By Arielle Aronson/DFP Staff
If senior Joe Pereira wants to lead by example as a captain for the 2010-2011 edition of the Boston University men’s hockey team, he can’t do much better than he did Friday night.
Pereira scored twice as he and the No. 14 Terriers triumphed over the No. 13 University of Wisconsin 4-3 in the first round of the Ice Breaker tournament in St. Louis.
“It’s not quite the way we’d like to see the game played, but it was quite interesting to watch,” said BU coach Jack Parker.
The Terriers (1-0) were down early in Friday night’s game. Less than a minute after Wisconsin (0-1) killed off a five-minute major, the Badgers scored two goals only nine seconds apart to take a 2-0 lead.
The deficit was a tough one to face; not only had the Wisconsin goals come so close together, the Badgers also potted both goals in almost the exact same fashion. One forward would pull junior goalie Kieran Millan out right-side, take the shot and then let a pop-up player grab the rebound back door and slip it into a virtually empty net.
“Last year or a few years before, we would have died and they would have scored two more goals,” Pereira said. “We had the right attitude, the right mindset and we knew we weren’t going to give up the game that strong.”
And so it was Pereira who, a little over halfway into the first period, finally got the Terriers on the board. Freshman forward Charlie Coyle started the action on a power play when he attempted to fire the puck in from the left doorstep. Pereira camped out at the top of the crease, caught Coyle’s rebound and stuffed it past Wisconsin goaltender Scott Gudmandson for the tally.
Only three minutes later, junior assistant captain David Warsofsky evened the score with a laser from the blue line that blew past all kinds of traffic.
Yet the Terriers would not have a tie for long. Only 32 seconds later, Wisconsin took a 3-2 lead on a shot by forward Jordy Murray from the point.
Where BU could have faded, however, it only got stronger.
“We played much better in the second and third period,” Parker said. “We skated without the puck. We skated and made better decisions with the puck. We killed penalties better.”
Because they did those small things better, the Terriers controlled the second and third periods. Coyle tied the score at three on a power play in the second period with a goal that seemed effortless from the freshman but came off an extremely difficult angle.
Pereira topped the game off with the winner in the third when he streaked into the zone on a breakaway, deked left and flipped the puck over Gudmandson’s left shoulder to put BU ahead 4-3.
“[Sophomore forward Justin] Courtnall made a pass to [freshman forward Sahir] Gill in the middle and I saw an opening in the middle and tried to go for it,” Pereira said. “Gill made a great pass, split the defense and I’m just lucky the puck went in.”
That goal was the first of the night for BU that did not come with the man advantage. Both teams struggled to stay out of the penalty box all night. Wisconsin had three players with 10-minute game misconducts. Wisconsin’s leading scorer last season, forward Craig Smith, ended his night only 1:15 into the game when he was ejected for hitting BU sophomore forward Wade Megan from behind with an east-to-west motion.
But in the end, it was the Terriers resiliency rather than penalties that determined the outcome. For BU, that tenacity is an extremely encouraging sign.
“I know it’s early in the year, but you can just see we’re going to keep coming, keep coming, keep coming,” Pereira said. “We’re not going to quit. And that’s what we need to do to be successful.”
Loved the effort, the many blocked shots and freshman play. Millan and Kraus had similar firsh halves of their games. We were fortunate down the stretch as team played tenative but got very lucky bounces that kept the Badgers from tying. I’m very happy where this team is at this point in the season.