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If you asked someone at the beginning of the season if the University of Maine men’s ice hockey team would meet up with the Boston University Terriers in the Hockey East Semifinals, the response probably would have been a firm “yes.” Ask the same question before last weekend’s Hockey East Quarterfinals and your probable answer would have been “not a snowball’s chance in Hell”
Well, the unthinkable happened and the two old rivals will meet in the first of two Hockey East Semifinals at the Fleet Center in Boston on Friday afternoon. UMaine faces off with BU at 5 p.m., while two-time defending Hockey East champion the University of New Hampshire will take on the University of Massachusetts at 8 p.m.
The improbable match-up happened after the Terriers saved their season on the final night of the regular season and avoided their first year without a postseason as a member of Hockey East with an overtime goal by David Van der Gulik at UNH on March 6. The Terriers followed that up by stunning the Hockey East Regular Season champion Boston College Eagles on the road, winning two games to one in a best of three series to advance. BU took Game One 3-2, lost Game Two 4-0, but won the deciding Game Three 4-2. That after BC had won all four regular season meetings over BU.
“They beat UNH, then BC, and now they have an opportunity to play us at the Fleet Center, which is kind of a home game for them,” said UMaine coach Tim Whitehead. “Expectations were dropped for them as the year went on. People expected less and less for them as the season went along, and now they have an opportunity to salvage something. If we’re able to beat them under those circumstances, I think that will be a big win for us.”
BU, coached by Jack Parker (in his 31st season at the school) is 12-16-9 on the season thus far. Their eighth-place finish in the regular season was their lowest ever in Hockey East. But, the Terriers have won three of their last four games and will need to win the Hockey East Championship to make the NCAA tournament. The winner of the league’s postseason tournament gets an automatic berth into the national tournament.
UMaine, the second-seeded team in the tournament and second-ranked team in the nation, swept seventh-seeded Merrimack on Friday and Saturday at Alfond Arena by scores of 2-1 and 3-2, respectively, to advance. The Black Bears had to come from behind in the third period of Game Two, something UMaine hasn’t done much this year. UMaine’s win on Saturday was just the second all year when it trailed after two periods (2-7-0).
“Combine that with the third period the weekend before [against BC], we came into the third tied, BC scored, and then we came back and tied it and won in overtime,” Whitehead said. “While BU definitely gained confidence from their victories, I think we gained confidence from our victories as well.”
UMaine also boasts the reigning Hockey East Player of the Week in senior forward Colin Shields. Shields had three goals on the weekend against Merrimack, including both goals in Friday’s win. In the three games against BU this year, Shields has four goals, including a three-goal effort at BU on Jan. 23, two of which were shorthanded.
“It always helps to know that you have some key players who rise to the occasion against a certain team,” Whitehead said. “They’ll probably check him tightly, but he responds when teams do that to him. It’s certainly good to know that Colin is playing well down the stretch.”
Shields is leading the team in points with 42 (17 goals, 25 assists).
But, the Terriers have the reigning Hockey East Defensive Player of the Week in senior goalie Sean Fields. In three games at BC last week, Fields recorded 28 saves in Game One, 37 saves in Game Two, and 35 in Game Three. He also shut out the Black Bears in the final game the two teams played this year on Jan. 24, making 27 saves. His season numbers are disappointing, with a 10-15-7 record, a 2.86 goals against average, and an .899 save percentage.
“We have to get to the net front and stop on the net,” Whitehead said. “We have to work for rebounds. We have to take his eyes away on point shots. We have to put a lot of pucks on the net to get returns. We have to release the puck quickly to generate chances. We can’t start teeing up slapshots. He’ll handle those pretty easily.”
BU’s scoring has been down this year. The team’s leading scorer is junior defenseman Ryan Whitney. He has nine goals and 16 assists for 25 points. He is also the team’s best defensive defenseman. Whitney is helped on the blue line by junior Bryan Miller (five goals, 15 assists) and freshman Kevin Schaeffer (five goals, 12 assists.)
BU’s offense, though stagnant at times, has woken up recently. In BU’s last three wins, the team has scored a total of 11 goals. One of the team’s snipers is Van der Gulik, a sophomore with 13 goals and seven assists. Senior Frantisek Skladany (three goals, 21 assists), and freshman Kenny Roche (nine goals, nine assits) have been the other key players all year. BU also may get senior Kenny Magowan back in the lineup. He has been out since mid-January with a broken leg. He was the team’s leading scorer at the time with nine goals and six assists. He has played 25 games.
“They’ve got a lot of talent on that team and it’s just starting to come out now,” Whitehead said. “It was only a matter of time, so it doesn’t surprise me that they are starting to score goals now. Every game from now on is going to be tough, so that’s fine.”
The other two semifinalists advanced in different ways. Third-seeded UMass, despite carrying a seven-game winless streak into the Quarterfinals, swept No. 6 UMass-Lowell at home with 6-3 and 3-1 wins to advance. Fourth-Seeded UNH had three games to knock off fifth-seeded Providence at home, winning Game One 2-1, losing Game Two 4-3 in overtime, and winning Game Three 1-0.
The winners of the Semifinals will play for the Hockey East Championship at the Fleet Center on Saturday night at 7 p.m.
