Friday, December 02, 2022

Game Day: Terriers visit UNH; Hall of Fame Inductions for Fidler and Poulin

                                     


#9/7 Terriers resume Hockey East action with a home-and-home series against New Hampshire. Tonight’s game at the Whittemore Center in Durham starts at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on NESN+. Live stream is on ESPN+

BU currently sits in sixth place, having played fewer games than UConn, Northeastern, Providence and Lowell, and will be looking to add conference points.

The Wildcats are winless in 10 Hockey East games (0-9-1) and are 3-11-1 overall.  Top scorers are defenseman Colton Huard (9 points) and forwards Cy LeClerc (8), Liam Devlin (7) and Ryan Black (6). Senior David Fessenden has handled most of the goaltending duties and brings a 2.82 GAA and a .905 save percentage. Freshman netminder Tyler Muszelik has a 3.53 GAA.

The teams met the first week of December last season as well with BU claiming a 3-1 win at Agganis and a 2-1 overtime victory in Durham. 

During the off season, the ice surface at the Whittemore Center was renovated and the rink which had been 200 x 100 is now 200 x 90 which is the same size as Agganis.

With UNH slumping, the contest has the potential to be a trap game, but Head Coach Jay Pandolfo says the Wildcats’ record won’t impact his team’s preparation. “It’s another big weekend, I know UNH has been struggling a little bit but they’re always good at home and we need to make sure we’re ready to play.” 

He added, “They’re going to be a desperate team. They’re competing really hard. They haven’t got the results they’ve wanted but they’re in every game, so we just have to make sure we’re ready to play and compete starting tomorrow.

Matt Brown has the hot stick for the Terriers (see NEHJ story below). His 7-10-17 line equals last season’s output but in half as many games. Brown has been on the scoresheet in nine of BU’s 12 regular-season games and had a goal and two assists in Saturday’s exhibition against the U18s. Freshman center Ryan Greene has 12 points while Quinn Hutson, Luke Tuch and Jay O’Brien each have eight. On the backline, Lane Hutson (14 points) earned Hockey East Player of the Week honors with a pair of goals against Notre Dame. Senior captain Dom Fensore has elevated his game of late and has nine points.

Drew Commesso has won five of his last six starts yielding just 10 goals in those games. His GAA is down to 2.41 and his save percentage stands at .915. Pandolfo mentioned that “Drew has been fighting a little bit of sickness this week so we’ll see how that plays out tomorrow before we make a decision.” 

TONIGHT'S BU LINEUP 

Wilmer-Skoog-Brown

Tuch-O'Brien-Kaplan

Phillips-Greene-Q.Hutson

Armstrong-Stevens-Peterson

Zabaneh

Fensore-Gallagher

L.Hutson-McCarthy

Webber-Copeland

Duplessis

Schena   

● GoTerriers.com preview, Live Stats, All-Access (audio), BU Men’s Hockey Twitter

● Live Stream: ESPN+

● Broadcast NESN+

●  Pandolfo Media Call

● Boston Hockey Blog preview

● College Hockey News Tale of the Tape

 

►USCHO.com Solid Play on Both Sides of the Ice has BU ranked in top 10 nationally.

►NEHJ’s Mark Divver explores How Matt Brown became a scoring for BU (subscription). The left-shot forward from New Jersey is currently playing right wing on a line with Wilmer Skoog and Jeremy Wilmer.

“I like it a lot. Skoog is really good at puck protecting and Wilmer is really smart and can make good plays. It makes it easy to play with them,” Brown said.

Asked to describe himself as a player, he replied, “I’d say I’m a fast player who works hard. I’ve got a pretty good touch around the net. I’ve had some good success this year, but I’ve had a lot of linemates that have set me up.”

Brown decided against attending an NHL development camp this summer. “I just wanted to stay home and train. I went to (camp) with the Bruins (in 2019) and it was fun and a good experience, but my thought this summer was to stay where I was, keep a low profile and work all summer,” he said.

Brown, who is now 5-foot-9 and a solid 190 pounds, has never seen his size as an issue. “I’ve always been undersized. I remember my 14U year I was 4-9 and 90 pounds. I was probably one of the smallest high school freshmen you could find. I always tried to make up for it in the gym,” he said.

►This week’s episode of Inside BU Hockey features Bernie Corbett’s interview with Men’s Coach Jay Pandolfo and Women’s Coach Brian Durocher. Owen Gund catches up with Domenick Fensore and James Garrison interviews Andrea Brändli.

 

►The Daily Free Press is reporting that BU will play two games against Notre Dame in South Bend next season.

 

Looking back

Mark Fidler is being inducted into the BU Athletics Hall of Fame on Saturday. As a freshman, Fidler had a team best 30 goals and 35 assists to lead BU to a 30-2-0 season in 1977-78, culminating in the Terriers third national championship of the 1970s. Over four seasons, he would score 77 goals and add 101 assists.

That championship season is detailed in Tim Rappleye’s book: Jack Parker’s Wiseguys: The National Champion BU Terriers, The Blizzard of ’78, And The Road To The Miracle On Ice. In the Terrier Tales section of the sidebar, we’ve posted a chapter from the book, The Education of Mark Fidler.  The induction will take place at 11:30 a.m. in the Francis Burke Club Room on the concourse of Agganis Arena.
● Elite Prospects Page

Also being inducted Saturday is Terrier standout and Olympic champion Marie-Philip Poulin (see details below).

Matt Nieto is wielding a hot stick for Coach David Quinn’s Sharks, scoring five times in his last nine games, including back-to-back games. Here’s his latest in San Jose’s 3-1 loss to Toronto:

Jake Oettinger stopped all 31 shots he faced in the Stars' 5-0 blanking of the Ducks. It was his fourth career shutout.   

 

Jack Eichel scored his 12th goal in the Golden Knights 4-3 loss to the Penguins.

 

Women’s Team

After spending the holiday in Nevada at the Henderson Collegiate Hockey Showcase, the Terriers resume conference play hosting Maine for a pair of games at Walter Brown Arena. Tonight’s game, which will live stream on ESPN+, starts at 7 p.m.

The Black Bears are in sixth place, two points ahead of BU. Grad student Grace Heiting is their top scorer with a 7-6-13 line. Senior Julia Nearis has a 6-8-14 line for the Terriers.

● GoTerriers.com preview, Live Stats, All-Access (audio), BU Women’s Hockey Twitter

● Live Stream: ESPN+

● International stream

● Boston Hockey Blog preview

 

Terrier standout Marie-Philip Poulin also will be inducted into the BU Athletics Hall of Fame Saturday. In four seasons she rang up 80 goals and 181 points. In 2014-15 she served as captain and led BU to a fourth consecutive Hockey East Championship. In addition to a long pro career post-BU, Poulin has won three Olympic gold medals (2010, 2014, 2022) and scored the “golden goal” in the first two. In addition to her pro career, Poulin is a skills and development consultant for the Montreal Canadiens and worked with Terrier freshman Lane Hutson at Montreal’s summer development camp.

● Elite Prospects Page

● Wikipedia Page

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