Dom Fensore’s shot gets blocked on Saturday night. Photo by Jenna VanSickle.
BU suffered its worst defeat of the season thus far on Saturday night, losing to UConn 6-1 at Agganis Arena. Here are my three takeaways from the game – all opinions are my own.
Nothing going – or was there?
It’s easy to point to a 6-1 loss and say BU just didn’t have anything going right on the night. Obviously the four-goal third period made it pretty obvious that the Terriers were off their game, but there were points early on in this game where BU could have – and maybe should have – challenged for the lead. For example, David Farrance had a gaping net to shoot at on one rush in the first period, but fired it straight into Tomas Vomacka’s glove. The Terriers moved the puck well on their power plays and had good looks, but couldn’t find an end product. There was a time in this game where BU could have swung momentum (especially at home), but UConn was more opportunistic, and BU didn’t have an answer.
Again, Abel stays in for the rout
Ashton Abel allowed five goals last night, including three in the third period to make it a 5-1 game before Albie O’Connell pulled the trigger and sent in another goaltender. I found this interesting, especially since the same thing happened in the 5-1 blowout loss to Merrimack at home when Abel stayed in for the entire game, even when BU seemed to need a boost. I’m no hockey psychology expert, but I would think that in a game where your team just doesn’t have anything going, a goaltender change could wake them up. However, O’Connell and his staff left Abel in there to take the heat for his second home start in a row, and I can’t imagine anyone feels great about BU’s goaltending situation right now.
It’s not done, but not looking great
Looking at the playoff picture, BU is now down to sixth, four points away from dropping out of the Hockey East playoff picture but still only two points away from third place in the conference. Looking at the trio of games left on the schedule, though, it’s hard to be optimistic that BU will put together a late run up the league table. Boston College, who visits Agganis Arena next Saturday, just put up ten goals on Northeastern to finish off a series sweep. Northeastern is now in a race to make the playoffs, and with their recent success against BU in big games, we know they’ll be hungry going into the season-ending series with the Terriers. BU’s road ahead isn’t easy, so if they want to string some positive results together, they’ll need to be a lot better than they were this weekend.
The season’s third edition of BU-BC is next Saturday at 7 p.m.
Brady I liked coaches quote about how we did not respect the game and did not play or do anything right Saturday. Obviously this is not good but it’s better then we quit . I think coach has the pulse of this team giving them the time off to get away from things was the right thing I’m sure today the boys will be focused. If McCarthy and Querrcia are out for a extended amount of time line shuffling needs to take place. I would love to see Chabot put on one of the first two lines. Loosing Quercia hurts them big time physically Chabot does not have his size but he throws a heavy hit, he is also a lot more talented offensively then people realize because he is usually on fourth line. My prediction is he will give this team some spark. Also I like witkowski I think in limited action he does well the problem with him is he tries to do too much with very little ice time. I would sit him down and tell him you are getting a opportunity get the puck shoot the puck. Terriers need to shoot more. During the Merrimack game the line of Chabot Boguslavsky and Witkowski was our best line. I love this team and have a lot of respect for all of them but we need to get tougher to play against. I want to see guys go to the middle of the ice in the offensive zone I want to see cycling down low I want to see bodies in front of the net. I have a lot of expectations for this team yet.