It took until halfway through the game for a team to take a penalty Monday afternoon at Agganis Arena. With the Boston University men’s hockey team holding the man advantage, it appeared as though the Terriers had a chance to break their 1-1 stalemate with the University of New Hampshire.
The power play, however, fell flat with plenty of puck movement, but hardly any shots, and in the final four seconds of the advantage, sophomore wing Matt Lane sent a pass that would not make it to another Terrier.
Instead, Wildcats wing Matt Willows picked up the puck and outskated the rest of the Terriers before notching his second goal of the game and registering the 10th shorthanded goal against BU this season.
Willows breakaway became the difference in the second half of BU’s home-and-home tilt as the Wildcats defeated BU 3-1 completing the series sweep.
The loss was BU’s 12th in its past 14 games.
Monday’s game started out well enough for the Terriers as freshman wing Brendan Collier registered the first goal of his collegiate career to give BU the initial lead.
Collier, who had three assists coming into the game, picked up the puck in the right corner of BU’s offensive zone with just over 12 minutes remaining in the first. From there, Collier made a quick release from the right circle that skirted by UNH netminder Casey DeSmith.
With UNH holding possession in BU’s defensive zone, the puck bounced off of sophomore defenseman Ahti Oksanen’s skate. UNH center Kevin Goumas found it and sent it over to Willows who deked around sophomore goaltender Sean Maguire and shot into an open net.
Minutes later, Maguire stopped the Wildcats from taking the lead when he snagged a shot from UNH left wing Jeff Silengo from in close. Maguire, who made his first start since he gave up four goals during the Terriers Beanpot consolation loss to Harvard University last Monday, stopped a total of 35 shots, he could not stop Willows second goal of the game during the waning seconds of the Terriers power play.
That did not matter in the end, though, as Willow scored his third goal on an empty-net chance with 1:17 left in the contest.
BU couldn’t get the puck out of their own end, couldn’t stay on side, couldn’t get any shots, their Dmen looked slow and could only circle back and give away the puck in their own end, if not for that GK the score would have been a lot worse. Have you ever seen slower Dmen chasing down that NH shotthanded scorer?
this program is in shambles right now. parker and bavis’s legacy. they should hang parker up mext friday rather than his number. i am disgusted. and i am not the bc troll
Interesting how Parker can take these players to the HE championship game yet DQ can’t get them out of the HE basement. Way to go DQ!
You must like sounding like a complete ignoramus! You have yet to name the players from last year that make this the. “same team”….why?
Anonymous at 8:46 is so right about the D men. Did Bavis and Parker bother to work these past two/three years? This so hurts the legacy of BU. As a fan who goes way back I am po’d to the extreme..
It’s going to get better….slowly but surely! 🙂
I completely agree. This season is the result of poor recruiting and retention of players ever since the 09 championship. For those ready to hang this on Quinn, give him some time. I suspect after a few years of recruiting, we’ll see a very different team.
The only people responsible for this debacle are parker and bavis. Period! Thank God BU hired Quinn, a proven recruiter and highly skilled in bringing raw talent within his recruits to its full potential. And thankfully Quinn turned astound and hired Steve Greeley, another potent recruiter!
Things are going to be looking up very soon. Let’s just get this season over with so the new era can begin!