General thoughts: In general I liked Holy Cross tonight. They played hard, they played smart, they played thorough. They were really competitive. I thought the goalie played well in the end, too. We had a lot of shots but he made a couple big saves. He looked smooth for a freshman.
We had one line going tonight. Unfortunately it was one left wing, one center and one right wing and they didn’t play together. They were on three different lines. But I though that Nieto had a good night, I thought that Rodrigues played really well. I thought that was his best game. I thought Corey Trivino played well again tonight. Other than that we didn’t have a forward that played well or played hard enough or played smart enough. And we’d be hard pressed to find a defenseman that gave us what they were supposed to give us. I guess you could say that I thought that MacGregor that gave us a pretty good night.
I thought defensively we were pathetic in our own zone. I think what happened is they made it 1-0 and we were playing OK. And then they make it 1-0 and then we get two quick goals on two very pretty plays to make it 2-1 and if you watch the way my team played after that it was pathetic. It was, ‘Oh, we’re all set now, we’ll make some pretty plays, we’ll dance around. We got beat to every loose puck, we got out-muscled in front of our own net, we were pathetic killing penalties, and as bad as we were they were good at all that stuff. They did a great job killing penalties. They did a great job on their power plays. They did a nice job getting the puck out of the [defensive] zone.
When you’re not ready to play a few things always stand out. One, you take stupid penalties and we took a lot of stupid penalties tonight. It looks like we did OK on faceoffs but we didn’t win important faceoffs, and that’s a sure sign that you’re not ready to play. We made bad decisions at the blue lines. In the second period we got one grade-A shot the entire second period. And then one of our philosophies is don’t be yourself, and we beat ourselves tonight. We beat ourselves I turnover, we beat ourselves with being unaware and we beat ourselves with stupid penalties. Bad night for the Terriers, good night for the Crusaders.
On whether he was surprised by poor defensive play: Yeah the upper-class defensemen are trying to do too much or being something more than they are. They certainly aren’t thorough.
On what he can do better as a coach to prevent his team from not being ready to play: We thought we covered everything we needed to cover as far as the psychological aspect of the game for tonight’s game. I actually thought we were OK, I thought we came out ready to play, but then, when we got the two goals it was like everybody went selfish. And that was one word that I let them know at the end of the first period. There’s no question on my mind that everybody thought ‘Oh, this is going to be easy. I’m going to go take care of me now.’ And that continued throughout the game. We had guys that should have dumped pucks in on the turn and one of our forwards is trying to make a play. I thought that was I telltale sign of reverting back to problems we’ve had in past where guys thought it was about them instead of the team.
On the play of Kieran Millan: I think we left him out to dry. Four of their five goals were goal-mouth goals. Just bang it home and nobody covering anybody. He was really upset but the last one was the defenseman backed into him and threw it up his rear end and hit the guy’s back and went into the net. Kieran probably would have liked to have the fifth one back, but the game was already gone by then. If we had won that game, it would have been unfair because Holy Cross really outplayed us.
On captain Chris Connolly’s offensive struggles: Pucks not going in the net for him. He’s getting a few chances. His line had been playing well as far as points and getting some goals because Trivino was playing so well. Gill finally got a goal tonight and Gill has a few assists so I’m not too worried about I don’t think he played well. I don’t think Connolly played well tonight. As I mentioned, there are only three guys who played well tonight. Connolly’s got to get a goal and Charlie Coyle’s got to get a goal or two or three for us, but they’re not finishing off and they’re not generating enough offense with their linemates or with themselves. I don’t think it’s a lack of effort with either one of those guys, it’s just awareness.
On Megan’s hit: I didn’t see it. If he hit him, he injured him. That wasn’t a play where a guy just turned around and turned his back to him. He was going back to get the puck and Megan gave him a good bump, but I didn’t see it. I don’t know if he hit him directly on the numbers or not. Probably was going to be a five minute major whether it was a hitting from behind or not. I thought the game was really well refereed to tell you the truth.
On how his team compared to Holy Cross in pregame motivation: You hope your team will compete and recognize that Holy Cross probably had this game circled on their schedule for a while, and we certainly did not. You have to get yourself up to the level of competition that the other team is ready to play. We don’t have enough talent to win hockey games when the other team outworks us. And Holy Cross doesn’t have enough talent to win hockey games if we outwork them. No team in college hockey has enough talent to win on talent alone. And our guys thought that when it was 2-to-1 talent was going to win tonight because it looked so cool. A very, very disappointing effort and so many guys disappeared it was very frustrating. Real frustrating. Guys you’re depending on couldn’t give you an effort. Couldn’t get free. Couldn’t go forecheck. Couldn’t hang on to a puck. We’d go in and forecheck, get the puck and they’d take it right off our sticks again. We didn’t possess the puck at all.
On the play of Alex Chiasson: I thought Chiasson didn’t play well at all. He got two goals. It’s nice to get goals. I don’t think he played well. I told you who played well. Three forwards played well. Nobody else played well. So it wasn’t like he was the only one who didn’t play well. It was a whole bunch of people who didn’t play well. I didn’t like his game at all.
On what specifically he didn’t like about Chiasson’s game: He like everyone else, didn’t play hard enough, didn’t play smart enough, didn’t play defense first. Didn’t compete in our own end.
On what happened after the first two BU goals: We got two pretty goals and we’re oh, we’re going to be all set now. That’s when we stopped playing. That’s when we started getting real selfish. That’s what I meant about the first two goals. The entire night, we didn’t play well in front of Kieran. We didn’t play well in our own zone without the puck and we didn’t play well in our own zone with the puck.
I agree Coach. They didn’t look ready and sloppy in their own zone. Kieran needs to play/handle the puck better though. A lot of the dump-ins went right past him, whihc started a lot of the defensive zone chaos. Something Kieran can work on and you as a team, can practice by having the goalies “randomly” miss without telling the d-men. Seriously.
Is it just me or should Parker be taking at least some of the blame here? Every game its the same “well we clearly weren’t ready to play” or “the guys are being selfish” or “they’re not giving the effort I’m looking for”. If the coach can’t get his team to give effort or come prepared to play, maybe he should take even a shred of responsibility for it. How about “well whatever I’ve been doing for the past few years clearly isn’t working so I’m gonna try something else.” Also, if Rollheiser doesn’t play this weekend, I have no faith that Parker even knows how to run a hockey team anymore.
I’d put money down on Rollie getting the Saturday start at home and what he is saying to the press probably isn’t what he is saying to the team so I wouldn’t assume since he doesn’t call himself out to the press means he doesn’t put more pressure on himself or blame himself for the loss.
I saw game Saturday. For 46 years I have followed BU hockey and the D last week was the worst I have ever seen. Recruiting, recruiting, recruiting. New player selection has been very bad for many years. Parker needs better Asst. coaches that get out and evaluate talent better. Bavis and Powers, great players, can not coach at this level. They should go to prep school and coach.