It took just four shots on goal for Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves to realize that Adam Miller was having a less than spectacular start in net.
Having just seen Miller let up a bizarre goal to Teddy Doherty that was shot from center ice, Eaves had to make a quick evaluation of his senior goaltender. The evaluation was simple.
“It wasn’t his night.”
While Miller may be singled out as a microcosm of the Badgers’ woes Friday night, it was not the night of many of Miller’s teammates, as the Badgers fell to the Boston College Eagles in a 6-0 rout at Kelley Rink.
It took just 12 seconds for the Eagles to open up the scoring in the game. Austin Cangelosi cleaned up a Chris Calnan rebound to start the scoring for the night.
Following the Cangelosi goal, the Badgers almost answered. Eddie Wittchow found the puck on his stick at the middle of the blue line and fired the puck on net, ringing off the post as it flashed by goalie Thatcher Demko. The puck proceeded to bounce off Demko and stop in the middle of the crease. The puck held there for a couple of moments before it was cleared out.
While Demko said afterward that did not know how the puck was able to stay out of the net, the Eagles had negated the Badgers’ first real offensive chance. In the process of negation, however, Steve Santini was cited for roughing. It seemed, despite the start, the Badgers were close to pulling back into the game.
Then the hammer fell.
Teddy Doherty found himself on the penalty kill halfway through the penalty time. Skating through the neutral zone, he found the puck on his stick at the red line. Doherty fired the puck into the zone to get some time off the penalty. Somehow the puck took a bounce on the ice and made its way past Miller. As Doherty outstretched his arms in bewildered jubilation, the truth of the matchup became evident.
It was not going to be the Badgers’ night.
The Badgers did work their way into some offensive opportunities in the second period. While many of the Badgers’ shots in the first period came from around the blue line, the Badgers found offensive chances in between the faceoff circles. Demko was not tested frequently in the first period following the shot off the post, but he found himself tested in the second period.
“I was pretty bored back there [in the first],” Demko said. “[Seeing more shots] wasn’t too much of an adjustment, just needed to be ready when the shots did come.”
Demko stopped all 10 Badgers shots in the second period, paving the way for the Eagles to open up the game. Cangelosi and Colin White scored two goals within 30 seconds of each other, and the Eagles took a 5-0 lead into the locker room.
It just wasn’t the Badgers’ period.
The first half of the third period was marked by penalties. The game deteriorated, as many laughers do, into a chippy, whistle-ridden contest. While Eaves took exception to some penalties being called, speculating after the game if the Hockey East officials had called penalties because “the referees wanted to blow their whistle a little bit,” the two teams did not play five-on-five hockey until a few seconds past the 10-minute mark. Amidst the deterioration, White scored his second goal of the game and season a few minutes into the third, which served as the final blow to the Badgers.
Jerry York mentioned Wisconsin’s program history as a reason why the win felt meaningful for the Eagles. The Badgers recent program history has been tumultuous, going 4-27-5 during the 2014-15 season. Yet, despite the history, both good and bad, only one thing mattered for Wisconsin Friday night.
It just wasn’t the Badgers’ night.
