By Kevin Dillon/DFP Sports
When Boston College forward Johnny Gaudreau carried the puck through the slot and around the left side of the net, all of the eyes in the rink shifted to the right side where the diminutive forward was expected to emerge. Gaudreau, who only stands at 5-foot-8, disappeared behind the net for a second, and in the blink of an eye the red goal light flashed with Eagles forward Bill Arnold raising his hands in the air.
Gaudreau had done the unexpected — something he is remarkably good at doing — and curled a pass to the side of the net he was coming from. With every player on the ice looking for him to attempt a wraparound, he flipped the puck onto Arnold’s tape, where he had all the time in the world to snap the puck into a gaping net.
“I think he is the only player I’ve ever played with that would know to not shoot that kind of on a mini breakaway there and take it behind the net, curl and throw it back out and it was a wide open net,” Arnold said. “It is the easiest goal you are ever going to score. It was just a tremendous play by him.”
The assist was just one of three points that Gaudreau had in No. 8 BC’s 5-1 beatdown of the No. 17 Boston University men’s hockey team at Agganis Arena Friday night, and it was the type of play that only an elite player makes.
NHL fans know players like Pavel Datsyuk of the Detroit Red Wings and Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins can weave through defenses and pull off dekes that leave defenders cross-eyed. Gaudreau, who was a Hobey Baker finalist last season, is that type of elite playmaker at this level.
“He’s just a great college player,” said BU coach David Quinn. “He’s very, very dangerous every time he has the puck. And if you don’t get to him quickly, and if you don’t play through him, you’re going to suffer. We certainly suffered tonight because of that.”
With the goal and two assists he notched Friday night, the Carneys Point, N.J., native jumped ahead of Providence College’s Ross Mauermann and Northeastern University’s Kevin Roy and Mike Szmatula (13 points apiece) with 14 points on the season. He is also tied for the Hockey East lead in goals with seven on the season.
For BU though, watching Gaudreau dance around the offensive zone was something it has not seen much of this season. The Terriers have struggled to put pucks in opposing nets this season, in part due to the fact that they do not appear to have that type of impact forward on their roster at the moment.
BU’s offense this season has come from its defensemen, as sophomore Ahti Oksanen (nine points) and senior Garrett Noonan (eight points) lead the team in scoring. Junior center Cason Hohmann and freshman winger Robbie Baillargeon are tied for the team lead in scoring among forwards with seven points apiece. If one were to combine their point totals, they would be tied for as many points as Gaudreau has scored through the first eight games of the season, and they would have three fewer goals.
There are just not that many scoring threats at the forward position for the Terriers. The team is eighth in Hockey East with 2.44 goals per game, which is in part due to their lack of scoring depth. The Terriers have only gotten three even strength goals from players who were playing on the bottom two lines all season. Without the offensive depth, the burden falls upon the top six forwards to score goals. However, even that is not happening with regularity, as sophomores Danny O’Regan and Matt Lane lead the team with only three goals on the year.
BU has looked like it is missing a player like Gaudreau or Roy who can take over a game offensively and spark what has proven to be a rather limited offense. The Terriers have scored one goal in four of their last five games. Not including their 7-3 blowout over the University of Wisconsin, BU is averaging less than two goals per game.
“If you’re going to create offense, you’ve got to move the puck quickly, you’ve got to be ready when the puck comes to you,” Quinn said. “You can’t let it surprise you. You’ve got to be ready to shoot it, and we’re not there yet.”
So what this article says is that just one BC player is better than our two best players combined.
The lackluster recruiting and constant early departures of recent seasons have taken a toll. If the new coaching staff can recruit well and develop some continuity by keeping the players here, then we’ll be just fine. But it is going to take some time.
Parker and Bavis really missed the boat the last five or so years. If I remember Gaudreau was a Norhteastern player who BC grabbed after a coaching change. ( How many coaches has Northeastern had over the years?). It may have been Parker’ health that was in the way of being aware that a Gaudreau was available. Players like Hohman with little skill and very small seem to be the favorite of Mr Bavis.
WOW – an Obama-like response: blame the person before you to hide your own incompetence.
There u are again lololol….sick uh ning! Ugh
hey, obama comparer….here’s some facts for you about the talent level on this team….and why Quinn “uses the excuse” of teams being bigger, faster, stronger, older…(which are ALL undisputed facts, not excuses)
Just comparing BU and BC NHL draft picks…it goes like this:
Draft picks 1-25: BC 2 BU 0
Draft picks 26-50: BC 2 BU 0
Draft picks 51-100: BC 2 BU 2
Draft picks 101-125: BC3 BU 3
Draft picks 126-150 BC 1 BU 2
Draft picks 151-200 BC 0 BU 1
Do the math to see the levels of talent on each team, wait I’ll do it for you…BC has 8 players of the TOP 110 NHL draft picks….BU? Oh, they have exactly 2!! (watch those stats change when Quinn gets his own recruits here)
And NONE of BU players were taken in the 2013 draft whereas 3 of BC’s were. So…PLEASE save all your negative comments, which are ONLY directed at Quinn, and NO ONE else (hmm). This is a BU FAN page.
.
Coach Parker coached this team to the Hockey East championship game last year. All DQ can do with the same level of talent is to get the team to an under .500 record on the heels of letting BC beat us into submission on our own ice.
BC is younger than us. Their starting goalie is the youngest player in college hockey. Stop making excuses for DQ’s incompetence.
Ugh…you sound like a broken record. You do realize they are what, 10 or 11 games into a very long season?? You sound like a complete moron calling DQ incompetent because that in turn insinuates the hiring committee and many hockey writers are incompetent ad well since they agreed with the decision to hire him. SO GO AWAY you negative DQ hater. You seriously must have no life since all you do is come on here and bash.ok ttfn.
A quarter of the season is done and DQ still stinks. Why not just forfeit the remainder of the season, refund the season ticket holders, and let DQ recruit without the mental stress of having to actually teach and coach the players. From his BU days, we all know that DQ has a hard time doing more than one thing at once such as speaking and walking at the same time.
Now you’re getting really scary…your anger is beyond the normalcy of someone who is unhappy with the choice of a new coach of his alma mater or a season ticket holder or whatever you are to this team…maybe your hateful rants should be reported?? Lord knows what is really going through your mind or what your agenda really is here…
One more fact….who recruited the last NCAA championship team at BU??? Ummmm-QUINN!!! What have they won since he left-NOTHING…..
Weren’t DQ’s recruits the most suspended, arrested, and expelled group of players we’ve ever had? Way to ruin our reputation DQ!
Yes reporting this person sounds like a good idea. He is obviously obsessed with coach quinn to the point where he sounds dangerous….