Late rally falls short; Terriers lose to BC, 4-2

In a penalty filled game from start to finish, BC scored on two 5-on-3 power plays and held off a late Terrier rally to come away with a 4-2 win. The loss, resulting in a split of the regular season series between the Green Line rivals, gives BU a 12-4-4 overall record and a 7-2-2 record in Hockey East. The Terriers fall to second place in the conference behind UMass-Lowell, whom BU will host Sunday at 2 p.m.

BC scored twice in the first period and again in the second with freshman Alex Tuch finding the net twice and classmate Noah Hanifin getting the first power-play tally.

Trailing 3-0 heading into the third period, BU got on the board early with its own power play goal as junior Danny O’Regan, taking a pass from freshman Jack Eichel, scored from the top of the left circle.  An Evan Rodrigues bid on a 3-on-2 nearly cut the margin to one, but his shot went just wide.

With 3 ½ minutes remaining, Matt Lane (photo) converted the rebound of a Nikolas Olsson shot to bring BU within one. Terriers pressed for the equalizer, but with goalie Matt O’Connor pulled, Eagle freshman Zach Sanford blocked a shot and found the empty net.

Noting that BC had played with more passion and pace than his club, Coach David Quinn added that poor gap control by the young BU defense had been exploited by BC:

“It was the number one problem for us all night long. Our D just did not hold the offensive blue line long enough. BC is fast. We made them look a lot faster by just backing off. We looked like we had four freshmen D tonight and that hasn’t happened very often this year.

“Our gap allowed them to walk up the ice. They had way too many easy zone exits. It wasn’t so much their breakout, it was just that we backed off."

Junior Matt O'Connor stopped 38 Eagle shots as his record fell to 10-3-3.

● GoTerriers.com recap and comprehensive box score

● Post game comments (video): Quinn

● Daily Free Press recap

● Boston Hockey Blog Pluses & Minuses

● USCHO recap

● College Hockey News recap

● SB Nation recap
● WEEI College Blog recap

►O’Regan is tied for the Division 1 leads in goals with 15 and leads in goals per game with .75

►Former Coach Jack Parker was interviewed on NESN prior to the game. 

TerrierTakeAway  Today’s entry from defkit

1. BU did itself in with the rash of first period penalties. It's tough to get into a rhythm when your first line sees one shift in the first period. The two 5-on-3 goals were killers.

2. Rough game for the defense. I thought Fortunato, in particular, struggled. 

3. It appears that Eichel is trying to do too much. For example, he had the puck all alone along the boards in the last minute, and rather than getting it to the point for a shot, he overthought it and lost the puck. If Grzelcyk hadn't made a great play at the blue line to keep the puck in, BC would have likely gotten the ENG at that point, rather than a few seconds later after Rodrigues’ ill-advised shot with an Eagle right on him.

4. O'Connor once again looked phenomenal. He made a few glove saves stopping slap shots from in close.

 

Looking ahead

2015 recruit Robert Carpenter scored a shorthanded goal for Sioux City in the Musketeers’ 3-2 shootout win against Des Moines.  The former All-Scholastic forward from Austin Prep has a 15-18-33 scoring line in 34 games.

2016 recruit Hank Crone (photo) scored a goal and added an assist for Omaha, but the Lancers were edged by Muskegon, 4-3. It was the Texas native’s first multiple-point game this season.