By Meredith Perri/DFP Staff
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — With 33 seconds left in the second frame, senior captain Garrett Noonan skated out onto the ice for his shift. What happened after he got out there, though, is something the Boston University men’s hockey team (8-20-4, 3-12-3 Hockey East) will need to check the tape to answer.
Regardless of what the video shows, though, Noonan wound up in the penalty box and the No. 15 University of Notre Dame capitalized en route to a 2-0 victory Saturday evening at the Compton Family Ice Arena.
Throughout the first two periods, the Fighting Irish consistently held onto possession, outshooting the Terriers 22-15, with only four of BU’s shots coming from within the perimeter.
For every shot that Summerhays blocked, sophomore netminder Sean Maguire responded, stymying Notre Dame throughout the first two-thirds of the game.
At end of the second, though, Noonan made his way across the ice toward two Notre Dame (19-12-2, 8-9-2 Hockey East) players and one of the referees. Seconds later, after Fighting Irish defenseman Stephen Johns had bumped into the Terrier captain, Noonan received a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.
According to BU coach David Quinn, the referee told him that Noonan received the penalty for making a remark to the referee, but Noonan claimed he did not say anything.
“I don’t know why I got a penalty to be honest with you, but he called it and that’s the way it works,” Noonan said.
With the Terriers on the penalty kill, Notre Dame left wing Bryan Rust sent the puck over to his linemate, Sam Herr. From there, Herr set up Fighting Irish captain Jeff Costello with a pass to the slot. Costello, who was honored along with 10 other Notre Dame seniors before the game, then sent the puck into the bottom corner of the net by Maguire.
The Terriers had an opportunity to get back into the game after Johns hit senior defenseman Matt Ronan from behind and was sent off the ice with a game misconduct. As they have done for the past month, though, the Terriers struggled to maintain possession with the man advantage and could not capitalize on the five-minute power play.
“Seven minutes of power of power plays and we do absolutely nothing with them and it’s just, it’s been the theme of the last three weeks other than the [University of New Hampshire] game where we got two power-play goals, 5-on-3 goals,” said Quinn. “Maybe tonight I was the sixth period of a long weekend. You get worn down a bit, but it’s just frustrating.”
Saturday’s contest marked the seventh time in eight games the Terriers failed to convert on the power play.
With 2:31 left in the game, Notre Dame found the back of the net to defeat the Terriers 2-0 in each contest of the two-game series. After a turnover behind BU’s net, Notre Dame wing Austin Wuthrich had a clear path to the goal, and his slap shot from the slot rang in off the crossbar for his sixth goal of the season.
Due to the Terriers’ inability to get by Summerhays, BU was shutout in back-to-back games for the first time in 72 years.
If BU takes at least one game against Northeastern University next weekend, the Terriers will likely return to Notre Dame for the first round of the Hockey East playoffs. Despite the negative outcome of the weekend and the challenges the team faced getting out to South Bend, Ind., the team looks forward to a potential rematch.
“Bring it on,” Noonan said. “We’re ready, so wherever we play in the playoffs we’ll be ready. We’re excited.
Very undisciplined play by a senior captain. Noonan needs to be benched for his selfish behavior that cost the team. Time for DQ to set the tone and show that he does not play favorites when it comes to disciplining out of control play that hurts the team.
DQ won’t treat his players the same way. What happened to sitting undisciplined players? That lasted until the losses started piling up.
and play who? the team manager?
I’ll bet the team manager plays better defense than Grixx or Ahti.
Lol I was just gonna say and suit up the water boy?? Lol
As I have been saying all along Parker and Bavis left an awful mess. There are just no natural scorers on this team and that is what hurts. We can only hope the new guys will be able to get it done.
Yet somehow Parker was able to take these “talentless” players to the HE championship game last year. Why have the top players from last year like our two all star goalies, top forwards, and defensemen all regressed? The only new factor is DQ in charge.
The water boy would be a better goalie than OC or Maguire.
Anon 7:50 AM – You are correct. We do have a few forwards e.g. O’Regan, Hohman, Roberto, Baillargeon, Rodrigues, that will complement some top notch players assuming they come next year, But, somewhere over the last 3 years someone got lazy and the recruiting failed. We are playing a HE schedule with a lot of forwards that are D 3 players who should be playing for schools like Trinity, Colby and Bowdoin. Meanwhile our neighbors are skating 3 D 1 ALL Americans on one line all of whom could be Hobey Baker winners and one of whom will win.
All I can think of, besides the goalies are: oregan, rodrigues,hohmann,gryz, macgregor, ahti, ronan and noonan add the 3 goalies that still Doesn’t make HALF the team from last year…so let it go anon 9:17 you’ve just been served!!
Anon 9:17
NAME ALL THE PLAYERS from this year YOU KEEP INSISTING played in the HE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME last year….go ahead first and last names…
Oh wait you can’t bc
Correcto!
I was going to say- okay, let’s see if the NCAA, Hockey East, and the various leagues are playing in are okay with ii, then lets bring back the players who were at the Garden last March and put them in the playoffs. I would predict they once again get to the semifinals, though BC is still winning the whole thing.
The 2012-13 team is as related to this year’s team as the 1997-98 team was to the 1998-99 team. Look that one up.
Speaking of BC winning the whole thing, will it get messy if Northeastern gets to the final, playing BC and facing almost Huskie Johnny Gaudreau.
Amazing how Parker is bashed for taking this group of players to the HE championship game then just one year later, DQ can’t even get them to 10 wins. Maybe it’s time to ring Parker back.