BU Hockey '24-'25: Reloaded for another Frozen Four run

[Bomber]

Jay did a nice job of pumping the tires on the "World Juniors Four." Not so much with the goaltending. - But he's not wrong. And he hasn't announced a starter for tonight.

I actually have ZERO idea of what to expect from this team tonight. The Yale loss was brutal (I was there.) I would expect to see a hungry team that is on-top of every puck and committed to playing a clean game. We shall see.

Oh, and it's student break, so the crowd will be .... ? 3.5k? 4k?

BU Hockey: Got Defense?

 

[Rogie21]

Jay did a nice job of pumping the tires on the "World Juniors Four." Not so much with the goaltending. - But he's not wrong. And he hasn't announced a starter for tonight.

He wasn't going to throw any individuals under the bus, but did say about goaltending:
"It's been below our expectations, I'll say that. We're giving up, I think it's 3.5 goals a game...that has to come down. But we're a team. It's a team game. We have to be better as a team to keep the puck out of the net. We haven’t possessed the puck in the offensive zone as much as we need to. We haven’t created second and third opportunities for ourselves like we need to.

"We’ve always been a good defensive team because we’ve had the puck more. We’ve transitioned fast, made it harder for the other team to get a lot offense going against us. This year has been different. We’ve been in the [penalty] box way too much and that’s really affected our team in finding a rhythm.”

[/QUOTE] I actually have ZERO idea of what to expect from this team tonight. The Yale loss was brutal (I was there.) I would expect to see a hungry team that is on-top of every puck and committed to playing a clean game. We shall see. [/QUOTE]

Anything short of that will be very disappointing.

 

[Rogie21]

12-9-15
34-4-17
18-11-21
61-8-3
23

44-2
78-5
10-22

62
33
1

 

[mookie1995]

Any reason why Saturday's game is at 5:00pm? It can't be to accommodate a Patriots Playoff game. Ahhh, remember the days??

Stillers game

 

[Scarlet]

No comments on last night’s game? Glad they won. I didn’t know what to expect to be honest. And with UVM coming in riding a five game winning streak…well, it could’ve been ugly. Thankfully it was not. Six goals aside, it wasn’t the greatest performance but a win is a win is a win.

I was kind of disappointed in how they honored the WJC kids. They didn’t need to do a whole blown up thing but they had the lights low for the anthem and honored them in the dark. It was weird. Who makes that decision?

 

[Rogie21]

No comments on last night’s game? Glad they won. I didn’t know what to expect to be honest. And with UVM coming in riding a five game winning streak…well, it could’ve been ugly. Thankfully it was not. Six goals aside, it wasn’t the greatest performance but a win is a win is a win.

BU's last 6-1 win before last night was last year's regular season final against the same UVM team. Same goalie. Quinn had a hat trick and Harvey scored, too. Good to see BU hunting and retrieving pucks in the O-zone to create second and third chances. More on the blog.

 

[BUPhD]

Vermont seemed...not good...for a team that was riding that much of a winning streak. Offense was clicking well enough, but there were still the defensive lapses a better or sharper team would have made them pay more than one goal for.

 

[Bomber]

This was a very odd game. My grades by period for BU:
- 1st = C-
- 2nd = B
- 3rd = B-.
- Overall = C+

How many off-sides did they have in the first? 7? 12? 25? If felt like 25. The first had "first game together" vibes.

Other random observations:
- Scarlet is right, the WJC acknowledgements were awkward and poorly executed. Like they thought of it 2 minutes before doing it
- Chewy was solid. (He needed that) and made some big saves
- Ryan Green showed what's he's capable of when he takes charge, but that second period turnover...
- Thank God UVM sucks. They missed at least 4 open nets. And were kind of a disaster in their own end
- Eiserman was mister pass-first guy most of the night, which was odd.
- Harvey's goal was a sick snipe. Top 5 goal of the year so far
- Merrimack 5, BC 2. - Didn't see that one coming

BU Hockey: Don't Lose Tonight

PS: I Smell a 2-1 game. Hope BU is the one with the 2.

 

[BU93]

I like what they tried to do last night and it worked to some extent, but too many turnovers, breakaways and odd man rushes the other way again. Caron was better and that was the difference. Low penalty minutes - finally! Vermont didn’t seem that great, and we had some absolute lasers on net, along with a good bounce or 2. Looking for more clamp down D tonight and no bad turnovers.

 

[mookie1995]

Who makes that decision?

FOH


ok

 

[BU93]

Uncharacteristic Jack Harvey not putting it in on 1 on 1 with the goaltender, otherwise we have 5 or 6 right now. Need to clear out ALL rebounds - it’s a problem right now.

 

[BUPhD]

Just about any team other than Vermont would be making them pay dearly for all these penalties. It's back to the undisciplined play tonight...ugh.

 

[BU93]

Well, that’s all moot now….

 

[BUPhD]

Yeah but with UNH and BC coming up...

I just wish these guys would put in a full game of well oiled machine hockey.

 

[Bomber]

They sleep walked through the first, but woke up for the second and third. The PP is kind of a mess. Eiserman’s shot is lethal. Goaltending is a problem again.

Entertaining game. There were quite a few soft penalties. On both sides.

BU Hockey: Just Don’t Be Boring

 

[Rogie21]

The PP is kind of a mess.

I'd call it Jekyll & Hyde. First two were generously called "listless" by Bernie. Then the last two: scored on the rush, scored five seconds after the draw. Four goals on 9 power plays against Vermont's PK (87% before the weekend) is progress.

Good news: #3 in scoring offense nationally. Bad news: #26 in scoring margin.

 

[BU93]

The scoring ability is top notch (actually tied for #2 with Denver at 3.9/game). Quite unbelievably, this is a BU team giving up 3.4 per game which is 56/61 in the nation. Even worse - Caron is 74th is GA and 71st in SV% with .895. I can’t remember the last time defense and goaltending were rated so low. Usually when our program struggles, it’s a lack of scoring. The success of the program will be determined by how much everyone gets better with keeping pucks out of our net. I think some strides were made this weekend with trying to just eliminate time the other team has with the puck, but there still needs to be better awareness around our own net covering people more consistently - and those breakaways against have got to go - maybe 1 per game at most, not 5 or 6.

 

[Section 6 Row S]

I don’t know if Bernie mentioned it on the broadcast, but several years ago BU got a commitment from Michael La Starza, who was a high-end prospect at the time. His stock dropped and he wound up at Vermont. He hasn’t produced much there so far but I guess he had some extra motivation last night because he finished with a goal and 2 assists.

 

[Scarlet]

I’ve been whining about this for several years but they have an innate inability to win the face off at the start of a power play. I watched UVM’s power play and, while they didn’t score, most of the time they were able to control the puck at the start of it. BU loses that face off, puck gets cleared out of the zone and by the time they come back in the zone, 20-30 seconds have passed. Drives me nuts.

 

[Jofa]

The scoring ability is top notch (actually tied for #2 with Denver at 3.9/game). Quite unbelievably, this is a BU team giving up 3.4 per game which is 56/61 in the nation. Even worse - Caron is 74th is GA and 71st in SV% with .895. I can’t remember the last time defense and goaltending were rated so low. Usually when our program struggles, it’s a lack of scoring. The success of the program will be determined by how much everyone gets better with keeping pucks out of our net. I think some strides were made this weekend with trying to just eliminate time the other team has with the puck, but there still needs to be better awareness around our own net covering people more consistently - and those breakaways against have got to go - maybe 1 per game at most, not 5 or 6.

I cringe to think what a team like BC would do again them offensively. We saw what Michigan, NoDak, Umass, Maine , Lowell and even Yale did. I wasn’t the least bit impressed with the defense or Caron this weekend. Same old for the most part. How about Kaplan in a 3-2 game punching VT player as he was heading off. When will Pandolfo make him accountable. They have no chance at trophies this year playing like this defensively though incredibly they are #8 in PWR.