By Jill Saftel, News Staff
As the minutes ticked down in Agganis Arena at Boston University on Friday night, the Terriers and the Huskies were each playing for their lives; tied at 5-5 with three minutes to play. Shortly, it would be Northeastern captain Vinny Saponari banging on the glass and victoriously pointing at the husky on his jersey, having scored the game-winner against his former team.
It was a familiar sight to the Agganis crowd. Saponari actually accomplished the same feat during the Huskies’ last trip down Commonwealth Avenue in a 5-4 overtime win on March 3, 2012.
“To get a game-winning goal in any game is fun, but against your friends and former team is always even more fun,” Saponari said.
The Huskies went for the shock factor Friday night, taking a 5-2 lead over then-No. 9 BU in the third period. Hanging onto that lead got dicey in the final 20 minutes of ice time as the Terriers mounted a comeback to knot the teams at five goals apiece, but thanks to Saponari’s late heroics Northeastern skated off with the 6-5 win.
“I was following Kevin [Roy] up and just looking for something like that,” he said. “I knew he was going to try to make a play and it kind of just got poke checked right to me. From there I was just taking it to the net and hoping for the best. I was able to jam it five hole and I was pretty excited after that one.”
But the weekend was a case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for Northeastern hockey, which fell apart against then-No. 2 Boston College 24 hours later on their home ice, losing 9-3.
After coming back from a 2-0 deficit in the first period thanks to goals from junior forward Braden Pimm and senior assistant captain Robbie Vrolyk to even the playing field at 6:11, the Eagles began to outperform the Huskies.
Ultimately, BC would leave the Matthews Arena ice six goals up on Northeastern, and the Huskies’ first-period comeback would be all but forgotten after the Eagles scored six unanswered goals and skated like the nation’s second-best team.
Even with one win, there’s a staggering flaw in the Huskies’ stats from the weekend: the number of goals allowed. Between BC’s offensive onslaught on Saturday and BU’s attempted comeback Friday, Northeastern allowed 14 goals in two nights.
While that number is high, all the blame doesn’t fall on the player in the crease, according to head coach Jim Madigan. Senior goaltender Chris Rawlings made 29 saves Friday night and with backup netminder Bryan Mountain made a combined 22 saves on Saturday. A young defensive core allowed the Eagles to infiltrate their zone and get shots off close to the net.
“We lay an egg defensively,” Madigan said. “Look in front of the net. Our guys didn’t want to cover the net against the best offensive team in our league. We gave them opportunity after opportunity.”
And even when the Huskies were handed opportunities of their own, like a 5-on-3 advantage during the second period, they were unable to capitalize.
Madigan said the loss was “embarrassing,” but that it wasn’t due to excitement being carried over from Friday night’s win. The team met Saturday morning, went through their pre-game ritual, and the coach said there was a focus among his team that just didn’t transfer to the ice.
“We didn’t come to play. We weren’t ready to play,” Madigan said. “We lacked focus. We lacked effort, and just didn’t compete well. The only thing sore for us is our necks from watching them skate around us all of the third period.”
It was a far cry from the level of competition the Huskies brought to the ice the previous night. NU got 24 shots off Saturday night after approaching 40 the previous night with 38 shots fired against BU.
“It was a challenge for us tonight to see if we could come back and match the same intensity and effort and play and get four points out of the weekend against two quality opponents … We didn’t meet the challenge,” Madigan said. “It was an emotional high last night but our kids need to get to a point where they expect to win. They needed to come in here tonight expecting they were going to get two points.”
While facing BC and BU in back-to-back games is arguably the most challenging weekend the Huskies could have competitively, this weekend’s home-and-home series against University of Massachusetts-Lowell will be no walk in the park. The Riverhawks are currently ranked No. 15 nationally and are on a nine-game winning streak despite sitting in the bottom half of the Hockey East pack in sixth place with a 7-6-1 conference record.
Northeastern remains tied for eighth place in Hockey East with the University of Vermont, and only the University of Maine sits below them in last place. Two wins and a four-point weekend and the Huskies could push themselves into seventh place and one point behind Lowell.
The Riverhawks come to Matthews Arena on Friday at 7 p.m.
