman in this league, and we need him to be the best defenseman in this league.”
THis terrible UMASS team can “play with BU” since they took us into OT.
UMASS is going to be awesome next year because they lost to us in OT instead of getting blown out in regulation.
At some point, the dismissals and benchings stop working when you do it so often (see Parcells, Bill). Parker is not far from this point if he hasn’t gotten there already. At any point, a kid could get kicked off the team or benched for any little reason because Parker has totally lost his marbles. The fact that it happened to one of the most notable Parker buttkissers (warso) is alarming and has to have everyone on edge on this team except maybe Chiasson, who is having a solid season. This affects the mindset of guys when the season is over. Do I come back to play for crazy Parker and deal with this garbage or go pro?
Who is next and will they be kicked off the team outright like Andy Glass or will it just be one healthy scratch?
My concern is that they manage to get into the NCAAs but get absolutely blown up because they are just happy to get there and don’t have their heads in it. Let’s be honest, while some yahoos would love to give the old “anything can happen once you get into the tournament” mantra, this team has as much a shot at winning a national title as AIC. The goal is to just make the NCAAs. A first round whipping would also make for an interesting offseason.
Nice quote from Parker, BTW, Scott. You do a great job.