Last weekend featured one top-ten matchup, and I happened to watch the game on TV as the 266th edition of the BU vs BC game took place at Boston College Friday night.  This is the third most played series in college hockey, behind Michigan/Michigan State, and Denver/Colorado College, which have each occurred 294 times.  BU and BC first played in February of 1918.  BC held the advantage for twenty four straight years from 1948 to 1972, and BU has held the advantage for nearly forty straight years, since January of 1975; the greatest advantage in the series was in 2001 when BU held a 21 game advantage, but BC has been on such a strong run since then that the two entered the game Friday with the BU advantage down to ten games, standing at 129-119-17.  BC came in Friday night ranked #3 in the country, and BU came in ranked #5, the first time the two met, both ranked in the top five since the Beanpot final in February of 2012.  Who would win this 266th edition?

In the first period, both teams played evenly on paper, with seven shots apiece.  But it did appear that BC was man-handling BU with more aggressive hits, and more structured, set up offense, as opposed to BU’s racing in and out of the BC zone.  In the second, the man-handling by BC continued and paid off quickly as Chris Calnan back-handed his own rebound in front of the net to make it 1-0, BC.  The onslaught continued and only a minute later, BC’s Ryan Fitzgerald fired a shot off the top pipe of the goal, and BC clearly had BU back on its heels.  But BU didn’t stop fighting, and was consistently breaking situations up with their speed.  Nine minutes after Fitzgerald’s shot, BU’s Evan Rodrigues stripped a BC pass at their blue line, and cut in from the right.  Patience paid off as he considered a shot in the slot, but it wasn’t there; he held onto the puck and skated left, around the outside, and when he saw a crack between BC goalie Thatcher Demko and the pipe, he pulled the trigger for the score and tied it at 1-1.  But four minutes later, after BU goalie Matt O’Connor rejected a BC breakaway, BC’s Fitzgerald followed in and quickly skated in from the right, found O’Connor out of position, and fired in a shot to give BC the 2-1 lead, where it stood after two.  BC had dominated the second with 15 shots on goal to BU’s 7, and it made you wonder what BU could do in the third, if anything.

The third started, and it appeared that BU was eager to make things happen.  Two minutes into the third after a shot close to the net created a pile at the crease, and BC’s Demko was outstretched on the ice, BU’s Mike Moran chased the puck behind the net, saw Demko’s pads laid out in the crease, and fired the puck off the pad and got the rebound into the goal to tie it at 2-2.  But four minutes later a fairly lax handling of he puck in transition by BU’s Brandon Hickey led to BC’s Fitzgerald stealing the puck at the BU blue line and he just walked in and snagged another goal to give BC the 3-2 lead.  Six minutes later BU’s Jack Eichel (a freshman who is largely considered to be the top recruit in the nation among this year’s freshmen), won an offensive zone faceoff and followed the ensuing shot by Hickey, and put in the rebound to tie it yet again, 3-3.  Two minutes later, BU’s Rodrigues found the puck in the BU zone at the left side of the net, with a real traffic jam in front of the crease; so he skated around the backside of the net uncontested, and wrapped the puck around from the right into the pile, hoping for the best.  The shot ricocheted off of at least a couple of things in there and found its way to the net for the first Terrier lead of the night, 4-3, with about six minutes to play.  BU held BC off for the next three minutes, and then with three minutes left, BC found itself shorthanded.  But as the penalty expired, BC would shift quickly from short-handed to a man-advantage as they pulled goalie Demko to add the extra attacker.  But pressure in the BU zone at the right point took the puck away from BC, and BU’s Matt Grzelcyk and Cason Hohmann combined to find Nikolass Olsson skating down the left side of the BC zone, ahead of his defender, and he found the open net to make the final 5-3, BU.

So, is BU for real?  BU is on an early season roll, that’s for sure.  They have been propelled by Freshman Jack Eichel, and very good, persistent, even tenacious team play.  They went on the next night to play Connecticut, which had just beaten BC on Wednesday night, and came out with a 4-4 tie.  On the weekend, BU moved up a couple of notches to #3, and BC dropped down five slots to #8.  Last year BU started out hot, and was ranked highly.  All in the first half of the season, prior to the Christmas break.  Then came January and they did not win another game until the last weekend of the season, ending with their worst season since 1963, at only ten wins.  So the proof with these guys and their new coach is a long, long way off, as we’ve seen something like this before.  Coach David Quinn is going to have to show something he did not show last year, and that is that he can keep a team winning, and win games after Christmas.

BU was helped big time over the weekend by senior forward Evan Rodrigues, of Etobicoke, Ont., who scored two goals in Friday night’s 5-3 win over BC, and who tallied two assists in Saturday night’s 4-4 tie with UConn.  The 5′ 11″ 176 lb. Rodrigues graduated from Michael Power-St. Joseph High School in Etobicoke, and played for Georgetown of the OJHL, scoring 41 goals and tallying 64 assists in 93 games over two seasons.  His sophomore year at BU he was named a Hockey East Second Team All-Star, and finished tied for third on the team in total points.  His junior year he was named to the Hockey East All Academic Team.  So far this season he is tied for third on the team in goals with three, and third in assists with seven.  His hometown of Etobicoke, Ont., has a population of 350,000, and is actually a section of the city of Toronto.  It was initially a township in 1850, and then in 1954, it absorbed three other lakeside towns.  Otobicoke was incorporated as a city in 1984, and was then absorbed into Toronto in 1998.

A word, or many, on BC.  BC went on to lose to Harvard on Tuesday night, after the poll came out.  That makes four losses in a row for the first time since the 2003-04 season.  The BC team has been hit with a flu bug in the last two weeks.  Friday night against BU, BC had players out (including Mathew Gaudreau), and players playing ill (including goalie Thatcher Demko).  Demko did not play against UConn, and simultaneously, their talented and experienced backup goalie, Brian Billett, left the team for personal reasons.  That left BC with their third stinger, Brad Barone, a senior who has only seen limited mop-up action, as the starter, and it led them to Alex Joyce, a sophomore, who practiced on the team early last season, but was cut and who played on the BC club team last year.  This year he was not found on the club team, but instead hanging out with is friends.  So he’s a little rusty, and he was their backup.  So for BC, at 4-5-0, they’ll very likely drop out of the top ten next week, but not because they can’t be in it, but for getting caught with players out.  If anyone can coach a team to overcome a bad stretch, or a bad start, it’s Jerry York.  His 2008 national championship team started the season 3-4-5 . . . .

Ok, there are other teams out there, right?  Two top ten teams faced top twenty opponents last week with very different results.  Minnesota hosted Notre Dame for two games, and it was very one-sided both Friday and Sunday, as Minnesota swept, and held on at #1, while Notre Dame slipped out of the top twenty.  St. Cloud State hosted Minnesota-Duluth for two games, and St. Cloud had a lead with little time left in the third, but UMD tied it up, and then won it in OT.  The next night, it was a more one-sided UMD win.  St. Cloud State dropped eight spots in the poll, down to #15, and UMD moved up four spots to #13.

Elsewhere, North Dakota swept Wisconsin and held at #2, while UMass-Lowell tied and beat Northeastern, which lifted the River Hawks up a couple of spots to #4 in the poll.  Michigan Tech kept on its winning ways and swept Alaska-Anchorage, and moved up four spots to #5.  Michigan Tech is now 8-0-0 and is certainly the class of the WCHA.  Colgate suffered a one-sided loss to Quinnipiac, and came back to take a one-sided win over Princeton, but slipped two spots to #6 in the poll, while Miami of Ohio easily swept Colorado College, lifting the Red Hawks up four spots to the #7 ranking.  Mankato’s easy sweep over Bemidji State lifted the Mavericks up four spots to #9, and Vermont’s sweep of Maine also lifted the Catamounts up four spots, to #10.

This weekend there is one top-ten matchup as #2 North Dakota hosts #7 Miami of Ohio Friday night for one game.  Should be a great one.  And two top ten teams play top twenty teams, as #1 Minnesota plays a home and home series with a seemingly very hot #13 Minnesota-Duluth, and #10 Vermont will travel to #16 Providence Saturday night for one game.

This provides the top ten teams, rankings, records, and last week’s results:

[table id=93 /]

That’s all for now.  Stay tuned, and go Terriers!

— Tom