Game Day: BU visits UConn; Commesso, Warsofsky named to US Olympic Team; Fensore nominated for Hobey Baker UPDATED

Following a month of semester break and non-conference games, the Terriers (9-9-3) resume Hockey East competition with a road contest against Connecticut (9-8-0). Puck drop at the Xcel Center in Hartford is at 7:05 p.m.

BU had opened the regular season against the Huskies in October, winning 2-1 in Hartford and losing 5-1 at Agganis Arena. The teams are currently tied for sixth place in the Hockey East standings.

UConn defeated BC, 5-4, last Saturday before dropping a 3-1 decision at AIC on Tuesday. Ryan Tverberg leads the Huskies in both goals (9) and points (17). Jachym Kondelik has contributed 16 points and Marc Gatcomb 13.  Darion Hanson, a transfer from Union College, has been in goal for all nine UConn wins and brings a 2.62 GAA.

After watching the Huskies game against BC, Coach Albie O’Connell noted that UConn presents several challenges, particularly on faceoffs, and called the Huskies “dangerous on the rush.”

O’Connell listed several positive takeaways from the series against Arizona State: good defense, back-checking and transition to offense, managing the puck and improved commitment to defense. He added that the team has been working on rushes and better reads on penalty kills.

Another positive for the Terriers is that several skill forwards who had struggled and/or missed games with injuries have begun to find the net. Luke Tuch has four goals in the last three games. Jay O’Brien had five points (2G,3A) against the Sun Devils. Matt Brown also had a pair of goals against ASU, as did defenseman Ty Gallagher, who earned Rookie of the Week honors.

In his last five starts, Drew Commesso has yielded just eight goals, going 4-0-1 with a .948 save percentage and a 1.55 goals-against average.

TONIGHT’S BU LINEUP

Tuch-O’Brien-Kaufman

Mastrosimone-Brown-Peterson

Phillips-Skoog-Ty Amonte

Armstrong-Stevens-Tr.Amonte

Boguslavsky

Vlasic-Copeland

Fensore-Gallagher

Webber-Campolieto

Commesso

Duplessis

Abel

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

● Live Stream College Sports Live

● Boston Hockey Blog preview

● College Hockey News Tale of the Tape

 

Sophomore goalie Commesso and former Terrier defenseman David Warsofsky have been named to the 25-man U.S. Olympic team roster that was announced Thursday on ESPN2 by Team USA head coach David Quinn.

The hockey schedule for the Beijing 2022 games begins on February 9 and concludes on February 19. This will be the 15th consecutive Olympic games in which at least one Terrier will represent their country on the ice.

Commesso had his 2022 World Junior Championships experience limited to one game when Covid-19 forced cancellation of the event. He had also lost the opportunity to play in the 2021 WJCs due to exposure to the virus. The Norwell, Massachusetts native and Chicago Blackhawks draft pick currently has a 2.67 GAA and a .907 save percentage in 19 starts this season. In 2019-2020, he recorded the second best GAA (2.02) ever for the NTDP U18s.

Warsofsky was a three-year standout (68 points) on the Terrier blueline and helped BU win the NCAA championship in 2009.  A year later, he skated on the gold-medal Team USA in the WJCs.  Since turning pro, he's played in 55 NHL games (Boston, Pittsburgh, New Jersey, Colorado) and hundreds of AHL games. This season, he's playing in the DEL, Germany's top professional league, with ERC Ingolstadt with 16 points in 31 games.

A third Terrier, Brandon Yip, who was a teammate of Warsofsky on the '09 champs, will captain host team China's squad. A former NHLer (174 games with Nashville, Colorado and Arizona), Yip has been playing for Kunlun in the KHL since 2017.

● GoTerriers.com report

● USA Hockey report

 

                             Photo by Kyle Prudhomme

Junior defenseman Domenick Fensore has been nominated for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award, which recognizes college hockey’s top player.

The Thornwood, NY native leads the Terriers in both assists (14) and points (17) and is tied for second among Hockey East skaters in assists. Addressing the defenseman's nomination, Coach Albie O'Connell said:

"He’s been really good at both ends. For a small guy, he goes into corners and comes out with pucks. He can be a difference maker offensively for us. His skating is world class. When he’s playing well, he’s playing within himself and moving the puck. When he shares the puck and jumps late, he’s really a threat. But we’re not afraid to afraid to give him a little bit of rope. He’s earned that."

BU has had three winners of the Hobey Baker Award: Chris Drury (1998), Matt Gilroy (2009) and Jack Eichel (2015).

● GoTerriers.com report

 

Looking ahead

Four Terrier recruits were ranked by NHL Central Scouting in its mid-term evaluation of prospects for the 2022 entry draft. Among North American skaters: Green Bay C Ryan Greene #41, LD Lane Hutson #31, NTDP U18 RW Devin Kaplan #65 and Waterloo RW Michael LaStarza #78.

Hutson and Kaplan, along with 2023 recruit Jack Harvey will participate next Monday in the BioSteel All-American Prospects Game in Plymouth, Michigan. Harvey, who skated in last year’s prospects game, is second-year draft eligible.

So, too, is 2022 recruit Jeremy Wilmer, who is playing for the Tri-City Storm after completing two seasons with the NTDP. FC Hockey’s look at second-chance USHLers offers this profile of Wilmer:

The undersized Jeremy Wilmer was passed over in 2021, but he has been one of the most consistent players on the Tri-City Storm to start the 2021-22 season. Through his first 17 games, Wilmer has 22 points (eight goals, 14 assists) — good for second on the team.

“Wilmer is an undersized, offensive-minded forward with elite hands and playmaking instincts,” FCHockey regional scout Douglas Larson wrote in a recent scouting report. “He has the ability to be really shifty with head and stick fakes, and can turn on a dime making it tough to get a body on him.”

His size and work off the puck will obviously be a concern — and there’s a reason he went undrafted in his first year of eligibility — but given his production this year and his great offensive upside, I strongly feel Wilmer will hear his name called in the back half of the 2022 draft.

 

Looking back

Jake Oettinger turned aside 23 of 25 shots in Dallas’s 5-2 win against the Kraken. He has won four of his last five stars and has nine wins in 11 starts with a 2.20 GAA and a .923 save percentage.

 

This Date in BU Hockey History: Jan. 14, 1972

Terriers yielded an early goal to arch-rival Boston College, but responded with four unanswered tallies to defeat the Eagles at Walter Brown Arena, 4-1. The win improved the defending national champion’s record to 11-2-1.

With the win, BU evened its all-time record against BC for the first time since the 1947-48 season, 49-49-4. The victory was also the Terriers' 16^th out of 17 vs. the Eagles, going back to 1968-69.

Midway through the first period, Dave Wisener knotted the score at 1-1, scoring from a scramble in front of the net. Then, right after Dan Brady stopped BC’s Joe Fidler on a breakaway, Wisener, a transfer from the University of New Brunswick, scored again for what became the game-winner. [Note: Fidler’s two younger brothers became standouts at BU. Mike Fidler played for two ECAC champion teams in the mid-70s and Mark Fidler was the top scorer (30-35-65), as a freshman on the Terriers’ 1978 national championship team].

Playing without injured captain and leading scorer Jake Danby, BU added two more scores in the second period. All-American defenseman Bobby Brown connected one minute in and Ray Cournoyea scored his first of the season at 18:02.