Boston University
Brown
Men's Ice Hockey Hosts Brown on Wednesday to Kick Off Second Half
January 7, 2020 | Men's Ice Hockey
This will be the team's Hockey East Skating Strides Against Breast Cancer Night. Founded in 2006, Skating Strides serves as the league's fundraising vehicle to bring awareness to breast cancer. A Chuck-A-Puck contest in the second intermission will benefit grassroots initiatives in the fight.
The game marks BU's first meeting with Brown in over nine years. The Terriers haven't played an actual game since Dec. 7, when they posted a 6-3 home win over Northeastern.
BU is 57-21-2 all-time against the Bears in 81 meetings. The former ECAC rivals have met just five times since BU joined Hockey East prior to the 1984-85 season.
The Terriers were undefeated in eight straight meetings (7-0-1) before Brown posted a 6-1 win in the most recent meeting on New Year's Day 2011 at Notre Dame's Shillelagh Tournament. The teams' lone previous meeting at Agganis also took place that season and resulted in a 4-4 draw. Before that, Brown's last victory in the series came on Dec. 11, 1979.
Brown enters Wednesday on a six-game losing skid, most recently dropping a 5-1 contest at New Hampshire on Saturday. All three of the Bears' wins (Yale, Colgate, St. Lawrence) have come in ECAC play.
Brown is one of five teams in the country that has scored more than 36 percent of its goals on the power play. The Bears rank last in the country in goals per game at 1.57 but sits 14th in power-play percentage at .222.
Sophomore Justin Jallen leads the Bears in points (9) and goals (7) while senior d-man Zach Giuttari had added seven points on the strength of six assists.
Senior Gavin Nieto has started 10 games in goal this season and sports a 2.94 goals-against average and a .906 save percentage.
BU got back into the swing of things with a pair of exhibition contests last week. New addition Ashton Abel and senior Nico Lynch combined for a shutout in goal as BU returned from the holiday break to post a 3-0 exhibition victory over Concordia University on Dec. 29 at Walter Brown Arena. Over $10,000 was raised at the game to benefit the Travis Roy Foundation as the Terriers made their first appearance at their old stomping grounds in five seasons.
On Friday, the Terriers visited the U.S. Under-18 Team in Plymouth, Michigan, and came away with a 4-3 shootout win.
Three freshmen - Ethan Phillips, Sam Stevens and Alex Vlasic - provided the goals against Concordia as BU took a 2-0 lead in the first period before adding a late empty-netter.
Against the U18 squad, Patrick Curry scored the game-tying goal with 4:35 left in regulation, and after a scoreless overtime that consisted of both 5-on-5 and 3-on-3 play, Wilmer Skoog and Kasper Kotkansalo converted in the shootout to give the Terriers the win. Phillips and Alex Brink also scored for BU, which got a a 30-save effort from Sam Tucker.
Freshman Trevor Zegras is back after put on a show at the 2020 World Junior Championship in the Czech Republic, leading all players in assists while topping the U.S. squad in points. The Bedford, New York, native had nine points - all primary assists - in just five games.
His assist total was tied for the fourth-most by a U.S. player in tournament history. He had a plus-6 rating for the tournament, which led Team USA and ranked tied for first among all players.
After leading BU to an undefeated December, senior Patrick Harper was named the Hockey East Player of the Month. He led BU to a pair of home wins over two ranked Beanpot rivals to close out the first half on a high note and tallied five points (3g, 2a) and a plus-five rating over the two games. This is the first-ever Hockey East monthly honor for Harper, who currently has 99 career points.
Junior defenseman David Farrance looks to pick up where he left off in the first half as he is tied for first nationally in power-play tallies with eight, and amongst defensemen, he leads the nation in both goals (10) and points per game (1.29).
The Terriers are one of only three teams in the country with four players averaging at least a point per game. The others are Northeastern, Harvard and Penn State.
BU has outscored its opponents 28-15 in the second period but is getting outscored in the third by a margin of 21-11.
