Weekend Lookback and WJC Camps

Player of the Week
Matt Lane, 2 goals, 2 assists
(Photo by Matt Dresens)

Well, that was one ugly weekend of hockey.

Thankfully, BU rallied in the third period of Saturday's game with Vermont to salvage a weekend split with the Catamounts.

Friday saw the Terriers essentially handing the Cats three goals off turnovers and the theme continued the following night. I can count at least four UVM goals that came due to inexcusable turnovers in the BU zone.

Let's look at Friday first. Doyle Somerby committed the first miscue and he was tripped off the puck at his own blue line, creating a 2 on 1 bid for UVM that Jarrid Privitera scored on.

UVM's third goal on Friday was not solely one person's fault, but a collection of laziness by all five of the BU skaters on the ice. I think I said it looked like five trees were playing defense in the recap. It was bad.

Saturday didn't yield anything much better, other than the fact BU won. There were two more awful (I'm running out of negative words here) turnovers that led directly to UVM goals. John MacLoud and Charlie MacAvoy both coughed the puck up right in front of their own goal and UVM cashed in both times.

Overall, the team just played lazy on Friday and most of Saturday's game. UVM scored seven goals on the weekend and not one of them was either Connor LaCouvee or Sean Maguire's fault.

Some positives were the development of Jordan Greenway over the past month. It has been astounding. He's not nearly the fastest guy on the ice, but man is it tough to get the puck away from him. He almost single handedly set up BU's tying goal on Saturday. He battled through a few checks and then patiently found Matt Lane in the low circle for a onetimer.

Speaking of Lane, he was far and away BU's best player of the weekend. Yes, he scored two game tying goals and had two other assists on the weekend, but he provided more than that. He was a force on the penally kill, blocking shots all over the place and really adding some leadership to a very young team. Granted, that's what a captain is supposed to do, but he is doing it perfectly. There is nothing more this team could ask from Lane.

Lane does not lead the team in any statistical category, but practically all of his goals have been "big" or "clutch" goals. Lets just take a look at the goals he has scored this year:

vs Union, first BU goal of the game
vs Wisconsin, first BU goal of the game
vs Merrimack, tied the game 2-2 in the second period
vs Michigan, BU's first goal of the game
vs Vermont (Fri), tied the game 2-2 in the third period
vs Vermont (Sat), tied the game 2-2 in the third period.

Not bad, eh?

Gone Camping
A week or so ago, Hockey Canada released their preliminary World Junior camp roster. Terrier defenseman Brandon Hickey is among the 29 other Canucks who were invited.

Today, USA Hockey came out with their WJC eval camp roster and both Brandon Fortunato and Charlie MacAvoy were on the list. In addition to the two defenseman, 2016 BU recruits Kieffer Bellows and Clayton Keller of the USA U18 Team were also invited to camp.

Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson was invited to the Swedish WJC camp.

At The Polls
BU dropped one slot from 11th to 12th in the USCHO poll this afternoon. Undefeated Providence was once again number one. 15-0-2 Quinnipiac moved up one notch from 3rd to 2nd, while Boston College dropped a peg to third. North Dakota was 4th and Nebraska Omaha rounded out the top five.

BU is 15th in the Pairwise. What is slightly interesting here is that Quinnipiac is number one by a good margin in the PWR. If the NCAA brackets came out out today, BU and Qpac would be a first round matchup, probably held in Worcester. Well, we get to see that matchup anyway this weeked as BU makes their first ever trip down to the TD Bank Center in Hamden.

Around Hockey East
Friday: Providence edged Merrimack 2-1 at Lawler… Maine and New Hampshire skated to a 3-3 draw at the Whitt… Notre Dame dumped UMass 3-1 at home… Vermont doubled up BU 4-2 at Agganis.

Saturday: UConn took down Lowell 4-3 in Hartford… Notre Dame ran over UMass 5-1 to complete the weekend sweep… Providence shutout Merrimack at home… New Hampshire drubbed Maine 5-2 at the Whitt… Northeastern and Boston College tied 3-3 at Conte… BU comeback to beat Vermont 5-3 at home.
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Sunday: UConn finished the weekend sweep of Lowell, 2-1 at Tsongas… Boston College rallied past Northeastern 4-3 at Matthews.