After tying Harvard 2-2 in their first game in almost a month, the Terriers will face the University of New Hampshire Wildcats this Friday in a Hockey East contest at Agganis Arena.
Unlike BU (6-8-3, 5-5-2 in Hockey East), UNH (6-7-6, 2-4-3 in Hockey East) has had three games since the holidays. In 2019, the Wildcats have beaten both Bentley and Merrimack and tied Yale. UNH previously faced BU on November 10th on the Wildcats’ home ice, and fell to the visiting Terriers 2-3.
Since their matchup, a trend has surfaced in both teams’ results: both BU and UNH have tied Boston College, lost to Providence, and beaten Dartmouth. There is differentiation in the UMass Lowell games, where UNH tied the Riverhawks and BU lost one game and won the other. In addition, when UNH beat Merrimack, BU lost.
Starting in between the pipes for the Wildcats looks to be freshman standout Ty Taylor, who has a save percentage of .863. In the net for the Terriers will most likely be junior Jake Oettinger. Oettinger will have to pay his most attention to freshman Angus Crookshank, who is UNH’s leader in goals (6) and is tied for the team lead in points (15) for the Wildcats. Along with Crookshank upfront, Ara Nazarian, Jackson Pierson, and Brendan Van Riemsdyk are also top scorers for UNH.
On offense for the Terriers, senior captain Bobo Carpenter leads the Terrier attack with nine goals, but was kept off the scoresheet against Harvard. BU’s Dante Fabbro, Shane Bowers, and Joel Farabee have also found a knack for putting the puck in the net for the Terrier attack. Adding depth up front for BU, Matthew Quercia scored his first goal as a Terrier in Tuesday’s game against Harvard, and looks to be involved again on Friday.
The game will begin at 7:30pm, and can be watched or listened to through GoTerriers.com. As always, there will be a live blog of the game right here on the Boston Hockey Blog.
Can Boston University secure a big Hockey East win over New Hampshire? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
I’m hopeful we can we played well against Harvard. This team is making strides in the right direction. I’m so excited for this weekend. This is a special group of young men. Bu fans get out and support this team this weekend. Go bu🐾
What also gives me hope is that BU fans with diametrically opposite viewpoints of the team/program like Colin and Frozen Out (Larry) can coexist. While both of you make some valid points I agree with, my assessment of the state of BU Hockey is mostly in between.
Most BU Hockey teams have been comprised of special young men. One has to be in several ways in order to get to where they got to. They work hard and represent the program well in many ways, but it doesn’t always translate to results (like this season).
Unfortunately, this BU team is hampered by its limited depth, especially at forward. Several role players have been placed into larger roles on the team they may not yet be capable of / ready for. Losing Greenway and Tkachuk has hurt this team so much more than many have acknowledged. On paper it seemed like bringing in Farabee and Wise (now out for the season) would have offset some of that loss, but it clearly hasn’t. Secondary scorers have now been pressed into being primary scoring threats; some primary scoring threats have underachieved; others injured. Not enough guys have stepped up and elevated their games.
I strongly believe that even if Quinn was still behind the BU bench, BU’s record probably wouldn’t be much better. It’s just not as talented nor deep a roster as many past BU teams. Could Albie and his staff get more out of the team? Probably. But I think they are who they are right now – an average team in HE and nationally.
One thing I’m very interested to see play out is whether Albie can do more with developing role players into impact players the way Coach Parker did with many such players during his time. I think one of Quinn’s faults was that he was so focused on the blue-chippers that most role players on the roster rarely developed/improved under his tutelage. A successful team/program needs most of its players, regardless of NHL draft status, to improve year-after-year. We haven’t seen enough of that at BU in recent years, hence over-reliance on underclassmen stars and lots of roster turnover.
With a very tough stretch of the schedule coming up (6 of the next 9 games vs. teams currently in Top 10 in Pairwise Ranking), this stretch of hockey will be very telling in terms of how the rest of this season might play out.
Superb post Terrier Lifer! I completely agree about the losses of Greenway and Tkachuk. For the former I knew it was coming and it was time … but the latter was an all-out disaster. Even if he, as some have suggested, had not been playing with 100% intensity, his play and contributions improved all throughout the season. Having two upper classmen who combined skill and tremendous size/toughness went a long way in making everyone else better. Let’s see if Albie can do what you mentioned. Just curious … who do you think on this year’s team has the most potential to be an impact player but is now a role player?
Glenn — I think Amonte in particular is someone who has a lot of potential to grow into an impact player. Nice skill, speed, enough grit and a nose for the puck. I don’t think he’s necessarily a player whom BU must depend on as a primary offensive weapon, but can be a very effective secondary scoring threat if the primary guys — Bobo, Bowers, Harper, Farabee — are capable of and need to.
Cockerill and Curry are also very good complementary players whom, IMO, are being asked to play bigger roles this season b/c of the lack of depth up front. While they have the ability to do so, it may be a stretch to ask them to sustain a very high level of play as 1st/2nd liners through the rest of the season. On a deeper team they’d be best fit for 3rd line duty; hopefully getting more ice time may help their development beyond this season, though.
It’s laughable that certain people are now lamenting the loss of Tkachuk. They are the same people who couldn’t stop telling others that he wasn’t ready for the NHL. BTW, how did BC do last night? Did they get Providence ready? TK out>
Hi TK, I will take ownership of that (Tkachuk and his NHL readiness). Still, that was not nearly as bad as someone refusing to acknowledge that Greenway was playing really well for BU and getting better in each of his three college seasons. PC will be super pissed this evening. Go BU!