Sacco could be awarded for great season

Former BU standout Joe Sacco (photo), the head coach of the Colorado Avalanche finished 8th in the Western conference this year. Ya 8th gets you into the playoffs, where they lost to the San Jose Sharks in six games. That's not the point, last season the Ave's finished out of the playoffs with an under .500 record at 32-45-5. This season, as you now know, made the play offs and had a much better record at 43-30-9.

It is clear that Sacco has done a great job turning around the program and thats why he was nominated for the Jack Adams Award. This goes to the NHL's coach of the year. in the running along side Sacco is Dave Tippett of the Phoenix Coyotes and Barry Trotz of the Nashville Predator. Oh ya, did I mention that this is Joe Sacco's first year behind an NHL bench. Joe was in the NHL as a player for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, New York Islanders, Washinton Capitals and, Philadelphia Flyers.

In Other News

Every BU player who was in the playoffs is now out.

There is one exception though. John Curry, BU's former goalie, has bean called up to the Penguins from Wilkes Barre/Scranton 

Clendening, Campbell lead US to U18 championship

It's clear that 2010 has bean a good year for USA hockey. Winning the world Junior Championships and also winning the U17 championship, oh ya and there was the that hart breaking gold medal game lost to Canada in to Olympics. 2010 got a little better for USA Hockey yesterday, as the US won the world U18 championship after they beat Sweden 3-1. This is the second year in a row that the Yanks took the title.

BU recruit Adam Clendening (photo) raked up and impresive 10 points and was +7 for the tournament. Winning this tourny for is nothing new for the likely first round draft pick, Campbell. Earlyer this year he and the rest of Team USA's U20 team won gold in a great game against Canada.

For the other incoming Terrier, Matt Nieto things could have gone better but still the young forward had a goal and three assist for the tournament.

In other news
Former Terrier, Brandon Yip scored his second ever playoff goal last nigh. His team, the Colorado Avalanch, lost to the San Jose Sharks 5-2 and the Sharks will move on to the next round in the NHL playoffs. Yip's goal was the second Colorado goal, which at the time gave them a 2-1 lead.

Two Incoming Terriers lead team USA to gold medal game

Recruits Matt Nieto and Adam Clendening and the rest of the U18 national team are headed to the finals of the U18 world championships in  Belarus. 

Today the US beat Finland 5-0 in the semi finals. Clendenening picked up his third goal of the tournament while Nieto racked up an assist in the blanking.

Team USA will look to win it's second strait title tomorrow against Sweeden, who beat the Americains in the first game of the tourny.    

Captain Crunch

No not the cereal but last night at the Friends of BU Hockey Banquet Jack Parker picked the captains for the 2010-2011 Terrier hockey Team. The only starting senior BU has left, Joe Pereira (photo) and standout junior Chris Connolly will be co-captains. Junior David Warsofsky will wear the "A" on his chest and be the assistant captain. As I said Parker picked the captains, this is not what usually happens. Up until last season the players had chosen the captain but Parker said that there was a major lack of leadership last season so he chose the teams leader this season. 


At the banquet, Parker said that there will likely be a banner on honer of Eric Gryba for his record of most penalties in one's carer.  

Looking at former Terriers in the NHL playoffs

In the past two day there have bean four BU standouts in the playoffs. Tom Poti, Adrian Aucoin, Brandon Yip, Colin Wilson and Mike Grier . Aucoin, Wilson and, Yip were in action last night and Brandon Yip picked up a goal and and assist. Aucoin and Wilson played good games but did not find the score sheet.


Yips goal

The Pix of the year

Staring with the end of the year to the start

Colby Cohen named All American

On Sunday Colby Cohen (photo) , now not with the Terriers any more, picked up the only first team All American award for BU. Cohen joins Matt Gilroy, Freddy Meyer and Dan Spang as the only BU players to win the award in the last ten years. Cohen racked up 30 points and netted 14 goals, good for second on the team. 

Recruit in the news

Charlie Coyle was ranked 24th among North American draft eligible players in the last ranking by the NHL Central Scouts. 2011 recruit Yasin Cisse was ranked #107.

Making a splash

2010 recruits Adam Clendening and Matt Nieto have spent the last few days in Belarus for the World U18 Championships. They lost their first game 4-2 against Sweden. Nieto picked up and assist on Team USA's first goal. 

Sahir Gill, a 2010 recruit netted the game winning goal in game seven of the BCHL Fred Page Cup playoffs over Powell River . Gill's team the Vernon Vipers will look to get back to the BCHL championship game, which they won last season. There they will play Spruce Grove.

Couple of beatdowns

You would think that when the supposed four best teams in college hockey meat the games would be close? Right? That was not the case last night as Boston College and Wisconsin would their games by a combined 15-2 margin.

In the early game, Wisconsin took a 2-0 goal lead in to the locker room after the first period. the play was close, but that was as close as RIT was to winning their first Frozen Four game. Once the puck dropped for the start of the second period, the Badgers took it to the Tigers and went on to score four straight goals in the frame, including three on the power play. RIT scored their only goal in the second as well. It was a power play goal from Tyler Brenner. In the third Wisconsin again dominated and potted two more goals.

In the night cap it was all BC. After one it looked like it was going to be close, but, like the other game, the Eagles owned the second period. with less then five minutes gone in the period BC made it 3-0. The scored stayed that way until the third, here Miami manged to get one back. It looked like the Red Hawks where going to come back and make things interesting. Then BC locked down and converted on Miami mistakes and ended up finding the back of the net four more times, making it 7-1.

So its a rematch of the 2006 National Championship game. BC to take on Wisconsin, Saturday night 7:00 on ESPN. 

Terriers pick up a defenseman

After BU found out they had lost 75% of their starting defense from last season, the coaches picked up Patrick MacGregor. As a senior Eric Gryba will not be at BU next year, and juniors Colby Cohen and Keven Shattenkirk both left and signed with Colorado. So that leaves only David Warsofsky as the only starter from a year ago. Likely to move up and play with Warsofsky will be Max Nicastro, who really broke out at the end of his freshman season.

Yesterday BU added their second D-man for 2010, Patrick MacGregor a 6'4  210 right hand shot, from the Avon Old Farms School. With AOF he scored 3 goals and picked up 18 assists and two in the New England Prep School Championship game. Avon Old Farms downed Northfield Mount Hermon  4-1.

According to scouting  reports, MacGregor has "size, strength, and the ability to both clear out in front and get the puck out of his end efficiently. He improved significantly in his senior season." -USHR

Tidbits
Former Terrier, Nick Bonino, was from the Avon Old Farm School.  

Shatt, Cohen join the Av's

Junior captain Kevin Shattenkirk (3) and 2009 National Championship game hero, Colby Cohen (25) have both signed with the Colorado Avalanche. Both signed entry level contracts with the Av's. Both will go to Lake Erie Monsters, coached by former Terrier standout and assistant coach, David Quinn. Also, Shatt and Cohen will be playing along side Zack Cohen, who was one of the Terriers leading scorers this season.

“We’re excited that Kevin has signed with the organization,” said Avalanche General Manager Greg Sherman.  “He has a bright future ahead and we look forward to seeing him start his professional career.”- from the Avalanche web sight 

Shatt racked up 7 goals and 29 assists this season, though it was last year that he really broke out. In the National Championship game he made a risky behind the back pass over to Colby Cohen and then Colby drilled a slapper, that was deflected into the back of the net. BU then had their 5th national title.This year Shattenkirk took the roll of Captain as a Junior. Nothing against him, but I don't feel he was the best leader the Terriers have ever had. Shatt said himself that he was too worried about the team and really did not focus on his game.“I don’t think we as upperclassmen did a good enough job leading, whether it was vocally or by example. Looking back on it, there are definitely things I would’ve done differently. I don’t think I was as good of a captain as I could’ve been.”- From the Daily Free Press-.It showed because compairing his play this year to last year, the numbers are way down. The best game he played all year was the last one he ever played. Shattenkirk, was all over the ice in the Hockey east semi finals against Maine. He picked up a goal and played very solid defense. He was Colorado's 14'th pick in the 2007 draft, and BU's 8th, first round draft pick in team history        

Colby Cohen, known most for the National Championship game winning goal, did have other highlight worthy goals. This year, like Shatt, he broke out and fell just three goals short of the most goals scored by a defenseman in single season. In total Cohen had 14 goals and picked up 16 assists. This gave him a 30 point season. Cohen was the Av's 44th pick in the 2007 draft.

“Colby is a young defenseman with a bright future ahead of him,” said Avalanche General Manager Greg Sherman.  “We are excited to have him signed and look forward to him beginning his professional career.”

In Other News

If Shatt, Cohen, or Cohen make the Av's they will be playing with former Terrier Brandon Yip. Yip has just come back from a separated shoulder which he suffered back in January.

Recruit check up

Yasin Cisse, was due to come to BU next season. Instead, we will see his as a Terrier in 2011. In late December, Cisse had a tendon sliced, by a skate, near his ankle. Before that he had scored 13 goals had 6 assists in only 18 games, all coming as a member of the Des Moines Buccaneers.

"We want to make sure that he’s completely healthy," Parker said. "We don’t want him to rehab it here and lose half a year here, so it was a pretty easy decision." -From the Boston Hockey Blog.

 Charlie Coyle, who will be coming next season, and his team the South Shore Kings lost the Tier III Junior A National Championship to the St. louis JR Blues 4-3. Coyle, finished the tournament with 9 points. That was second in the whole tourny.

In other news
This years captain Kevin Shattenkirk will likely sign with Colorado next week.