Feb. 21, 2005

By Jeffrey Weinstein The Heights

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. (U-WIRE) - Going into Friday night's game against No. 13 UMass-Lowell, the Boston College men's hockey team looked as formidable as ever. They were coming off one of their most dominating performances of the season in a 4-1 victory over No. 8 Harvard last Monday, and had plenty of motivation to play as hard as ever. Beating Lowell would secure home ice in the quarterfinals of the Hockey East playoffs. Yet the Eagles lacked the killer instinct, unable to finish on the offensive end, and making a few key fundamental lapses in their own zone. A hungry Lowell team capitalized on many of BC's mistakes early, and held on late for a 3-1 victory over the Eagles.

Despite the injuries and the reshuffled lines, the Eagles looked strong early, dictating the flow of the game with an aggressive forecheck. BC's third line had a great first shift four minutes into the first period, maintaining possession in Lowell's end and peppering River Hawk goalie John Yaros with shots before finally breaking through.

As Eagle forwards Brian Boyle and Dan Bertram battled two Lowell defenders for the puck down low in the right corner, BC winger Joe Rooney snuck in from the left circle and was wide open when Bertram fed him a sharp pass. Rooney's point blank shot was stopped by Yaros, but the rebound kicked right to Boyle who buried the puck into the open net at 4:24 of the first period to give BC a 1-0 advantage.

Minutes later the game stopped when another BC player laid sprawled on the ice due to injury.

At 9:54, as Eagles defenseman Greg Lauze struggled to gather the puck in the left corner of the BC zone, Lowell forward Mark Pandolfo came flying in and hit an unsuspecting Lauze from behind. The defenseman's left shoulder took the full force of the hit, and as Lauze left the ice gingerly clutching his slumped arm, it was clear the injury was a dislocation. Lauze attempted a return in the second, but left again after being hit on his first shift.

The Pandolfo hit drew a five minute major for boarding, and gave BC a golden opportunity to put the game out of reach early. Without their power play point man, and main finisher in Eaves, the Eagles put together a power play with great puck movement, but few quality opportunities.

In what proved to be the turning point of the game, BC forward Ryan Shannon took an obstruction hooking penalty seconds after the Lowell penalty expired at 15:18 of the first period. The River Hawks capitalized early on in their power play opportunity when off a faceoff win, Lowell leading scorer Ben Walter deflected a hard Elias Godoy slap shot over the glove of BC goalie Matti Kaltiainan at 16:21 to even up the score at 1-1.

"You can't get frustrated when you don't score a goal," said BC head coach Jerry York. "Right after the power play, we take a penalty and they score a goal. So it was a combination of us not scoring for the five minutes, and right away they get a power play and they score and that was certainly a key part of the game."

The other key trends of the game that became evident after the failed BC power play were poor decisions by BC defenders, and Kaltiainan's unusually spotty goaltending. Coming into the game with a Hockey East leading 1.50 goals against average, Kaltiainan struggled to control seemingly easy shots all night. After Eagles defensemen Joe Adams made a blind pass in his own zone that was intercepted by Pandolfo, who took a soft wide angle shot from the left boards. Kaltiainan tried to smother the puck in his chest, but it trickled right in front of him, and Lowell forward Todd Fletcher was there to put the rebound home.

The goal gave Lowell a 2-1 lead at 18:56 of the first period, a lead that would increase to 3-1 in the opening minute of the second period on a similar play.

River Hawks forward Jeremy Hall corralled a dumped puck along the right corner and fired a low, wide-angle shot on goal. Kaltiainan softly kicked the puck into the slot, leaving a fat rebound that Lowell forward Richard Tejchma jumped all over, slapping through the legs of the BC goalie.

"We need Matti. He'll be our goalie down the stretch with Cory out. He's gotta take the load and respond to the challenge and we feel very confident that he can do that," said York.

Kaltiainan was solid the rest of the game with 20 saves, including two breakaways during the second period and a two on one late in the third, but BC could not get the puck past his counterpart.

Yaros stopped a shorthanded breakaway shot by BC forward Chris Collins with eight minutes to go in the second period, broke up a two on one minutes later, and was solid throughout the third period making a key stop on a Joe Rooney breakaway at 12:15.

"Rooney got in there, and that would've made it 3-2 ...We can't make every goaltender look like an All-American," said York.

The start of the third period was delayed for about a half hour when a fire alarm was tripped by an errant Zamboni that hit a pipe as it was leaving the ice. All fans had to evacuate for about 10 minutes before the police and fire trucks arrived and the alarms were turned off. On a night when many of BC's shots couldn't find the net, it was appropriate that even the BC Zamboni driver had trouble finding his own.