After an idle weekend for both teams, BU and UConn will finally go at it in the Hockey East Quarterfinals starting Friday night at Agganis Arena, with the Terriers slotted as the four seed and UConn the five.
BU, more than likely, has to win the Hockey East Championship to make the NCAA tournament. Despite going 9-2-2 second semester, BU is on the outside looking in in terms of the PairWise rankings. Currently, the Terriers are 19th in the PWR and have a less than ten percent chance at getting an at-large bid.
"It's been an interesting season for sure," said coach Quinn on Tuesday's Hockey East conference call. "Obviously, after we lost to Maine in the first game after break we were 8-11-1 and we were really scratching our head as to where we were at. We felt like we had played some pretty good hockey, yet we are finding ways to lose. There was a difference between playing pretty well and playing winning hockey. Since then, we have turned it around."
The Terriers and Huskies split the season series dead even at 1-1-1. The first meeting came back in a two-game, home and home series in October. Despite two shorthanded goals from Bobo Carpenter, the teams still skated to a 2-2 draw. The following night, Carpenter netted a hat-trick in Hartford and BU rolled 6-3 at the XL Center. Finally, just last month, UConn overcame both a 3-1 and a 4-2 BU leads in the third period, to win 5-4 in overtime on a Max Letunov backhand goal from the slot.
"The task at hand is to play a team that we have had three good games with," mentioned Quinn. They have an older, veteran team and are very well coached. Its certainly going to be a challenge for us."
The Huskies went on a roll to end the season, winning seven in a row from January 20th to February 16th vs BU. In the words of coach Quinn, "They were probably the hottest team in our league at the end of the year." That came after a start where UConn lost five in a row to start the second semester.
Scouting The Huskies
Former BU commit Max Letunov leads the Husky scoring attack with 27 points by way of 11 goals and 16 assists. Senior Spencer Nass is second in total points with 23 and leads the team in goals scored with 12. Alexander Payusov also has netted a dozen goals on the year and has five points in three games against BU alone. Other players to watch include Benjamin Freeman, Jesse Schwartz and Karl El-Mir.
In goal, Tanner Creel is 7-2-2 after taking over in relief of the injured Adam Huska. In total on the year, Creel has a .891 save percentage and 3.20 goals against average in 13 appearances. Huska is now back from his injury, but UConn coach Mike Cavanaugh has elected to ride the hot hand in Creel.
Elsewhere around Hockey East, league regular season champion Boston College hosts 11th seeded Merrimack. The Mack stunned Lowell in two overtime wins to sweep the Riverhawks out of the tournament. Lowell had been in the championship game each of the last five years.
Maine made quick work of UNH, sweeping the Wildcats and will not face Providence. UMass used a thrilling overtime win on Thursday and a blowout victory Sunday to end Vermont's season. UMass will now travel to Northeastern to face the Huskies
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