BOSTON — Two things have haunted Boston University all season: a struggle to play three good periods and a tendency to get beaten more often than they should by teams with losing records.
Both ghosts were kept at bay this weekend, as No. 11 BU completed a sweep against Maine — the last-place team in Hockey East — with a resounding 6-1 win in game that was never in doubt.
Freshman Bobo Carpenter and senior Matt Lane scored two goals apiece for the Terriers, while Lane added an assist. Doyle Somerby and Danny O’Regan also lit the lamp for BU, while a Cam Brown goal was the only thing keeping Sean Maguire from a shutout.
“Just a great weekend for us,” BU coach David Quinn said. “Any time you get four points over the weekend in this league, it’s a great accomplishment. That team tests your work ethic and your physicality and for six periods, I thought we did a good job of moving our feet and playing at a pace I don’t think we’ve been playing at lately.”
For Maine coach Red Gendron, the weekend represented a step backward after the Black Bears went toe to toe with No. 1 Quinnipiac in a 3-3 tie on Tuesday.
“Not a very good performance by us,” Gendron said. “Tonight and last night, I don’t think we played particularly well on the grinds in our own end. It not something we’ve had a problem with until we faced BU.
“In other games where we’ve given up a lot of goals, it’s primarily been the result of poor puck management, and that’s the truth. But that was not the truth against BU the last two nights. Our defensemen have to be better, and the other truth is that our goaltending has to be better. And our forwards covering in our end, they too must be better.”
BU kicked off the scoring at 5:09 of the first period. New arrival Oskar Andren and linemate Robbie Baillargeon cycled the puck in the right-wing corner, ultimately setting up Carpenter alone in the slot for a couple of strides before the freshman beat Rob McGovern with a point-blank wrist shot.
Just 26 seconds later, Somerby found himself behind the Maine goal line, where he stripped the puck from an opponent before scoring on a wraparound. After scoring just two goals in his first 73 collegiate games, the junior now has four goals in just 24 games this season.
“In general, all year Doyle’s been a little more aggressive,” Lane said. “In the past, he’s been more defensive, and this year he’s stepped up. He’s trusting his legs more. He just decided in his gut that he was going to go win that battle and take it to the net. Those are the kind of things we need as a team, and it’s great to see Doyle get some goals this year.”
Early in the second period, Carpenter scored again, tapping in the puck after a Charlie McAvoy shot was redirected by Lane. Then, at 11:57, Ahti Oksanen made a nice crossing pass from the left wing to tee up a backhanded finish by Lane.
At that point, Gendron pulled his goaltender in favor of Matt Morris.
That seemed to pay off when Maine made it 4-1 when Brown’s wrist shot from the point got through Maguire, but BU got that one back on a four-on-four goal less than four minutes later. Jacob Forsbacka Karlsson teed up a shot by Somerby, and O’Regan buried the rebound.
The Terriers rounded out the scoring early in the third period, when Oksanen dug the puck out of the right-wing corner and fed it to Lane for his second goal of the night. BU outshot Maine by a 37-23 margin in completing the sweep.
“It was focusing on not just playing 60 minutes, but 120,” Lane said. “I think we might’ve only swept once this year [against Northeastern in early November] and at this point in the season in Hockey East, it’s time to buckle down. We need sweeps, and we need to string together some wins. We know what we’re capable of as a team, and in a sense we didn’t feel we were meeting our standards. This is maybe the first weekend where we’ve played six good periods from start to finish.”
“We were skating; we were pressuring the puck; there was an urgency to our game,” Quinn added. “One of the things that we’re trying to do is make teams earn ice, and I thought we did a pretty good job of that this weekend.”
