Monday Thoughts: A Step Below---Part Two

This weekend was a tale of two games. Friday, BU put together maybe their best effort of the year at Vermont. But, last night, BU fell 3-1 to the University of New Hampshire at home. It may have been the second worst game the Terriers have played all year. The other poor performance also coming against UNH.

The Vermont Game---> Six goals by six different players including two from the third line and three from defenseman was a good start. Sean Maguire picked up his first win as a Terrier in the 6-2 rout. BU even scored two power play goals which in the end, gave us a false sense that the power play had been fixed after struggling against BC. The UNH game would heavily argue that the power play needed some serious work, though.

The UNH Game---> The first period was undoubtably the most atrocious period of the year. BU could not hit the net, break the puck out of the zone, sustain any sort of forecheck, score on a power play (more on that in a second) and worst of all, BU turned the puck over several times. No turnover was worse that Ryan Santana's at his own blue line, that allowed Kevin Goumas to walk in and rip a shot past Matt O'Connor through a screen.

Evan Rodrigues gets stopped on a power play in the third period
(Photo by Matt Dresens)

UNH's second goal came in a scrum on the far side of the net. BU was out shot 20-12 in the first. To say it was the worst period of the year is a complete understatement.

BU finally got on the board in the second frame as Danny O'Regan slammed home a rebound off an end to end rush by Matt Grzelcyk.

The Anemic Power Play
Not to come off overly negative in this post, but the power play's effort yesterday afternoon was so bad it is hard to find a comparison. BU went 0 for 7 on the man advantage and that does not even begin to explain how bad they looked. Granted, the second period was an overall stronger period by BU, the power play could not set up anything and at times, it looked like UNH had the better scoring chances.

Matt Grzelcyk 

Player of the Week
Matt Grzelcyk
(Photo by Matt Dresens)

Overall, Grzelcyk played a vey solid weekend, as he picked up two points in two games. He creates offense for the team in ways only a few defenseman have on Comm Ave. Dave Warsofsky comes to mind along with Kevin Shattenkirk, but there are some times that Grzelcyk seems to get himself into trouble by holding the puck too long. There is a difference between patience and just carrying the puck too long. A few times in the UNH game, he backed up too far and got trapped in the corner. Then there are the end to end rushes like the one that he took from deep in the BU end and beat three or four UNH players, before getting a shot off that produced a rebound for O'Regan to bang home. Like my Dad said, "he likes the puck".

At The Polls
BU moved up one slot in the USCHO poll from 11th to 10th. Boston College was again the nation's top team, with Denver two, UNH three and Minnesota and Miami rounded out the top five.

Over in the PWR, BU slipped from five to eight. Denver is currently one, with UNH two, BC three, and Dartmouth and North Dakota finishing the top five.

Around Hockey East
Friday: Boston College came back to defeat Merrimack 4-3 at home... Providence routed Northeastern 6-2 at home... Maine and Umass staked to a 2-2 draw at the Mullins Center... New Hampshire blanked Lowell 3-0 at the Whitt... BU crushed Vermont 6-2.

Sunday: Lowell destroyed UMass 8-2 in  Amherst... Vermont beat Northeastern 3-2 at home... UNH dropped BU 3-1 at Agganis.