Hartford – It was just about a month ago when Mike Cavanaugh, the hockey coach at UConn, was awash in victory over a brand name. Another one. This time, Boston University. The fourth time in Cavanaugh’s three years that UConn had taken down a Rockefeller.

Cavanaugh said this about Hockey East:

“The thing about this league I love is the fact that we can enjoy this for 24 hours and we turn around and have another great team (Notre Dame) coming in here,” he said. “It keeps you on your toes. That's the type of pressure that gets you up in the morning.”

Except that who would blame Cavanaugh if, given the proceedings since the victory over BU, he just pulls the covers over his head?

Yeesh. The Hockey Huskies, such a feel-good story for a while now, lost their eighth straight game Tuesday night at the XL Center. Make that an eerily quiet XL Center, despite the third-largest crowd (7,219) in UConn hockey history. The patrons watched their team fall behind 4-0 to No. 2 Boston College and despite a few murmurs of protest in subsequent periods, eventually lost 5-1.

And now the reward for UConn, after a week off, is facing the No. 4 team in the country. Next up: UMass-Lowell. No word if the Calgary Flames follow.

“It’s not waking me up in the morning because I’m not sleeping,” Cavanaugh said after Tuesday’s game, alluding to Hockey East. “But I do still love it. It’s why I took the job. I wanted to be in this league. We have a team that’s going to compete in this league. I know it might not look like it right now, but we do.”

BC coach Jerry York, under whom Cavanaugh coached for 18 years and helped win four national championships, was in lockstep agreement with his protégé’s assessment.

“Cav’s doing too good a job,” York cracked. “He should slow down a little bit.”

York admitted that even with BC’s lofty ranking and estimable record (11-1), the first period Tuesday night was his team’s best of the season. The Eagles continued an encouraging sporting stretch at the school, highlighted recently by the basketball team’s victory over smarmy Tommy Amaker and Harvard, football’s success in dragging Notre Dame into such a morass that the playoff committee dropped the Irish to sixth and the men’s soccer team’s berth in the Sweet 16.

“I think we kind of caught Connecticut watching us,” York said. “Then the game settled down and became a very good game. I don’t think we stopped playing. The Huskies raised their level. Thatcher (Demko, BC’s goalie) had to make some big saves. The (final) score wasn’t indicative.”

York was well aware of UConn’s burgeoning reputation, despite the losing streak. The Eagles were also aware of last season’s loss at the XL Center.

“Not just us,” York said. “They beat BU here, too.”

Cavanaugh blamed himself in part for the stinkeroo of a first period, calling a particular forechecking strategy a swing and a miss. A 4-0 deficit to the No. 2 team in the country could have become 8-0 quickly. It did not.

“We had to look at ourselves in the mirror a little bit,” UConn forward Spencer Naas said.

Naas scored UConn’s lone goal.

“The second and third periods were very good,” Cavanaugh said. “We beat them last year and we didn’t play nearly as well in the second and third periods as we did today. Today, we played toe to toe with them.

“I told our kids that I wasn’t sure last year how far we could go down the stretch. I didn’t know if we had the horses to beat the big dogs in the playoffs. I know we’re in the midst of an eight-game losing streak. But I do feel really good about our team. If we can stay healthy down the stretch, I feel we have a team that can compete at the end of the year and can make some noise in the playoffs. I still feel really good about this team.”

He should. The improvements here have been astonishing, in spite of this losing streak. (Not bad, too, getting 7,200 people here on a Tuesday night). It’s just that winning consistently will take time, given Hockey East’s relentlessness.

“An extremely competitive league,” York said, “among which UConn is one of them.”

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.

Twitter: @BCgenius