Boston College 5, Men's Hockey 1: Mazzolini, Friars Rattled In Game 1

Chestnut Hill, Mass.- As one of their warm-up songs from back home –“No Leaf Clover” by Metallica, specifically- may put it, “the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way.”

The Friars had a most generous six days to complete the healing process that seemed to arise in the latter portions of last weekend’s slipshod series against Boston University. And all words from head coach Tim Army in the pre-playoff teleconference pointed to poise for a second season clean slate.

As it happened in the quarter-final opener with Boston College, however, the uglier part of PC’s regular season finale at BU was merely an ambiguous trailer to “Nightmare on Commonwealth Avenue.” Before a bipartisan crowd of 2,788 at Conte Forum –site of two of their last three far-between wins- the Friars submitted a brutishly executed 5-1 decision to the Eagles. Instead of rekindling their unexplained regular season magic here, they reran the trendier vanishing act and never recovered.

Among other things, Army would end up forking away starting goaltender Tyler Sims in favor of Ryan Simpson for the third consecutive outing. Additionally, Providence lost starting centerman Nick Mazzolini to an apparent head injury and spilled their chance to recompense a then 3-0 deficit on the resultant five-minute power play.

Only 78 seconds into Friday’s contest, Army made haste to use his only timeout as the radiant Eagles were making like the Hawks on District Five. Right at the sixty-second mark, Boston broke the ice as forward Dan Bertram was allowed to cradle the puck the length of the rink and deposit a rebound on Sims’ porch. Joe Whitney took a whack before Pat Gannon finished it off.

The PA announcer was hardly through disclosing the details to that goal before Benn Ferriero accepted a feed from Anthony Aiello at the blue line, strolled into the slot, and leveled home his first of two strikes on the night –three if you count the open-ice blow he would eventually deal to Mazzolini.

After their breather, the Friars weathered that tempest, despite an antsy trio of penalties around the halfway mark of the period that left them shorthanded for an incessant stretch of 4:23. But Army shifted crease custodians at 2:03 of the middle frame when fresh ice lethargy bit his team once more.

Eagles forward Matt Greene hustled after backchecker Eric Baier, stapled him in the near corner, and in effect looped the puck around the Providence cage. It would find its way to Ferriero, who blasted a low rider to the right of Sims.

Ferriero drew the ire of visiting Friar Fanatics at 10:12 when he elbowed Mazzolini at his own blue line, jerking the Friar forward to the ice helmetless and wiped. Even worse, PC’s all-you-can-score man advantage was but 27 seconds young when Ian O’Connor got a two-minute flag for hitting from behind. By the time Ferriero’s sentence was up, three minor penalties had been issued and the Eagles had used a 4-on-3 sequence to make things 4-0.

In the thirteenth minute, after Greg Collins had joined O’Connor for kneeing, BC’s quartet scraped out a head-spinning cyclone in the PC end. The far point patroller Whitney would offer a diagonal feed to Bertram, who laced the puck around the net to Nathan Gerbe, who, unguarded along the right post, slammed his first of two past a helpless Simpson.

The Friars did thaw out in terms of attempts at BC goaltender John Muse (32 saves), giving him his biggest sweat with 13 shots in the second period and eventually stamping a dead-even 33-33 final shot count. But their only red- lamper came with 1:43 to spare in the second on an offensive that was hardly settled and lengthy.

Forwards Jon Rheault and Matt Germain, filling in Mazzolini’s void, left a slippery biscuit at the brim of the Boston zone and defenseman Matt Taormina stepped up to buzz a straightaway slapper past a disassembled Muse.

Chippiness snuck into the final period –one late incident resulted in two roughing minors to each side- as the Eagles sped up the killing process and finalized the 5-1 tally with 6:13 remaining. Gerbe picked up the remnants of a failed PC rush, sizzled past all challengers, and completed a face-to-face burial between Simpson’s legs.

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press

Boston University 6, Men's Hockey 0: MacArthur, Terriers Singe Friars

Apparent remnants of the nose-dive virus that throttled the Bruins in Washington on Monday resurfaced Thursday at Schneider Arena to plague the Friars.

The final shooting gallery favored PC, 26-20 –an uncharacteristic count for both clubs, who came in with the two most active stick racks in the conference. Yet on its first seven allotted stabs, Boston University sculpted a 4-0 lead –the first three of those goals all coming from heat gun Pete MacArthur- by the 7:03 mark of the second period, at which point PC coach Tim Army summoned a time out.

By the start of the closing frame, BU had inched ahead 5-0, the muffled home portion of the audience had condensed considerably, and PC’s backup goaltender Ryan Simpson had succeeded Tyler Sims –who has perhaps taken the last bow of his distinguished collegiate career on home ice.

By night’s end, the Terriers had stamped a 6-0 triumph. For them, it was snappy supplementary redemption from last Saturday’s 5-1 drawback against UMass –where they authorized five goals on a slim 15 shots against and cut off their seven-game winning streak. They also guaranteed that the Friars cannot catch them in their bid for second place in the playoff bracket.

Instead, when these teams reconvene at Agganis Arena on Friday, Providence will be lashing out everything in their hands to preserve a home slot for next week’s quarter-finals. But there are eight other Hockey East teams, three within striking range of the fourth-place Friars, who will have a game in hand until late Saturday.

“We haven’t spent a lot of time (studying) our opponent. We’re a good hockey team when we come out ready to play to our strengths, so nothing changes for us,” said Army. “Obviously, home ice is at stake, but home ice will mean nothing if we don’t come prepared to play the best possible game we can play.”

In the wee minutes of Thursday’s contest, the Friars looked to be scraping out rewards of preparedness, charging up all of the first eight registered shots within 9:05 of play. The Friars’ close shave tempest climaxed with senior captain Jon Rheault dangling the BU defense and coming face-to-face with goaltender Brett Bennett, only to fumble the puck before he could muster a shot.

Afterwards, the Terriers took five unanswered, albeit sparsely distributed, stabs at Sims and converted on two. In the eleventh minute, their top forward unit ran a prolonged grinding session behind the cage that had Bryan Ewing lacing a feed up front to Chris Higgins. Higgins handed it off to his captain MacArthur, who batted it into the gaping right half of the net.

Later, with less than two minutes till intermission, Higgins forwarded the puck across neutral ice to an unguarded MacArthur, who bolted in alone from the blueline and ultimately jammed home his own rebound.

At 4:22 of the middle frame, Ewing again thrust out a feed for Higgins from behind the net. MacArthur again snuck in to the right of Sims and buried Higgins’ feed, polishing his natural hat trick and his linemate’s playmaker trick.

Eighty-five seconds later, Friar Chris Eppich was flagged for holding, inviting the Terriers to another extra-man strike. In another head-spinning tour around the PC zone, Brandon Yip unleashed a low slapper from the straightaway point and watched Nick Bonino catch it on the spot and lasso it around a flopping Sims.

At 15:05 BU’s Jason Lawrence clamped down a fluttering fugitive puck and nimbly raced it down the far alley. He shipped it across to linemate Joe Pereira, who skipped it through Sims’ legs.

Simpson stepped in for the third, getting his first lick of game action all season, and helped to generally compress the bleeding. But Bennett, who had his sweatiest period of the night with 10 shots faced and two penalty kills, pushed everything away while John McCarthy finalized the 6-0 blowout with 10:58 to spare.

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press

Men's Hockey Log: Friars Look To Sustain Momentum As Regular Season Closes

As the specialized 2007-08 laws of Hockey East physics ruled, the Friars served to tilt everything their way in the process of wresting three out of four points from Boston College last weekend. They rinsed out the previous weeks’ perplexing double-dose of Merrimack vinegar, inched two spots ahead in the USCHO poll (No. 19 to No. 17), earned first-time membership in the pairwise rankings, and –for the moment- regained a home ice slot for the playoffs.

Ironically, if the regular season were cut off a week short, Providence would be retooling to face the same Eagles –who they beat in the season series 2-0-1- in a best-of-three at Schneider Arena.

“I certainly like the way that we’re playing,” granted head coach Tim Army. “We played good hockey at BC, scored some timely goals, were able to get another big win at Boston College and set the mood for the weekend.

“I think it was a residual of our good play against Merrimack. You don’t always get rewarded, but if you stay with it, you keep playing good hockey, you will get rewarded in the long run.”

Not much length remains in the run to post-season play, however. In fact, PC gets a head start on the rink-based version of Judgment Week Thursday night as they host the other traditional Hub Hunks from Boston University. The teams will follow up with a twig-lock at Agganis Arena on Friday and then watch –most likely with a full set of crossed fingers and toes- the as the other ten lottery balls in the conference skip around one more time Saturday.

In a league-wide campaign that would have any puckheaded Lewis Black impressionist demand that everyone “Try and go through this logically” on at least one event per week, BU has only replenished its contenders’ image in the second half. Since Christmas, they are 11-3-2 in conference games after an abysmal 2-6-1 start.

Over the month of February, they vacuumed all seven of their regular league games –a streak that just ended last Saturday through a 5-1 lashing by UMass- and converted negative energy from a 4-3 falter to BC in the first round of the Beanpot by claiming third place the subsequent week.

Army’s logic: “BU always plays their best hockey this time of year. Usually, they really get themselves going around the Beanpot –usually they win the Beanpot. I think the loss to Boston College seemed to put a charge into them. They had a seven game (winning) run in Hockey East games, which is not easy to do as this time of the year.”

And now, the Terriers (13-9-3) are in a knot with Vermont for second place –which is as far as anybody may go what with New Hampshire already having made its claim to the peak. But the fourth-place Friars are only two points behind at 11-9-5 and themselves in a technical tie with BC.

Maybe toss in the fact that BU, deep under the national radar for the duration of their prolonged construction project, is only one slot ahead of PC in the eyes of USCHO at No. 16. Or, maybe not, if you’re perpetually tunneled on the 60-minute here-and-now like Army.

“You can only control one thing, and that’s how you play,” he said. “Sometimes when you try to control variables that are not controllable, the one thing that you do is let slip the areas you need to stay focused on. So we’re not focused on standings, we’re not focused on national rankings, we’re not focused on how the weekend is gonna play out. We simply are ready to play our game.”

Boston cannons: As part of their forceful resurgence, handfuls of the Terrier roster have hopped on to the forefront of the Hockey East scoring charts. Seniors Bryan Ewing and Pete MacArthur are Nos. 1 and 3 with 32 and 31 respective points.

Their top four blueliners –Kevin Shattenkirk, Matt Gilroy, Colby Cohen, and Brian Strait- have combined for a reckonable 46 points. Although, the Friars boast their own pair of hot-bladed defenders in Matt Taormina (league-best 25 points) and Cody Wild (22), who is on a three-game scoring streak.

Additionally, the Friars and Terriers hold the two heaviest cumulative shot on net bushels among Hockey East tenants this season. PC leads that derby by a count of 928-841 in conference play and 1224-1148 overall.

“They’ve got some very skilled defensemen, some very skilled forwards, and some good physical players who create space for those skilled guys,” said Army. “They’re a team that will be aggressive, they’ll be physical, they’ll put a lot of pucks to the net, and they’ll be looking to try and create some traffic and secondary opportunities.”

Quick Feeds: These teams have not met since Nov. 1, when the Terriers snagged their first win of the season through a 5-2 decision at Schneider. With that, BU remains the only team that the Friars have yet to take any points from…Many typical game night accessories –pep band, mascot, and many student spectators- will likely be missing Thursday due to a concomitant men’s basketball game. However, those who are going to Schneider have been asked to participate in a white-out event...Friday’s game at BU will be televised on NESN, beginning with 7 p.m. pre-game coverage before a 7:30 draw.