Terriers to face test from Hockey East’s best

By Arielle Aronson/DFP Staff

Sometimes, when a team loses an ugly game because of a poor effort the way the No. 16 Boston University men’s hockey team did last weekend against the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, the best thing to do is look forward.

That is mostly what the Terriers did in the week following their most embarrassing loss to date this season. The only exception came Sunday, when the team gathered to watch film from the previous night’s game in order to see just how much UMass-Lowell out-worked them.

“It’s hard to know what you want to change until you take an inventory and see where you’re at,” said coach Jack Parker. “They had to take a little inventory Sunday morning and saw where they were at.

“We didn’t get back on the ice until Tuesday. But since they’ve been back, they haven’t been moping around. They’ve been practicing harder and doing the things we’re asking them to do better.”

After that, the team looked at its season-long weaknesses and attempted to determine how to improve. One of the areas in which the team has struggled is in spending too much time in the penalty box.

Parker previously said he would address dumb penalties by benching the guilty party, but too many of his players took bad penalties last Saturday to bench all of them. So on Thursday, Parker issued a new warning, especially toward sophomore defensemen Adam Clendening and Garrett Noonan, who each took 10-minute misconducts partly because of disrespectful word choices when addressing referees.

“In my mind, anytime you get a 10-minute misconduct, it’s a real dumb penalty, and we had our two best defensemen both take 10-minute misconducts,” Parker said. “They’ve been, and the rest of the team as well, but those two guys especially, have been told, ‘Cross that line again [and] you’ll die.”

Giving an opposing team a man-advantage could be especially deadly for the Terriers this coming weekend, as BU faces the top two teams in Hockey East with No. 6 Merrimack College traveling to Agganis Arena on Friday night and an away game No. 2 Boston College on deck for Sunday afternoon.

Both BC and Merrimack have strong power plays, operating at 27.3 percent and 23.9 percent clips respectively. BC and Merrimack also have the best defenses in Hockey East, as Merrimack leads the league by allowing just 10 goals in eight games while BC ranks second with 24 goals allowed in 10 games.

The BU defense is slightly farther down the list in Hockey East, ranking eighth out of ten teams by allowing 26 goals in seven games. The biggest surprise on defense through the early part of the season has been senior goaltender Kieran Millan’s poor play.

The Edmonton native was yanked from last Saturday’s game after giving up six goals through two periods and ranks third-to-last in Hockey East in goals against average (3.67). Parker said Millan will start in net for Friday night’s game against Merrimack, but refused to name a starter for Sunday’s matinee until he sees how Millan plays Friday.

“I’m disappointed in Kieran’s overall output,” Parker said. “I don’t think he’s been as sharp as he should be. He’s been left out to dry a lot and that’s frustrated him and his frustration has shown at times. But in general, he’s got to get back to being Kieran Millan, and we’ve seen him in glimpses.”

Millan agreed that his play this season has been “up and down”, but said he was still confident he could pull out of whatever early season funk he is currently mired in. When asked what he expected to happen on Sunday, he issued a bold statement.

“I expect the same thing [to start],” Millan said. “It’s been a solid three years here already for me, but if it goes a different direction and Grant [Rollheiser] plays, it’s great for him. He’s a great goalie. Obviously I’d like to be in net, but in the end, it’s not my decision. It’s Coach’s.”

Regardless of who is in net, BU will have to put together a better offensive attack this weekend than it did last weekend, when the Terriers mustered just 19 shots on net and settled for three shots in the first period. The lines will look a bit different, as senior forward Corey Trivino will be absent from his top-line center duties due to an ankle injury that will keep him off the ice this weekend.

Prior to last Saturday’s setback, BU had seen younger players lead on offense, as sophomore forwards Sahir Gill, Charlie Coyle and Matt Nieto have combined for 43 percent of the team’s total points this season and are three of the league’s top 20 scorers despite having played in the least amount of games.

The Terriers continue to look for bigger contributions from older players, such as junior assistant captain Alex Chiasson (4 goals, 3 assists) and senior captain Chris Connolly (0 goals, 4 assists).

Chiasson in particular is expected to develop into a stronger presence on the ice, especially after being benched two games ago following his poor play in an away game at the University of Massachusetts.

“I’m a power forward guy and I have to be physical,” Chiasson said. “That’s the thing that Coach was talking to me about. I have to finish my checks, be hard to play against, and go to the net and shoot the puck.”

And while Chiasson is aware of his own personal areas to improve, the team as a whole has yet to prove to its coaches and followers that it can show up ready to play in both games this weekend.

But as Parker said, when Merrimack and BC are on the schedule, it would be quite a statement for a team to not show up effort-wise for the game.

“We better be ready for two of the top teams in the nation and the No. 1 and 2 teams in our league,” Parker said. “It’s a matter of, ‘If you don’t see that this [weekend] is quite a challenge, then go play volleyball.’”