In his midweek media call last Thursday ahead of a series against Northeastern, Jay Pandolfo was asked about the remaining six games of the Fall semester. They included those two matchups with the Huskies, a trip to Madison Square Garden to face Cornell, a home series against Vermont and another date at NU in Matthews Arena’s final game.
Given the Boston University men’s hockey team’s precarious position in NPI — 32nd entering last weekend, a long ways away from the 16-team NCAA tournament field — those games against Northeastern and Cornell, both of whom were in the top 10 of NPI, presented some of the Terriers’ last big chances to make up the ground they’d lost after a 5-6-1 start to the season.
So, yeah. Quite a lot for Pandolfo to be concerned about.
And yet:
“I’m not even concerned, quite honestly, about the six games,” Pandolfo said. “I’m concerned about the first shift on Friday night. That’s where we’re at as a team.”
BU cancelled Pandolfo’s media call this week ahead of Red Hot Hockey — which, given Cornell is both a non-conference opponent and third in NPI, is a significant game for BU’s at-large hopes — but his comments before Northeastern offer a telling glimpse into how BU is approaching the trip to MSG on Saturday. Indeed, the Terriers simply had too many things to figure out on the ice before they could even think about the NCAA tournament.
After all, if BU continued to play like it did through the season’s first 12 games — when it went 1-7 against ranked opponents — the Terriers wouldn’t have stood a chance in the national tournament, even if they qualified for it.
The good news for Pandolfo is that the Terriers (6-7-1, 4-4-0 HE) did play better in the series split with Northeastern, a 3-2 loss at Matthews on Friday and a 4-3 overtime win at Agganis Arena on Saturday. That was apparent on the statsheet, where the Terriers outshot the Huskies 81-51 over the two games, by the eye test, which showed an invested, mature and at times dominant team, and in the Agganis press room on Saturday, where Pandolfo’s voice was loud and excited after being reduced to a quiet murmur following BU’s 6-2 loss to Quinnipiac the week prior. You can bemoan the ultimate result all you want; suffice it to say, two points out of a possible six against Northeastern wouldn’t have been considered a success before the season. But Pandolfo wasn’t worried about results; he was worried about BU playing better.
And to that end:
“Overall, I really liked our game,” Pandolfo said of the 4-3 OT victory.
The Terriers showed legitimate improvement in all three zones, even if their play wasn’t anywhere near consistent enough. They showed flashes of the simplicity, toughness and attention to detail in the offensive zone they’ve lacked for most of the season, things like Nick Roukounakis winning puck battles at the end boards, or Jonathan Morello winning 59 percent of his faceoffs across the series, or Cole Eiserman hustling across the offensive zone to extend his stick and block an attempted clearance. Pandolfo correctly concluded that BU was simply “more competitive on pucks” than it had been. The Terriers made their presence felt in the neutral zone, too; Northeastern struggled to transition throughout the series, especially on Saturday. And for two periods of that series finale, the Terriers finally looked like a team at least interested in preventing goals when they were in the defensive zone (though don’t ask about the other four frames of the series). Twice in the first period on Saturday, BU drew a penalty after strong defense in the zone led to a quick rush opportunity.
“We’ve had a bit of a different approach to practice recently, really focusing on playing the right way and not cheating the game,” said the sophomore forward Roukounakis. “And I think tonight was a big step in the right direction, and it’s what Pando has been harping on. We’re just playing the right way and we need to do more of that.”
The big question, of course, is whether or not BU can actually sustain it. No better way to put that to the test than to play Cornell, which will demand the Terriers play with the level of physicality, effort and maturity they’ve so often lacked this season. The No. 17 Big Red (6-2-0) are no longer coached by Mike Schafer — the 30-year head man was replaced by his assistant, Casey Jones — but as Pandolfo and BU have learned in meetings over the last three seasons, the Terriers certainly won’t get away with “cheating the game” against Cornell. For all the progress BU made against the Huskies, that was also the takeaway after the Terriers swept Merrimack a few weeks ago, and they followed that series by getting detonated by Quinnipiac, another ECAC opponent.
And BU was far from perfect against the Huskies. Look no further than its play in the defensive zone on Friday, which cost BU a game it should’ve won. Saturday’s third period, in which the Terriers looked tired — or lazy, depending on how you view it — wasn’t great either. NU made it 3-2 after BU lost a series of puck battles and failed to get bodies in front of a shot from the point. The Terriers can rightfully bemoan the misfortune of the Huskies’ game-tying goal, another shot from the point which went in off Cole Hutson’s skate, but again, there weren’t enough bodies clogging the lane to the netfront. There were also moments in that third when BU got away from the simple game Pandolfo wants it to play — Brandon Svoboda, for example, tried an unnecessary backwards pass as he entered the offensive zone instead of just dumping the puck down behind the goal, which led to an NU transition as BU nursed a one-goal lead with two minutes to play.
This was hardly a season-altering performance. And for whatever it’s worth to Pandolfo, it showed in the rankings — BU lost more ground in both the USCHO poll (from No. 18 to No. 19) and NPI (32rd to 38th). The Terriers are quickly losing their path to an at-large berth to NCAAs — of the 16 that made last season’s tournament, the lowest-ranked team in PairWise by Thanksgiving was UMass, which was 25th, per College Hockey Insider. We don’t know yet how NPI will behave as the season goes on, but if it’s anything like PairWise, BU might already be in too deep a hole.
If that ends up being the case, the Terriers’ only path to NCAAs is through the Hockey East tournament. That would require BU to peak at the right time come the end of the season, which would require BU to start taking steps forward now.
And that’s all Pandolfo was asking for ahead of Northeastern. Just steps forward.
“Even,” he said, “if it’s baby steps.”
The Terriers certainly took a couple last weekend. Come 8 p.m. in Manhattan on Saturday, they’ll need to take a few more.
