By Annie Maroon/DFP Staff
GRAND FORKS, N.D. —
Three up
Maguire’s return
Freshman goalie Sean Maguire couldn’t pick up his first collegiate win on Friday night, but his play certainly wasn’t the reason for the Terriers’ loss. He made a respectable 31 saves on 34 shots, and it’s hard to blame him too much for the first goal, in which a UND centering pass took a sudden deflection off Connor Gaarder’s body and into the net.
Likewise, on the third goal, Gaarder was left standing unguarded at the edge of the crease on a North Dakota power play, and the fault lay more with the defensemen who left him wide open than with the goalie.
Maguire wasn’t perfect – Gaarder’s second goal looked like it could have been a routine save, and some of the rebounds he bobbled created dangerous chances. Overall, though, this was a huge improvement from his last start against the University of New Hampshire, when he was pulled in the second period after giving up four relatively weak goals.
“The brightest spot for me was that our freshman goalie played very well,” BU coach Jack Parker said. “He probably would like to have the long shot off the right wing [back]. But other than that, he played great.”
Alexx Privitera
Parker also went out of his way to praise sophomore defenseman Alexx Privitera, who blocked four shots and spent a considerable portion of the night diving in front of pucks.
“I’ll tell you a guy who I thought played great tonight – Alexx Privitera,” Parker said. “I thought he gave us a heck of a night. Both offensively and defensively, he moved the puck. He got the puck out of our zone. He blocked shots.”
After taking a puck to the ankle during a particularly dramatic block in the third, Privitera took a minute during a time-out to skate around, testing out the ankle. But he stayed in the game and came out with an even plus-minus rating in the loss.
Danny O’Regan
O’Regan continued to shine as the Terriers’ second-line center. He scored the game’s first goal late in the first period when he picked up a rebound and flipped it into an empty net. He also had three shots, more than any BU player except his left wing, Matt Nieto, who was the recipient of many of O’Regan’s passes.
Three down:
Penalty trouble
Penalties were a significant reason the game got away from the Terriers late in the second and into the third period. They began the third period down a man because of an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to Privitera, and shortly after they killed that one off, freshman forward Matt Lane went to the box for tripping. Before Lane was done serving his time, Escobedo joined him in the box, also for a trip, and UND scored the game-winning goal while Escobedo was still in the box.
Parker said that after UND was called for a five-minute major and game misconduct in the second, he expected the refs to be tougher on BU for the rest of the game, which seemed to be the case.
“We got the five-minute major on the power play, and I got the feeling that some of the calls might go the other way for them once they gave us a five-minute major,” Parker said. “I thought that we just had to kill too many penalties.”
Faceoff woes
The Terriers struggled once again in the faceoff circle, winning 26 draws and losing 45. All four of their centers lost more faceoffs than they won: Cason Hohmann went 7-12, O’Regan went 5-13, Wesley Myron 5-7 and Ryan Santana 3-5.
This has been a recurring theme for the last few games: BU lost 42 of the 66 faceoffs it took at the University of Massachusetts last Saturday, and also struggled against UMass the night before. Tonight, failing to control the puck off the draw made the Terriers’ puck possession problems worse in the third period.
Oksanen’s ups and downs
It was a night of extremes for freshman defenseman Ahti Oksanen, who looked nervous and made several errant passes early in the game before taking an elbow to the head in the second period.
He was slow to get up after the play, for which UND defenseman Andrew MacWilliam received a five-minute major and a game misconduct. Then, on the ensuing power play, he scored to tie the game and remained in the lineup for the rest of the night. The goal didn’t quite silence concerns about a possible injury from the hit, but it did briefly quiet down the raucous North Dakota crowd.
“They checked him out there, obviously, and he said he was fine,” Parker said. “We will find out more if he gets a headache or what have you. But he got hit pretty good.”
Another Up: BU’s 1st period were buzzing, had great puck movement, good scoring chances.
UND has been the most dominant team in the faceoff circle all season. Corban Knight usually goes over 80% most nights, and it trickles down through the other 3 lines.. I don’t forsee UND ever going negative on the dot.
Oksanen drops his head to duck while crossing the blue line, which may be ok in the Euro league, but not ok in the WCHA. MacWilliam’s tall and tried to bring his shoulder lower, as video replay shows. Wasn’t as bad of a hit, especially when Ahti comes back out and scored on the PP he drew.. Only contact to the head was Oksanen’s shoulder & arm getting checked into his head. (his gestures after sold the refs, but was kind of embarrasing in front of 12k people in the Ralph)