Friday, November 19, 2021

Game Day: Terriers host Huskies

                                               
Terriers will try to build off last weekend’s win and tie vs. UMass as they take on #18 Northeastern in a home-and-home series beginning tonight at Agganis Arena. Puck drop is at 7:30 p.m.

The teams didn’t play each other last season due to the COVID-shortened schedule. The last meetings were the final two games in March 2020—a 3-0 BU win at Matthews and a 2-1 Husky victory at Agganis.

Northeastern (8-4-0, 4-3-0) had won five in a row before a 2-1 overtime loss to Lowell. The Huskies’ attack is led by junior Aidan McDonough with team highs in goals (8) and points (10). Freshman Justin Hryckowian has nine points as does senior defenseman Jordan Harris.

In its last four games, Northeastern has yielded just five goals, winning three times, due largely to the play of sophomore goalie Devon Levi who sports a 1.58 GAA, tops in Hockey East. Last season, following a strong performance in the World Junior Championships, Levi was injured and missed the rest of the season. He is aided by a veteran defense led by Harris and Jayden Strubel.

Juniors Wilmer Skoog and Robert Mastrosimone are BU’s top point-getters with 11 and 10 respectively, followed by classmate Dom Fensore (9) and sophomore Dylan Peterson (8). Junior defenseman Case McCarthy has been wielding a hot stick with goals in four of the past five games, including the overtime game-winner last Saturday against UMass. Sophomore Drew Commesso stopped 43 of 48 shots in the UMass series.

Coach Albie O’Connell, who is looking for more consistency and stability in his forward lines pointed out the chemistry between Peterson, Nick Zabaneh and Jamie Armstrong, adding that Skoog and Mastrosimone were clicking with junior Jay O’Brien who returned to the line-up last week after missing eight games. He added, “We’ve got guys filtering back into the line-up and that will shuffle the deck a little bit.”

Addressing NU’s best-in-conference penalty kill, O’Connell said, “We’re going to try to keep it simple. It’s important to get pucks down and get some traffic on them. They do a good job structurally and they do a good job blocking shots. Our shooters are going to have to be really sharp to get it by those guys and get it to the net.”

Despite some recent struggles, O’Connell says he’s seeing progress. “I think we’ve improved on our breakouts and playing faster. There were times, even against UMass, that we were really tough to play against because we pushed the puck up ice. Our defensive zone has been a lot better. Our forecheck has been better.” He added that he wants to eliminate mistakes in puck management.

TONIGHT’S BU LINE-UP

Mastrosimone-Skoog-O'Brien

Cockerill-Ty Amonte-Phillips

Tuch-Zabaneh-Boucher

Kaufman-Stevens-Carrabes

Armstrong

Vlasic-McCarthy

Fensore-Gallagher

Webber-Campolieto

Commesso

Duplessis

 

● GoTerriers.com preview, Game Notes, Live Stats, Terrier Sports Radio Network, BU Men’s Hockey Twitter

● Coach Albie O’Connell’s media call

● Live Stream College Sports Live

● College Hockey News Tale of the Tape

● Boston Hockey Blog preview

● WTBU Sports preview



 

Looking ahead

2022 recruits Lane Hutson and Devin Kaplan have signed their national letters of intent (LOI). Hutson, a speedy left-shot defenseman has a 1-14-15 scoring line in 18 games, while Kaplan, a right-shot power forward, has a 4-10-14 line. 

In last Sunday’s NTDP U18 9-2 win against Finland, Kaplan scored a pair of goals while Hutson had two helpers. Both received B rankings in NHL Central Scouting’s preliminary players to watch for the 2022 draft.

Looking back

Jake Oettinger, making his first NHL start of the season, stopped 28 of 29 shots in the Stars’ 5-2 win against Detroit.


Terriers behind the mic

Former BU netminder and Providence College women’s coach Bob Deraney was the game analyst on a recent NESN broadcast of a Northeastern-Holy Cross women’s game and is expected to appear on additional games this season.

Deraney joins several other Terriers in the broadcast booth. Recently Dave Tomlinson was named to handle analyst duties on Seattle Kraken radio broadcasts.  Rick DiPietro, who had been a studio analyst for New York Islanders’ games, joined ESPN’s roster of analysts for NHL games. Colby Cohen, M.O.P. of the 2009 NCAA championships and a former analyst for ESPN, is now a content analyst for the Chicago Blackhawks, contributing to the team’s digital channels and game broadcasts on NBC Sports Chicago.

Women’s Team

Terriers are in Orono, for a 6 p.m. match-up with the Maine Black Bears at Alfond Arena. BU split a home-and-home with Holy Cross last weekend. Maine played a pair at UConn, earning a 1-0 win and a 4-4 tie.

● GoTerriers.com preview, Game Notes, Live Stats,

● Live Stream College Sports Live

● WTBU Sports preview

 

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