Fenway Thoughts

Alright, we are back again. I did not have a post about the Arizona State series, but I will say that I thought BC played well all weekend. They thoroughly outplayed ASU in game one, leading to a 5-2 victory. On Saturday, I thought they played a solid game, but they just ran into a brick wall in ASU goalie (and ex- NU Husky) TJ Semptimphelter. BC outshot the Sun Devils 17-1 in the third period, but ASU's one shot found twine while all of BC's were stonewalled. Sometimes those type of games just happen- BC deserved better but at the end of the day, I think they would have taken a split going into the weekend. Obviously, the second game hurts them a bit in the pairwise rankings which is part of the reason why I wish BC would just forego playing games during the World Juniors. What are they going to do next Christmas break with all the guys they'll have gone? They may need Baldwin to suit up for them, but that is a long ways off. 

Last night, for the fourth time in five tries, BC got a win at Fenway Park, this time coming at the expense of rival UMass by a score of 4-2. Even though the game did not count for the Hockey East standings, this was a major win for the Eagles as they moved up to 20 in the pairwise rankings- up four sports from 24. Had they lost that game, they would likely have dropped dangerously close to 30. BC is now 6-2-3 in in its last eleven games with three very winnable contests coming up against Sacred Heart and Vermont before the big weekend on January 27th and 28th. 

I thought BC came out flying in the first period. BC got on the board early, just under three minutes into the game, thanks to Cutter Gauthier, who picked up the puck in the defensive zone, went the length of the ice, and fired a nasty shot by UMass goalie Luke Pavicich. They reviewed the goal for a potential high stick in the BC zone, but decided against it. I thought Gauthier was one of the best players on the ice last night even though he had to be absolutely exhausted given all of the hockey he has played over the past two weeks. You can count on BC trying to set up Gauthier for a one time bomb at least two times on every power-play- it reminds me of what they did with Cam Atkinson when he was playing here. On one of BC's power-plays in the second period, I thought Gauthier made a nice play when he basically shot the puck real low with the intention of creating a juicy rebound- which came to fruition, but one of BC's net front forwards was unable to bang it home. When #19 has the puck, he is a threat to score every time and it makes this BC team significantly better, obviously. 

UMass tied the game around the ten minute mark of the first period on a breakaway goal (during a power-play) from Michael Cameron. Like I said in my tweet, I thought BC had a good penalty kill going, preventing UMass from generating a ton of great looks, but then one of their forwards just turned it over in the neutral zone when he probably should have just iced the puck and it led directly to the UMass goal. This same play happened against BU a few weeks ago- a BC forward had the puck towards the tail end of the kill, but they got too fancy with it, turned it over, and it ended up in the back of the net. One thing I noticed was that both Nikita Nesterenko and Colby Ambrosio were benched for the first ten minutes of the game- I am not going to speculate as to what happened there as I have no idea. 

BC took the 2-1 lead shortly after UMass tied it thanks a power-play goal from Cam Burke, his first as an Eagle. BC's power-play was coming to an end, but Lukas Gustafsson made a really nice play, finding Burke in the slot for a redirection. BC's power-play has been great all year (it is now #13 in the country), but the majority of that success has been because of the top unit. It was great to see their #2 unit put a big goal on the board. Furthermore, I'll add that I thought the line of O'Neill-Burke-Jellvik was probably BC's best last night. They generated some high quality chances and were solid in their own end. 

BC's best period was the middle stanza- they controlled the play and outshot the Minutemen 16-8 during the frame. They were finally able to capitalize on one of their chances, when Oskar Jellvik took advantage of a fortuitous bounce off of the official and found Burke in the slot, who potted home his second goal of the game and of the season. Like I said earlier in the year, this may not be the most skilled third line BC has ever had (the combinations have shifted a bit, but Burke and O'Neill have been together all season), but when they're playing like that, it adds a different dimension to this team. I thought it was certainly their best game of the season. 

Now, the third period was not exactly a lesson in how to close out a hockey game. If we are being honest, they were a bit lucky that neither of those huge hits were called in the last two minutes of the game. The referees were probably a bit hesitant to call another penalty on BC given that the Eagles had already taken three in the first eighteen minutes of the period. BC had a power-play at the end of the second that bled into the start of the third, which was their prime opportunity to put the game on ice and even though they got two nice chances, UMass was able to escape scratch free. Shortly after BC's power-play expired at the start of the third, UMass got a power-play of their own when Eamon Powell went off for what I thought was an extremely weak tripping call. As they did for seemingly every face-off in the third period, UMass won it, worked it around the point for a few seconds, and then star defenseman Ryan Ufko fired one past Mitch Benson to make it a one goal game. I originally thought the puck deflected off of a BC defenseman, but I think it just beat Benson clean- he could not see the puck. I was very impressed with Ufko, who also starred at the World Jr Championships. I thought he was the best player for the Minutemen last night. 

After that goal, BC just started to unravel by taking stupid penalties. The majority of the period was played in BC's end (the shots were only close because of BC's power-play at the end of the period) and they just decided to take some dumb penalties that would have allowed UMass to tie it up if it wasn't for some really good penalty killing from the Eagles. Benson also made two or three huge saves late in the period- he continues to give BC a chance in almost every game he plays in. 

As I said in the previous paragraph, there were two huge hits late in the third, a major collision at center ice involving Ufko and another in the BC end that, I believe, was the hit Greg Carvel asked to be reviewed for a major. It was a gamble by the UMass coach- you win the challenge, you get a 6 on 4 with a minute left and all the momentum. You lose it, which he did, BC gets a power-play and can just run out the clock. To be honest, I did not think the hit UMass wanted to review was a penalty, but the hit at center ice involving Ufko was definitely a closer call. Either way, BC needs to stop taking ridiculous penalties that just allow teams to crawl back into games. Don't get me wrong, they take fewer penalties this year than they did a season ago, but it's the costly ones in the third period that are going to come back to haunt them if they don't cut it out. The Eagles added an empty netter, courtesy of Eamon Powell, to seal the deal. 

I mean, if you asked me if I would take #20 in the pairwise rankings on January 8th, I'd sign up for it right away. This team plays hard night in and night out and they're starting to really gel as a unit- all four lines are playing high level hockey. Look at BC's fourth line for example- guys like Joyce and Posma are their most consistent penalty killers along with Kuntar. Some players, like Andre Gasseau and Marshall Warren, are playing much better at the moment than they were earlier in the season. Think about how many duds BC had a year ago- losses to Bentley, Colorado College, UNH (a couple times), Maine (a couple times), and Vermont were not sights the behold! Now, they could very well struggle coming down the stretch, but outside of the second Merrimack game, this team has brought it each night and they deserve a lot of credit for that, as does the coaching staff. They have three games coming up now that they frankly should win, although Sacred Heart is going to be flying around next Saturday with the opening of their beautiful new rink. If BC can continue to build up momentum for BU weekend in a couple weeks, they're going to put themselves in a good position to make a run at the NCAAs, which is not something I thought would happen in October. 

Go Eagles