Transcriptions by Arielle Aronson/DFP Staff
Jack Parker
Opening statement
All in all, I thought it was a well played game other than us . . . one of our goals every game is not to beat ourselves, and I thought we beat ourselves tonight pretty good with some of the stupid penalties we took, especially right off the bat early in the game.
We gave them the 5-on-3 goal. The other one was actually a power-play goal. They went 1-for-6, but they actually went 2-for-6 because the second one was just as the power play was getting over. Those were just, all three penalties off the bat were bad penalties. Down 2-0, we fought back, we played pretty well. It was a nice answer on our power play.
I thought we played very, very well in the second period. I thought we were going to win the game because we played so well in the second period. I thought the game was turned around for us, and then I thought Maine played extremely well in the third period. In the second period, we attempted 23 shots. We only attempted 16 in the third, and that was with three power plays for us, so they kill penalties very well.
I thought a few of our guys played well. Connolly has been snake-bitten all year. He finally got a goal on a power play. Trivino made a great play for our other power-play goal to Chiasson, and Trivino played very well. I thought Colby Cohen played well, and I thought our goalie played very well. I thought their goalie played great.
I’ll tell you, we’ve made every goalie we’ve played look like Jacques Plante. It’s unbelievable. We made the Northeastern goalie look like he was invincible, and we made this kid look like he was invincible because we were rushing shots. We’re having trouble scoring goals and we’re rushing shots. I think he played well, but I also think we had some opportunities.
I liked our team effort in a lot of ways, but I thought we were stupid with our penalties, and that’s what aggravated me. And I thought we ran out of a little steam in the third period.
On the play of Gustav Nyquist
Nyquist is a very good player. How many points did he have tonight? Could’ve had another one, too. He made a great play on that shorthanded situation. Yeah, he’s a very good player, one of the better players in the league. To tell you the truth, I didn’t notice him, though, and I usually notice him all over the place. But he’s a real good player.
On the no goal
I kind of knew it was going to be called off because I just went over and asked Alex, ‘Did you bump him when you backed into the goalie? Did you touch him?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I think my back did.’ And I said, ‘Well, if he’s in the crease, it’s no goal,’ and I guess they looked at it and said he was in the crease. I didn’t see a replay, but I know that must have been what they did.
On the misplayed 2-on-1 that led to Maine’s third goal
They scored on a real bad read. We had everything covered, and we had caught up. Nyquist goes down the wall and squeezes by one of our defensemen, but he’s off the angle. Where he’s got the puck, he couldn’t put that puck by my goaltender once in 100 times, and my defenseman came over to play him and left the other guy wide open –– the opposite way you’re supposed to play a 2-on-1, and they get a wide-open look.
My goalie doesn’t have a chance on that play. Real bad read there, and that was a huge goal because I thought we were playing real well.
On Kieran Millan’s play
I just said, ‘I’m tired of us losing 3-2 or getting shut out or not producing any offense for our goaltender.’ He’s been playing great, and he played great again tonight.
On the two early penalties
Well, those two penalties put us down by two goals. It’s hard to come back on the road being down two goals seven minutes into the game.
On not playing Ryan Santana
I wanted to get Megan back in the lineup. Gaudet played pretty well the last couple games. I wanted to get him one more game. I told Ryan that he’d be back in the lineup. It was not a matter of him not playing well. I thought everyone played real well the other night, but I had to take somebody out because I wanted Megan to go back in. I thought Megan played real well tonight.
On the Megan line
They got the nice goal. They played well. Megan won a lot of faceoffs tonight, which is important to us. I thought he won more than that, but he was 9-7. I think he won a lot in the offensive zone there. It just seemed like, especially on the power-play situation, we did a good job with that.
On Rollheiser
This week, he’s going full tilt all week long. We’ll see how it goes.
On the power play showing improvement
Yeah, but it wasn’t good in the end. It wasn’t good in the end the other night either. The last couple games, the power play had to win the game on both nights, we fumble-bumbled the puck, we get jumpy with it. I think it’s much, much better, but it’s got to get better in big time too.
On grade-A chances
We played a little bit harder, and I thought the second period was our best period for sure.
On scoring
I think we’re pressing the pucks on the net and it’s hurting us. Although we had some real good rebound chances tonight, we’re not getting enough of those.
Chris Connolly
On the team’s offensive struggles
You know, we played hard and coach made an emphasis on that just as we did on Friday against Northeastern. I mean, the goals are going to come. The chances are there, the shots are there, just tonight we took a few stupid penalties. I mean, they got at least two power-play goals. I’m not sure if their last one was. Their last one might have been, too. Ultimately, that’s what killed us. I mean, we stay out of the box on those stupid penalties and we’re right in there.
On the save Darling made on him on a rebound chance
He’s a big kid. He’s a great goalie. It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened to me against him. I played against him in juniors, and last year I had flashbacks of those kind of saves against me, so he’s a really good goaltender.
He made a great recovery after getting over there and was in good position for the rebound. I give all the credit to him. He had a great night.
On his goal and the power play in general
Our emphasis was to get it in the zone. To be able to get it set up, you have to go work hard and get the puck. Once we had it, we want to just work it around with as many clean passes as possible. Get that penalty kill moving around so we can get a few chances here and there, and we were fortunate enough Colby made a nice pass to find a hole there and catch the goalie off guard.
On the offense’s chances
We get a lot of shots, and it may look good. It’s just maybe we’re outplaying teams and we’re not scoring goals. But at the same time, the good chances we’ve had –– backdoor, open nets, pucks laying in creases, things like that –– you know those are chances we need to bear down on. Shooting back into the goaltender and things like that on good opportunities, those are ones we’re going to need later down the line, so we have to start bearing down on those now and getting some of those to go.
I think [goals will] start coming. It’s still fairly early in the season, but it comes down to focusing, bearing down, when you get a good opportunity to just make sure that it goes in. Don’t take the opportunity for granted, because when you go against good college goaltenders like that, they don’t give up on chances and its been pretty obvious as of late.
On the improved power play
Focus and hard work. I mean, we got off to a really slow start with it this year and it was pretty frustrating because BU’s been known to have a pretty skillfull power play, and Coach demands hard work before anything else, before skill on the power play, and so we really took that to heart in practice. Just getting the pucks, beating guys, winning your 1-on-1 battles and then getting it set up and working it around, because you can’t get that going until you get good control of the puck so that’s been the biggest focus as of late.
On Bonino’s absence
We’ve definitely missed him. He’s a 50-plus point scorer, and around 30 the year before, so that’s a lot of points we’re missing. We’re definitely going to be happy to get him back, but in the meantime, we’ve had plenty of chances. Without him, I think once those guys start contributing and we get some of the chances starting to go in addition to getting Bonino back, I think it will be a big plus for us.
Kieran Millan
On the first goal of the game
Yeah, they passed it through the slot, and it ended up going to a guy. He took a nice shot. I was kind of screwed on the play, but it was a nice shot.
On the wraparound goal
I made the original save and went to cover the puck, and one of our own players kind of shot it away from me. And it went right on his stick, and he was able to wrap it real quick before I got over there.
On the 2-on-1 goal
I originally thought that, when I looked up, it seemed like the guy out front was covered and I just had to take the shot 1-on-1 with [Nyquist] coming on the right-side wall. He kind of faked the shot, and I kind of froze a little bit. So, I wasn’t expecting a shot, and he passed across the crease to the guy who was open.
On stupid penalties
We’re having trouble scoring and taking penalties at the start of the game. [Maine] scoring on [their powerplays] sure isn’t going to help our team out because we’re having trouble scoring, and we know we’re not going to be able to score as many as last year, so being down two right off the gun isn’t great. But I thought we did a pretty good job of battling back and we tried.
On whether or not the lack of offense affects him
Not really. My job is just to try to keep the puck out of the net. It’s been a little tougher this year, but I think things will turn around. I thought we did a pretty good job against Northeastern. We really limited them to only having a few good scoring chances. Today, I think Maine did a pretty good job of getting to open areas and finding spots to get shots, but we’re going to get better. Things happen. You can’t win every game. It’s early in the season and hopefully things turn around.