BOSTON<\/b> — With last year’s freshman sensation Jack Eichel leaving Boston University and primed to make his NHL debut with the Buffalo Sabres within a week, the Terriers faithful have to be eager to see what coach David Quinn and his staff can do for an encore when it comes to recruiting.<\/p>\n
Based on Saturday night’s exhibition game against Acadia, the early indications are positive.<\/p>\n
Freshman Jacob Forsbacka Karlsson — a second-round draft pick for the Boston Bruins in June — scored two third-period goals to break open a tie game and lead the Terriers to a 4-2 win in front of 2,974 fans at Agganis Arena.<\/p>\n
For good measure, freshman defenseman Shane Switzer also scored off a great feed from another newcomer — right wing Bobo Carpenter — to give the Terriers more reason to feel good about their incoming class. 6-foot-5 freshman Jordan Greenway also skated on the first line and looked right at home, while freshman Charlie McAvoy got plenty of minutes and a few scoring chances from the blue line.<\/p>\n
For BU’s coach, there were some encouraging signs but also plenty of room for improvement.<\/p>\n
“Pretty much what I expected,” Quinn said. “You play your first game, and you have about six hours of practice in a month: You’re going to like some things, and some things are going to jump out at you that you’re going to have to work on.<\/p>\n
“Overall, I thought it was a pretty good night. It gives us a chance to watch the film and look at the things we did well and didn’t do well. Either way, if there’s a hockey game, you want to win it, and it was nice to get a win.”<\/p>\n
With last year’s regular goaltender, Matt O’Connor, signing with the Ottawa Senators, the goaltending duties were split by sophomore Connor LaCouvee and senior Sean Maguire, who has returned after a medical redshirt year. Maguire looked sharp, stopping all 15 shots he faced to pick up the win.<\/p>\n
The Terriers have barely practiced, and they got off to a somewhat sluggish start before senior Danny O’Regan scored on a fluke goal at 9:53. O’Regan circled behind net and attempted to slip a pass through the crease to Ahti Oksanen, only to have the puck go off the skate of an Acadia defender and into the net.<\/p>\n
Acadia got the next two goals. At 12:06, Remy Giftopoulos’s shot from the left-wing boards went through traffic before slipping through LaCouvee. Exactly three minutes later, Mike Cazzola sprung Zachary Franko for a breakaway, and Franko put the puck on his backhand before deftly flipping it in high on LaCouvee’s glove side.<\/p>\n
BU tied it up early in the second with a goal from an unlikely source. Switzer came into the season as the No. 8 defenseman on the Terriers depth chart, but he was in action with BU captain Matt Grzelcyk still a few weeks away from playing after offseason surgery and sophomore Brandon Fortunato day to day with a minor injury.<\/p>\n
Switzer ended up getting a goal when Carpenter drove to the net on the left-wing side before finding Switzer on the right wing with a nifty backhand pass. Switzer had half the net to hit and didn’t miss it.<\/p>\n
Switzer nearly scored again late in the period when he pounced on a rebound of a Mike Moran shot, only to have Acadia goalie Brandon Glover live up to his name with a great snare.<\/p>\n
“He played really well,” Quinn said. “We were excited when we got him. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, sees the ice well, jumps into the rush. I thought he was probably one of our better defensemen tonight.”<\/p>\n
That set the stage for Karlsson’s heroics in the third. At 5:10, sophomore A.J. Greer made an outstanding pass from the left wing, slipping it under a defender’s leg and finding the Swedish centerman for the tip-in at the far post.<\/p>\n
Then, at 13:15, Ahti Oksanen sprung Karlsson — known around BU as JFK — on a breakaway right after the freshman emerged from the penalty box. He was thwarted but drew a penalty shot, which was nothing short of spectacular. He brought the puck in on his forehand, began a move to his backhand, pulled it back, faked the shot, got the goalie to commit and then tucked it in low on the glove side.<\/p>\n
“That was a heck of a shot,” Quinn said. “That’s a good goalie, too, and he had him down and out. It was a heck of a move. He’s great on his edges and has great poise.”<\/p>\n
BU opens the regular season on Saturday, Oct. 10 at Union.<\/p>\n
“I think we’re going to be a good team,” Quinn said. “I like our balance up front. I think without having Fortunato and Grzelcyk, it gave some D a chance to play in situations that they’re not accustomed to playing. … I like our goaltending. Still, pretty much what I thought — no surprises tonight.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Freshman Jacob Forsbacka Karlsson — a second-round draft pick for the Boston Bruins in June — scored two third-period goals to break open a tie game and lead the Terriers to a 4-2 win in front of 2,974 fans at Agganis Arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20857"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20858,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20857\/revisions\/20858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20857"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=20857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}