At least he thinks so. Fellow defenseman Cole Hutson asked the crowd Wednesday if he should eat his roommate’s bread as part of an Instagram takeover for Boston University’s student chapter the Dog Pound, a daylong endeavor that Hutson spent mostly finding ways to mess with his teammates.
However, he did not steal the leaven.
“But yes, quite a few trolls because he sat in my room all day when I wasn’t there,” the junior captain told reporters after training on Thursday.
If you were expecting some kind of fiery panic with BU’s season hanging by a thread heading into a standalone matchup with its bitter rival, well… the mood inside Agganis Arena on Thursday was remarkably unremarkable. Jay Pandolfo was not happy with his players, who were all present at the training. No one smashed their sticks after a missed shot or a frustrating drill. And when McCarthy was asked if there would be more urgency against Boston College on Friday, considering BU’s insecure position at the NPI, he hardly enjoyed it.
“Every match is important,” he said with a straight face.
Was that part of McCarthy’s media training? Probably. But for a team that has just nine games to climb eight spots in the NPI to avoid missing the NCAA tournament, the Terriers didn’t seem overly concerned. After a disappointing pair of losses to Providence last weekend, Pandolfo slightly retooled BU’s top power-play unit in practice, adding 6-foot-4 freshman Ben Merrill as a front presence, and he remixed the forward lines (sophomore Cole Eiserman, accused of social media regression this week, was in the top row). The Terriers have made adjustments, sure, but it’s nothing they haven’t done many times during this difficult season.
As for BU’s reset after easily the most deflating series of the season, McCarthy’s answer wasn’t exactly rocket science.
“Just back to work on Monday,” he said. “It’s in the past. You can’t change anything.”
In some ways, the lack of panic could be beneficial, as both McCarthy and Pandolfo attributed BU’s dormant offense to players “gripping the stick too tightly.” One of them is undoubtedly Eiserman, who had a nearly two-month scoring hiatus last weekend and, despite breaking it with two stunning goals from the face-offs on Friday, still squandered a slew of Class A scoring chances in open play. However, Eiserman is hardly the only offensive lineman struggling; the sophomore actually leads BU in goals (10). After Jack Harvey (8), there is no striker with more than five goals this season.
Almost everyone has been bitten by a snake at this point.
“It’s coming,” McCarthy said. “We have how many draft picks (19)? Guys can score. So we can’t worry too much about it.”
However, Pandolfo attributed his 31st-ranked offense to much more than just a monkey on BU’s collective back. When asked what’s going on at that end of the ice, the fourth-year coach rambled on for nearly two minutes, first citing the Terriers’ inability to create second and third chances, which was a recurring complaint. He said a solution to this would be to increase the number of shots, which would be a departure from BU’s normal identity in the offensive zone.
But he also said BU’s internal analytics show far too many of the Terriers’ shots are blocked or miss the net. His solution for That was that his players would be more selective in the shots they take, which obviously goes against the increasing shot volume.
Finding the balance there is complicated. Much more complicated than individuals living in their own heads.
“We ended too many plays in the offensive zone with blocked shots,” Pandolfo said. “If you don’t see a lane you can get through, you have to put it back under the goal line and reset your offense. We haven’t done enough of that.”
That takes effort, and Pandolfo’s misgivings about BU’s inconsistent efforts this season are well documented at this point. In that sense, the Terriers’ apparent lack of concern on Thursday may not have been the best thing in the world. Urgency has been an issue for BU all season. Pandolfo said it may take a while for a team as young as this to “figure it out [urgency] means” – and if the Providence series is any indication, the Terriers are still struggling in that area.
If you thought those games against the Friars were almost a must-win — and you should have — Friday’s matchup with the Eagles is even worse.
Whether the Terriers play like that remains to be seen.
“I liked the way our group handled this week,” Pandolfo said. “We didn’t seem too discouraged. Our boys responded well in training this week. The mood is good.”
Scouting the Eagles
They don’t have the No. 1 seed quality of the previous two seasons, but these Eagles are coming into their own and the product looked pretty good. BC is 14th in the NPI (and 13th in USCHO) after sweeping New Hampshire and has won seven of its last 10 games. And those losses included a loss to defending champion Western Michigan without star player James Hagens and a 4-3 overtime decision against Providence when BC outscored the visitors 46-19.
Hagens is tied for the team lead with 23 points (11 goals, 12 assists). He is joined at the top by sophomore Dean Letourneau (13, 10), who is a Hobey Baker nominee one year after a goalless freshman season. It will likely be freshman Louka Cloutier between the pipes, and he has a save percentage of .912.
“Really good hockey team,” Pandolfo said. “They have a lot of skills, a lot of depth, and they don’t have that [Jacob] Fowler is gone, but the goalkeeper they have is playing very well for them.”
BC is ranked 14th in the NPI and is currently the last team in the projected NCAA tournament field. The Eagles present another huge opportunity for BU to gain ground, and the Terriers could potentially get them again a week from Monday in the Beanpot finals, on top of a home-and-home series in late February.
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