Terriers, Wildcats Battle To 5-5 Tie
November 20, 1999 | Men's Ice Hockey
Terrier senior left wing Chris Heron (Mississauga, ONT) scored his fourth goal of the season with just 4:24 to play in regulation to highlight a come-from-behind 5-5 overtime tie against the host University of New Hampshire Wildcats in Hockey East action on Nov. 19.
The tie kept B.U. undefeated and in first place in the league as the team is now 4-0-2 in Hockey East action, while its overall record is 6-3-2. The Terriers' point total in the league is now 10 points, one point ahead of New Hampshire, which is 4-0-1 in the league and 7-2-1 overall.
A crowd of 6266 was on hand to see the Terriers lead 4-2, then trail 5-4 before Heron's goal. The two teams then battled the remainder of regulation and the five minutes of overtime with neither team scoring.
Despite the fact the Terriers were leading the Hockey East standings entering the game, a case could be made that New Hampshire was favored to come out on top in this first of three meetings between these two rivals.
New Hampshire, which won the Hockey East regular-season title last year and then lost in the NCAA championship game to Maine, had been picked to finish second in this year's pre-season poll of the nine league coaches, while the Terriers were tabbed to wind up fifth. Then, in this week's Top-15 national poll, the Wildcats were 8th while the Terriers were 14th.
After a scoreless first period on Friday night, New Hampshire jumped to a 1-0 lead just 22 seconds into the second period.
The Terriers countered with single goals by sophomore left wing Mike Pandolfo (Burlington, Mass.) and senior right wing Tommi Degerman (Helsinki, FIN) to lead 2-1 at 11:01 of the period.
New Hampshire tied the game just 57 seconds later before the Terriers scored twice more to lead 4-2 just 1:20 into the third period. The first of the two goals was scored by sophomore left wing Jack Baker (South Boston, Mass.) while the second was the second of the game for Degerman.
New Hampshire stormed back to score three times to take a 5-4 lead with just 7:08 to play in regulation.
That set the stage for Heron's game-tying effort.
"It was a good, exciting game to watch," said head coach Jack Parker, who watched the second half of the game from a different vantage pointthe concourse area surrounding UNH's Whittemore Center rink.
The reason is that he was ejected from the game at 11:58 of the second period. Earlier in the game, Parker had been warned by referee Jim Villandry that Parker's attempt to double change his lineup would not be tolerated. After UNH's Dave Busch had scored to tie the game, 2-2, Parker made a lineup change before the puck was dropped to resume play.
Villandry, feeling that Parker had tried to make a double change, skated over to Parker to give him a penalty.
"He came over to tell me that he had warned me earlier and he was now giving me a delay of game penalty, Parker reported. As he began to skate away, I put my hand out to tell him I had not put the second change on the ice, and I grabbed his shirt.
"He thought I was guilty of mistreating the referee and gave me the game misconduct," said the coach.
"Have you mistreated officials before?" a writer queried the veteran coach in the post-game press conference.
"Many times," smiled the coach. "But, not tonight."
As a result of the penalty, Parker watched the remainder of the game from high atop the action. "It was weird being up there," said the coach. "It's a nice view. This is a great rink."
Some of what the coach saw pleased him very much.
"I thought our four defensemen did a great job," Parker said. "In the second period, (junior) Colin Sheen (Hopkinton, NH) got slashed on the left wrist and he could not play the rest of the game. As a result, (junior) Keith Emery (Belmont, Mass.), (freshman) Mike Bussoli (Calgary, ALTA), (sophomore) Chris Dyment (Reading, Mass.), and (sophomore) Pat Aufiero (Winchester, Mass.) had to play every other shift.
"They were legless by the end of the game, but they did a helluva job tonight. "I was also pleased with our special teams play," continued Parker. "We got two power play goals, and we held them to 0-for-8. Unfortunately, they scored a shorthanded goal, but, generally, I was very pleased with our special teams.
"I was also very proud of how our team bounced back to score the tying goal late in the game," said the coach. "We were up by two and then they scored three unanswered goals. But, we showed a lot of grit to come back and tie the game at this rink."
Some of what the coach saw also surprised him.
"I was really surprised that a total of 10 goals were scored against two excellent goalies," said Parker.
Terrier freshman Rick DiPietro (Winthrop) played all 65 minutes, had 26 saves, and allowed the five goals. In the meantime, New Hampshire's Ty Conklin stopped 24-of-29 Terrier shots.
"The two weren't as sharp as usual."
By and large, Parker was happy with what he saw. "We got a point on the road, and we are still in first place," concluded the coach. "I think we're going OK."
Scoring SummaryBoston University (6-3-2; 4-0-2) 0 3 2 0 -- 5 New Hampshire (7-2-1; 4-0-1) 0 2 3 0 -- 5
First Period: No scoring
Second Period: NHFicek (Shipulski, Rogers), 0:22; B.U.Pandolfo (Collins, Gillis), 4:40; B.U.Degerman (Cavanaugh, Bussoli), ppg, 11:01; NHBusch (Walsh, White), 11:58; B.U.Baker (Corazzini), 18:50
Third Period: B.U.Degerman (Cavanaugh, Bussoli), ppg, 1:20; NHBusch (unassisted), shg, 2:58; NHSadowski (Abbott, Swain), 9:02; NHSouza (Gare, Haydar), 12:52; B.U.Heron (Cavanaugh, Emery), 15:36
Overtime: No scoring Power Play: B.U., 2-for-8; UNH, 0-for-8 Penalties: B.U., 11-for-22; UNH, 11-for-22 Shots: B.U., 8-10-9-229; UNH, 11-12-8-031 Saves: DiPietro (B.U.), 11-10-5-026; Conklin (UNH), 8-7-7-224
