By Eoghan Kelly, News Staff
Midway through the second period of Saturday night’s men’s hockey matchup, the Boston College pep band struck up Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” and filled Conte Forum with the tune of the song’s famous first line:
“I used to rule the world.”
It seemed fitting for an Eagles team that, after riding a 19-game winning streak to a NCAA championship in April, was overpowered and knocked off in a 3-1 loss to a young, unranked Northeastern team in its first game of the season the week before. But once the song’s echos could no longer be heard reverberating off the arena walls, the Eagles proved they do still rule the college hockey world – for now.
The Eagles brought the Huskies back down to earth Saturday night, dominating Northeastern for a full 60 minutes in a 3-0 victory and delivering their first loss of the 2012-13 season.
As a result, BC regained the top spot in the United States College Hockey Online (USCHO) poll Monday while Northeastern sank one spot to No. 15. The two teams are tied atop the Hockey East standings with four points and a 2-1 record.
“It was a tough loss,” senior forward Garrett Vermeersch said after a team practice Wednesday. “We knew it wasn’t going to be easy … We knew they were gonna come out hard and it was a special night for them so they were definitely gonna want to win. We just didn’t do some of the things that we did the last game.”
The Huskies had an opportunity to play spoiler on the night BC raised its 2011-12 championship banner. The Eagles came out of the opening faceoff energized, from the pregame festivities, their 5-4 overtime edging of University of Massachusetts-Amherst the night before and desire to avenge last week’s upset.
But the Huskies’ game plan crumbled and they failed to respond.
BC brought the high-octane attack it lacked in its season-opener, disrupting the Northeastern breakout and forcing the Huskies to consistently turn the puck over in the defensive and neutral zones.
The takeaways and offensive onslaught forced the Huskies out of position defensively, leading to a swarm of early offensive chances and two goals – by senior Kevin Hayes on the power play and sophomore Johnny Gaudreau – within the first 11 minutes that gave BC a lead it would never relinquish.
It was a complete role reversal for a Northeastern team that used an identical strategy to outscore its opponents 5-1 in the first periods of its first two games.
“They were all over us for the first [period]. I felt like we were on our heels for most of it,” sophomore defenseman Josh Manson said Wednesday. “That’s been our game in our own barn. I guess when we’re on the road we gotta get maybe more mentally prepared or get ready for the first period a little bit better.”
Northeastern struggled to establish its forecheck, making it too difficult to engage in the physical offensive play that pushed its first two opponents onto their heels and too easy for BC’s young defensemen to get comfortable.
The Huskies were hampered when head coach Jim Madigan was forced to jumble lines after senior center Steve Morra suffered a lower-body injury on his second shift and missed the remainder of the game. Senior forward and captain Vinny Saponari also missed the majority of the third period after receiving a 10-minute misconduct for unsportsmanlike play.
Northeastern often abandoned the aggressive two-forward forecheck that brought so much success in its first two games, clearing the way for BC to break out of its zone quickly and easily without any prolonged offensive pressure.
“Their neutral zone forecheck was killing us,” Vermeersch said. “We were trying to throw pucks in the middle, and we know to stay away from the middle, especially against BC. We just kept throwing it up the middle so they were doing a good job clogging it up and we just were having a tough time getting into their zone.”
When the Huskies did have the puck, the Eagles made life easy for senior goaltender Parker Milner by guarding the middle of the ice, keeping the Northeastern forwards to the outside of the offensive zone and breaking up cross-ice passes that would ordinarily create space. BC’s defense blocked eight shots and forced 10 others to go off-target, and the majority of the 26 shots that reached goal were from low-percentage scoring areas.
Madigan chalked Northeastern’s lack of scoring up to inconsistent offensive pressure and the solid play of BC’s netminder.
“We had a little momentum – it wasn’t sustained though. It was bits here and there,” he said after the game. “[Milner] did a good job on the shots that were in front of him … and he’s a good goalie, so when he sees a lot of shots, he’s going to make those saves.”
Northeastern started to come alive in the second period once they got their cycle going deep in the offensive zone and did a better job of controlling the puck along the corner boards, leading to grade-A chances for sophomore forward Joe Manno and freshman forward Cam Darcy on the doorstep.
But what little momentum they garnered was curbed when two penalties by Darcy and sophomore defenseman Dax Lauwers within 10 seconds of one another – two of Northeastern’s eight infractions on the night – led to a 5-on-3 goal for Eagles senior forward Steven Whitney that pushed the lead to 3-0, his second power play goal against the Huskies in as many games.
“Penalties are tough, especially against a team like BC,” Manson said. “They’re so skilled that their power play every year is always good. We gotta be able to stay out of the box. Penalties will kill you, in this league especially with the skill on every team.”
The third period was the only one in which the Huskies did not allow a man-advantage goal, but they couldn’t beat Milner despite outshooting the Eagles 8-4 in the final 20 minutes. It was the first time this season Northeastern has not scored in the third period.
Bouncing back will be difficult for the Huskies as they make their only trip of the season to the University of New Hampshire on Friday night.
The Wildcats (3-0) are the only undefeated team remaining in Hockey East. They play historically well at the Whittemore Center, one of the conference’s most intimidating venues due to its wildly loyal fanbase and Olympic-sized playing surface. UNH is 23-12-4 in Durham since the beginning of the 2010-11 season and have not dropped a home game to Northeastern since a 4-1 loss on Nov. 16, 2007, outscoring the Huskies 15-5 in that stretch.
But Vermeersch is confident the Huskies will respond after being shut down at BC.
“We’ll be fine. It’s only the third game of the season,” Vermeersch said. “We know we weren’t gonna go undefeated. No team’s gonna go undefeated. We’ll battle back, we’ll get back to our gameplan and go up [to UNH] on Friday night and see what happens.”
