THE HEIGHTS
B4
Monday, November 11, 2013
Eagles roll past Terriers BY MIKE HOFF For The Heights
GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR
Johnny Gaudreau tallied four points against the Black Knights. He kicked off the game with two goals and later notched two assists.
BC posts 11 goals in a shutout of Army BY ROB SHEEHAN For The Heights
After a dominant 5-1 road win over archrival BU on Friday, the Boston College men’s hockey team looked to avoid a letdown against 0 Army winless Army. Boston College 11 Ye t t h e r e was no such letdown for the Eagles against the Black Knights as BC posted an impressive 11 goals and had two goalies combine for a shutout. Ten different Eagles scored goals on the afternoon. Sunday’s game also marked the first time BC has scored 11 goals since a matchup against Holy Cross on Nov. 19, 1984. The Eagles were sporting shuffled lines to start the game with sophomore Peter McMullen and freshman Matthew Gaudreau seeing their first game action of the season. Gaudreau and McMullen were on the fourth line while Destry Straight and Michael Sit sat out. While Gaudreau was making his debut, his older brother Johnny Gaudreau was continuing to add to his collegiate hockey credentials. The elder Gaudreau opened the barrage of scoring with a power play tally at four minutes into the first. Johnny was tripped by Army’s Garret Peterson,
drawing the power play on which he deked three defenders and backhanded the puck past Army goalie Rob Tadazak. Gaudreau struck again at 8:40 with another breakaway goal, undressing another Army defender with his quick hands. Freshman Scott Savage assisted on Gaudreau’s first goal while Bill Arnold and Steven Santini provided the helpers on the second. BC held the puck for most of the first period and gave up very few chances to Army. Bill Arnold continued the first period scoring at 11:48, and freshman Ryan Fitzgerald added a power play strike less than two minutes later with a rocket from the edge of the left circle. The Eagles ended the period with 21 shots on goal to Army’s three. The BC scoring attack got rolling again early in the second period. The Eagles applied sustained pressure in the attacking zone, paving the way for Evan Richardson’s second goal of the season. Hayes kept the puck in the zone and passed to Fitzgerald, who made a nice drop pass to the trailing Richardson. Matt Gaudreau netted his first collegiate goal by getting to the front of the net and corralling a rebound nearly 15 minutes into the second frame. This sixth BC goal of the day chased Tadazak from the net. Freshman Adam Gilmour added another
Eagle power play goal at 16:37 when a high rebound found him perfectly in front of the net. Junior Brian Billett stopped 11 Army shots in the second and all of the 14 shots he had faced so far. After sophomore defenseman Michael Matheson zipped a shot past Army’s Parker Gahagen in the third for an eight goal lead, head coach Jerry York opted to pull Billett and get junior goalie Brad Barone some game action. Both Billett and Barone finished with 15 saves and combined for the shutout. Freshman Ian McCoshen, freshman Austin Cangelosi, and Hayes all added goals in the third to bring the final BC tally to 11. Several Eagles had prolific scoring days. Johnny Gaudreau and Arnold each had four points on the afternoon while Cangelosi, Hayes, Gilmour, and Fitzgerald each tallied three points. York noted the chemistry his lines have developed and the confidence the players have gained with the increased scoring output. He likened the confidence boost to that of a golfer with his driver. “Just like when you drive the fairway once, you feel like you’re going to hit the next fairway,” York said. BC’s head coach was also pleased that his team carried momentum from the BU win and didn’t suffer a letdown.
Going into Friday’s game, both the Boston College and Boston University men’s hockey teams were ranked in the top 25 nationally. Other than that, 1 BU the two ComBoston College 5 monwealth Ave. rivals could not be in more disparate states. Take the respective coaching situations. This past week, BC signed its head coach, Jerry York, the winningest coach in college hockey history, to an extension through the year 2020. BU’s head coach, David Quinn, had eight games of college head coaching experience heading into Friday’s showdown. The Eagles dominated on the scoreboard, on the ice, and deflated the Terriers en route to a 5-1 throttling at Agganis Arena during Friday night’s game, BC holding BU to just six even strength shots on goal. “That’s a really good hockey team we just played, [they have] a lot of depth up front, good defense, very good goaltending,” Quinn said. “They beat us in all facets of the game. It was a mismatch as the game went on. I don’t want to say we quit, but I think we got demoralized.” Dominant from the start, the Eagles controlled the first period. BU was outshot 16-5 in the first frame and gave the Eagles’ top lines chances that the Terriers could not afford in their current state. The most egregious of these opportunities came when, after a failed BU clearance, the puck found BC forward Johnny Gaudreau who quickly spotted linemate Austin Cangelosi, who calmly slid the puck in between O’Connor’s legs to put the Eagles up 1-0 9:10 into the game. Less than three minutes later, York showed part of why he deserved that extension. York spotted that Quinn iced his seldom-used fourth forward line, and York responded with the same Gaudreau-Bill Arnold-Cangelosi mix that put BC ahead. On the ensuing shift, Gaudreau beat O’Connor for his only goal of the night off of a pass from Arnold. The snipe gave BC a 2-0 lead 11:36 into the contest. “[Gaudreau]’s just a great college player,” Quinn said. “He’s a guy that can create an awful lot of offense and when you go to him and you don’t have 100 percent intent to play the body, you’re [going to] pay a price and we certainly paid a price tonight.” Arnold’s assist was the 100th point of his BC career, joining Gaudreau as the only active players to reach that milestone. The only time all game that the Terriers threatened to grab any momentum was 31
seconds into the second period, when Arnold was sent off for high-sticking. A minute and 29 seconds into the Terrier power play, forward Robbie Baillargeon’s shot caught freshman Nick Roberto’s stick and the puck fluttered past BC goaltender Thatcher Demko to make the score 2-1. The blemish would be the only one of the night for Demko and the Eagle defense. Despite six BU power plays, including a five on three late in the second, BC surrendered that sole goal and just 23 shots on net. “I thought we got outstanding goaltending from Thatcher Demko,” York said. “I thought our ability to defend on the penalty kill was [good], part of that was Thatcher, but also blocking shots and making good plays … especially on the five on three.” Any positives gained from Roberto’s goal were quickly retracted when Gaudreau pounced on a loose puck on an Eagle power play. With a shooting lane available, Gaudreau deked past a Terrier defenseman and saw nothing but white between him and O’Connor. He faked out O’Connor such that O’Connor was flailing on the ice, and then skated behind the net. Gaudreau threw a no-look, behind his back pass to Arnold once O’Connor had risen and skated to the other post. Arnold put it away and BC went up 3-1. “Johnny’s the only player I’ve ever played with that would know not to shoot it on that kind of mini-breakaway, take it behind the net, curl, and throw it back out,” Arnold said after the game. “It was the easiest goal you’re ever [going to] score. It was just a tremendous play by him.” In the third period, Kevin Hayes and Fitzgerald tapped into their recently developed chemistry on a neutral zone turnover by BU a little over seven minutes in. Hayes would beat the goalie with a forehand to backhand move for a 4-1 lead with 12:25 left. Less than a minute later, Hayes topped himself with a no-look cross-ice backhand pass to BC forward Destry Straight who was unmarked and behind the BU defense. Straight, a fourth-liner, easily beat O’Connor for the last goal of the game at 8:27. While the goal was mostly due to Hayes’ brilliance, Quinn saw mistakes from his squad that were representative of a team that doesn’t get it yet. “Hayes made a great play but we got three guys around him and everybody’s stick-checking,” he said. “It’s not about impressing the crowd with big hits, it’s about the subtle toughness in this game that ‘Joe Fan’ doesn’t notice. And we didn’t have any of that tonight.”
Similar second halves lead to two straight losses to start season BY AUSTIN TEDESCO Sports Editor
Steve Donahue wouldn’t even let the question finish being asked. He had heard, “How much did Friday…” and he had his answer. “Nothing,” the Boston College head coach said, putting his head down slightly and shaking it. Then he let out a quiet “no” under his breath. The BC men’s basketball team had just been dominated inside and on the glass by UMass in an 86-73 loss at TD Garden on Sunday, and he wanted to make it clear, in the simplest way possible, that Friday’s season-opening, 8278 overtime loss at Providence wasn’t the reason. This was a different game to Donahue, not a loss forced from a hangover of disappointment. Although Sunday’s result may not have been caused by Friday’s, the games had their striking similarities. The BC offense was stagnant for a majority of both contests. The Eagles found a little more flow against the Minutemen, especially right before and after halftime, but it couldn’t be sustained. Sophomore point guard Olivier Hanlan and junior forward Ryan Anderson carried the scoring workload, with Hanlan notch-
ing 23 points on Friday and 19 on Saturday and Anderson adding 21 then 22. They weren’t the type of offensive performances that impress their head coach, though. “When we’re playing well, five or six guys are close to double figures,” Donahue said. “I expect our overall team to be four double figure scorers, no one more than 15 or 16, a couple of eight. “What that tells me is that we’re just not playing good basketball like we need to.” Although Hanlan finished with 19 against the Minutemen, it was a quiet scoring effort for the most part. He was held to two points in just nine minutes of playing time in the first half after picking up two fouls, and then struggled to get going as the second half began. When Hanlan finally started to feel it from the floor, the game was growing steadily out of reach and BC was unable to make stops. The same thing happened on Friday, as Hanlan was held in check by the Friars until the second half. Anderson’s scoring was consistent throughout both games, but he couldn’t carry the offensive burden himself, especially since most of the points came within the larger framework of the offense. “I don’t know if he’s that kind of player,” Donahue said when asked if BC needed to
GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR
Olivier Hanlan logged just nine minutes in the first half against UMass, picking up two fouls.
run the offense through Anderson more. “I don’t think we’re that kind of team.” With BC getting killed on the glass— outrebounded 80-47 combined in the two games—the offensive deficiencies were even more costly. “One thing you combat if you are getting your butts kicked on the boards, is you do a great job on offense,” Donahue said. “You control the possessions. You get great looks, and at times we did and other times we were foolish. They got advantages in transition and threw it up on the glass and that’s where we’re exposed.” Sophomore guard Joe Rahon and junior forward Patrick Heckmann were BC’s two steadiest players through the Eagles’ first two games. While Anderson played well offensively and contributed on the glass, and Hanlan eventually found his shooting touch both nights, Rahon and Heckmann both played well all-around. With Hanlan flying around at an incredibly quick pace trying to take advantage of the referees’ quick whistles under the new hand-checking rules, Rahon picked his spots, using pace and his body to open up shots for himself or others. Through two games he’s put up a combined 21 points on 18 shots, adding nine assists. After logging four turnovers on Friday, he cut the total to one yesterday, despite playing 39 minutes. Rahon has missed less than two minutes of game time so far this year, an impressive feat considering he’s had to guard two quick and talented scorers in Providence’s Bryce Cotton and UMass’ Chaz Williams under the stricter handchecking rules. Heckmann hasn’t filled the box scores, but he’s proven a greater efficiency and consistency to his game. He’s a combined 5-of-8 from the field and 4-of-4 from the line for 16 points. As Alex Dragicevich continues to struggle in his return to the court after sitting out last season and Heckmann’s sore ankle starts to heal, Heckmann is becoming a greater threat for starter minutes. Even with the 0-2 start, Donahue said he needs to change what he emphasizes, not the team’s overall approach. “I don’t think there’s a change,” Donahue said. “I’m real honest with our guys. I have great confidence in this group. We’re going to be a good basketball team. I’m disappointed, for sure, but I’m not discouraged in how I feel this team can be.” BC gets two chances to bounce back against Toledo and Florida Atlantic at home this week, before a challenging slate at the 2K Classic in New York. “The scheduling is what it is,” Donahue said. “I’ve said this many times, if we want to be as good as we can be, we’ve got to play this schedule. That’s going to make us better. We’re going to learn from this. I have great confidence in these guys.”
GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR
UMass’ Cady Lallane dominated BC inside, putting up 27 points and grabbing 12 boards.