Roberto, Kelley Put BU Past X-Men

Wow, what a strange game. How many times do you see two teams combined have 16 power plays yet, there are only three goals scored in the entire game. BU had three 5 on 3 power plays and capitalized on none of them. They did have a few good looks and St. Francis goalie Drew Owsley made a few decent saves, but other than that it was typical "October hockey" on the pp for both teams.

Anthony Moccia saw action in
for the first time in his BU career
(Photo by Matt Dresens)

BU went 1 for 9 on the man advantage, while the X-Men struggled their way to 1 for 7 on the power play.

Some of the calls (both ways) were ridiculously soft and some were just the flat out wrong call.

Oh, and then there was the Jake Moscatel incident. After completely upending an X-Men skater near the blue line, Moscatel got into it with StFX's Zack MacQueen. It escalated to the point where Jake took his helmet off (something your not even allowed to do in the NHL anymore) and dropped the gloves. MacQueen (who is allowed to wear a half shield) looked very confused at the whole situation and the refs stepped in before any real punches were thrown. Had this been a "real" game, Jake would have been tossed on the spot. Instead, tonight he got two minutes for roughing which canceled with MacQueen's roughing call, and only had to serve a two minute instigator call. 

I didn't even know there was an instigator penalty in college and really, what did he instigate if there was no fight?

Anyway, BU got on the board long before Moscatel goon-squaded the game. Freshman Nick Roberto pick up some loose change in front of the net on the power play and was able to beat a sprawling Owsley with a quick roof shot. Fellow freshman Robbie Baillargeon and Danny O'Reagn picked up the assists at 15:27 of the first period.

St. Francis was quick to respond, as Rob Slaney beat Sean Maguire to the right side on a rebound. It was a power play goal at 17:02.

The second period was chalk full of penalties and at points, it was hard to remember what five on five hockey looked like. The one bright spot out of that period was third string goalie Anthony Moccia. Moccia stopped all seven shots he faced in the first action in his BU career. 

The game looked like it was destined for overtime and a tie and how could you not think so. No team could score on their plentiful power play chances. 

It took a a really flukey goal, but nevertheless BU took the lead at 17:07 of the third period. Matt Grzeclyk dished the puck to the top of the zone, where Tommy Kelley took a spin around slapper. The puck was on edge and seemed to knuckle past Owsley and into the goal to give BU the W. 

BU killed off a late StFX PP behind a couple strong saves by Matt O'Connor who kicked aside seven shots in total.  

The real season begins next Friday when the Terriers host UMass in the season opener.