By Scott McLaughlin/DFP Staff
The No. 2/3 Boston University men’s hockey team suffered an embarrassing 9-5 loss to archrival No. 8 Boston College on Friday night. The nine goals were the most the Eagles have scored on the Terriers in 25 years.
“I was flabbergasted at how inept we were in many areas of the game,” said BU coach Jack Parker. “Not for effort. We just didn’t execute and we lost every battle for loose pucks. All in all, I don’t think there was one guy on my team who had a good night tonight. A lot of it had to with how hard BC played, how they jumped us and made us jumpy with the puck. We didn’t execute with passing at all. I was really impressed with them. I was really disappointed, and actually surprised, with our club.”
BC (10-5-0, 8-4-0 Hockey East) put BU (7-2-5, 5-2-4 HE) behind the eight ball early. Just 2:04 into the game, junior forward Jimmy Hayes tipped a shot from sophomore defenseman Brian Dumoulin past junior goalie Kieran Millan (10 saves) for a power-play goal. Junior forward Paul Carey helped the Agganis Arena balloon deflate even faster when he scored 23 seconds later. He flicked what appeared to be a harmless wrist shot on net from the right circle, but Millan badly misjudged it and watched the puck float right over his glove.
The Terriers had plenty of chances to climb back in the game, as they went on three power plays in the next 10 minutes. But as has been the case all season, the power play struggled mightily, recording just three shots on the three advantages and repeatedly failing to get traffic in front of the net for screens and rebounds.
The Eagles then made it 3-0 heading into the first intermission when junior forward Cam Atkinson sniped the top right corner from the right hashes for his league-leading 12th goal of the season. Atkinson nearly scored again later that shift on what would’ve been another soft goal on Millan. He snapped a shot on net from just inside the blue line and it bounced off the top of Millan’s glove before hitting the crossbar.
The demolition continued even after junior Grant Rollheiser (18 saves) replaced Millan in net to start the second. Atkinson registered his second goal of the game 2:29 in when he snuck a shot just inside the left post for BC’s second power-play marker of the night.
Freshman forward Matt Nieto finally gave the crowd something to cheer about when he snapped a shot past senior goalie John Muse (18 saves) on a 2-on-1 to cut the lead to 4-1. The excitement was short-lived, though. The Eagles found the back of the net twice more before the end of the period, first on a shorthanded snipe by junior forward Barry Almeida and then on a power-play slapper from the point by sophomore defenseman Philip Samuelsson. Those two tallies gave BC a plus-4 advantage on special teams at that point in the game.
BU outscored BC 4-3 in a crazy third with goals from senior forward Joe Pereira, junior defenseman David Warsofsky, sophomore defenseman Max Nicastro and junior forward Andrew Glass, but it was BC’s eighth goal that pretty much summed up the game.
Sophomore defenseman Sean Escobedo tried taking the puck behind his own net, but lost control and nearly jammed it inside the post. Freshman forward Bill Arnold dug out the loose puck and had all day to pick his spot on Rollheiser. BC’s ninth and final tally came on a penalty shot by senior forward Brian Gibbons.
Parker said Millan will get the start Saturday night when the two teams face off again at Conte Forum at 7:30 p.m.
“I told them to forget tonight,” Parker said. “It was a stinker. It isn’t what happened to us tonight, it’s how we react to what happened to us tonight. That’s the only important thing right now.”
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