By Tim Healey/DFP Staff
NORTH ANDOVER — As Boston University students ready themselves to return to campus this weekend for second semester, it seems too that the No. 8 BU men’s hockey team decided to end its month-long break after three poor performances.
The Terriers (12-7, 9-4 Hockey East) returned to their first-semester form Friday night when they visited Merrimack College, beating the Warriors (7-9-4, 5-5-1 Hockey East) with a strong defensive effort, the complete opposite of what the team turned in Wednesday when it blew a three-goal, third-period lead against Harvard University.
“We gave ourselves a much better chance to win because of the attitude we had about defense-first,” said BU coach Jack Parker. “Nobody had a hangover from what we did to ourselves against Harvard. They wanted to come back and couldn’t wait to get back and try to redeem themselves. And they did more than that tonight. It was a huge win for us.”
BU did all of the things it needed to do but could not find the motivation for against Harvard. The penalty kill was perfect, killing off all three Warrior man-advantages, the forwards backchecked when they needed to and defensemen cleared rebounds in front of their own net.
The Terriers did surrender 38 shots, but many of those were from outside high-percentage scoring areas.
No matter where the shots were from, Sean Maguire stopped all but one. The freshman goaltender made 37 saves, allowing just a Kyle Bigos goal late in the third, for his fifth straight win.
The rookie has given up just three goals in his last four games.
“Another huge game for Mags,” said sophomore defenseman Alexx Privitera. “He is standing on his head lately. Both guys [Maguire and freshman Matt O’Connor] are playing well, but Mags especially has taken a big step forward here. We trust playing — we trust both of them — but he has been huge for us lately. He has been kicking it really well.”
Maguire got help from the skaters in front of him who blocked 25 shots in total — one more than the Terriers took on the night.
Privitera, who is returning from his two-game suspension, led the way with nine and now has a team-high 52 on the season. No other Terrier had more than two against the Warriors
Parker, who made Privitera sit out a second game after the blueliner got an automatic one-game suspension for a game-disqualification penalty, was more than pleased.
“I couldn’t be more happy [Privitera] is back in the lineup. I hope he stays there,” Parker said. “If he doesn’t lead the league [in blocked shots], his partner [senior defenseman Sean Escobedo] does. It’s a tough duo to get a puck to the net on. I thought he played great tonight. It was great having him back.”
Parker was complimentary of all six of his defensemen — Privitera and Escobedo, juniors Garrett Noonan and Patrick MacGregor, and freshmen Matt Grzelcyk and Ahti Oksanen — after what he called “a complete turnaround” from Wednesday’s game.
“As bad as our core of defensemen were the other night, it was just the opposite tonight,” Parker said. “They played real solid, play-the-right-way type of hockey.”
One of the pieces of the defensive core was MacGregor, who has had to battle all season to get in the lineup, often splitting time with senior assistant captain Ryan Ruikka.
Against Merrimack, though, MacGregor gave BU a physical presence in the defensive end. At 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds, easily BU’s largest defenseman, MacGregor being a physical presence is often the case.
“When Pat’s in the lineup he’s physical, and we like that about him and that’s one of the reasons why we wanted him out there,” Parker said.
Senior captain Wade Megan, who himself turned in a good effort on both sides of the puck while battling a sore shoulder, said this young BU team wants to avoid the mistakes it has made recently.
The team’s break, it seems, has ended.
“Credit our guys, they just played phenomenal defensively,” Megan said. “All of the little stuff that we were doing in the first half is coming back now. We need to do a lot more of the same.”
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