It’s funny how much difference a game makes.
For the Northeastern men’s hockey team, Saturday’s 5-2 triumph over visiting Holy Cross signaled a change in attitude for the week and marked a badly needed lift after the Dogs dropped a heartbreaking 4-3 overtime affair with host Boston University the previous night.
“It leaves a sour taste in your mouth, you don’t want to leave a weekend with a loss,” said Husky center Jason Guerriero (two assists). “We would’ve liked to have had that win last night, but we didn’t and we bounced back today. [Holy Cross] is a great hockey team, and they played some of the best defense of anyone we’ve played so far. We’ll take any win; this is college hockey and every day is a battle. We’ll take the win, we’re happy, and we’ll go into next week.”
Husky coach Bruce Crowder was impressed by his team’s ability to rebound after the BU game.
“That was a real gut-check win tonight,” he said. “It’s so tough to get wins in college hockey, no matter who you are playing. I was very impressed with [Holy Cross]. Their defensive-zone coverage was probably as good as any we’ve played all year. They didn’t give us a lot of room. We persevered and kept at it, though. For us, it’s a win and it’s something we didn’t have a lot of earlier on, but we’re starting to put something together just in time for the rat race of Hockey East.”
Northeastern, still in the basement of the HE standings with a record of 1-8-1 in league, will face Providence in a key home-and-home series beginning Friday night at Matthews Arena. Providence, which has played one more game than NU, is four points ahead of the Huntington Hounds in the league standings. In other words, an NU sweep would pull Crowder’s crew out of last place.
Holy Cross got on the board first Saturday, when sophomore Blair Bartlett tossed a wrist shot to the right of Northeastern netminder Keni Gibson (20 saves) just six minutes into the contest.
NU’s top-scoring freshman, Carbondale, Colo. native Yale Lewis, knotted the score two minutes later, though.
Lewis skated up the left wing, and ripped a slapshot through HC goalie Tony Quesada for his third goal of the year. Lewis also got an assist in the third period on a powerplay score by fellow freshman Ray Ortiz.
“I think he’s been a real find,” Crowder said. “He’s a kid that we brought in here late. He’s a big body and he has a quick release. I think he surprised the kid on the first goal, and in front of the net on the power play he used his size to get the puck to Ortiz for the open net. He protects the puck extremely well, and he might not be the prettiest skater but he’s finding ways to get it done.
“He brings something to the table that we haven’t had here in awhile,” Crowder added.
HC again took the lead on a goal by junior Andrew McKay, but an Eric Ortlip powerplay tally with two minutes left in the opening period once again leveled the score.
After a lifeless, seven-shot second period, the teams peppered each other with 27 shots in the final frame, in which Northeastern connected on three for the victory.
Sophomore Steve Sanders, who has four goals and two assists since being moved to the top line with Guerriero and Mike Morris, potted the winning goal at the 7:28 mark of the third period, taking a beautiful backdoor feed from Guerriero and slamming it past Quesada for his fourth career goal.
Later, on the powerplay, Ortiz picked up a loose puck after it deflected off Lewis, who was parked in front of the net. With Quesada helpless, Ortiz smacked home the goal from just outside the left edge of the crease.
Then, with 29 seconds left to play, sophomore Brian Swiniarski finished NU’s scoring with an empty net goal from the red line.
On Friday, Northeastern traveled to BU to face a Terrier team that had been ripped apart by longtime coach Jack Parker in the previous week after losing a crucial Hockey East game to UMass, 2-1.
“This team has a tendency to want things to be easy,” he said. “They just came off a good weekend and they were hoping that UMass isn’t as good as Minnesota. We weren’t mentally ready to play this game and UMass certainly was.
“Does it take me by surprise that a BU team would do that? Yeah. Does it take me by surprise that this specific BU team would do that? No. That’s what I’m so upset about. That this specific BU team wearing this uniform can be so casual, so inept at keeping ready and getting ready and being ready to compete.
“It was embarrassing, the difference in the level of competition, the level of competitiveness. That game was not won on talent, on systems, on power plays or penalty kills. That game was won on heart and effort. They had a lot of both; we had very little of both.”
After the Terriers jumped out to a 2-0 lead just a minute into the second period, it appeared as though the message had been received.
But NU did not back down. The Huskies clawed their way back to take a 3-2 lead before the second intermission, courtesy of bad-angle goals from Ortiz, Morris and a backhand attempt from senior captain Trevor Reschny.
The three goals, all of which seemed to surprise BU “preseason Hobey Baker candidate” Sean Fields, led to Parker’s yanking the senior and replacing him with little used sophomore Stephan Siwiec.
Siwiec, however, was up to the challenge. He stopped all 14 shots he faced for the rest of the game, including a breakaway effort from Ortiz.
BU evened the score in the third period on Ryan Van der Gulik’s first goal of the season, a wrist shot just under the cross bar to Gibson’s stick side.
Then, at the 1:58 point of overtime, BU forward Bryan Miller slid the puck between Gibson’s legs in the midst of a chaotic Northeastern crease for the winner.
Friday’s home game against Providence begins at 7 p.m.
