No. 9 men’s hockey sweeps aside Northeastern in Beanpot semifinal 

The No. 9 Boston University men’s hockey team seemingly controlled every part of its Monday night Beanpot Tournament encounter with Northeastern University, as it skated to a 3-1 win over its city rival. 

However, there were moments in which the momentum looked to have changed hands, as center John Stevens rebounded in his eight goal of the year with 3:12 left in the third to cut BU’s (15-7-4, 8-4-3 Hockey East) lead in half.

After the team played for more than 23 minutes of overtime a year ago between two Beanpot games, BU head coach David Quinn expressed Sunday that he’d rather not have a game this year with any added time. But Stevens’ tally made sudden death more of a possibility.

“It got a little hairy there when it was 2-1,” Quinn said, “I thought we had plenty of chances to make it three, and as that game keeps going on it takes just one goal to change the momentum.”

That moment came, but it arose from the stick of BU junior defenseman Doyle Somerby, who fired into an empty net and, unlike last year, eradicated all thoughts of overtime.

With the victory, the Terriers claimed a spot in the championship game against No. 4 Boston College next Monday night. It will be the 28th consecutive year that the Huskies (9-13-4, 4-8-3 Hockey East) will not win the tournament title.

GOAL! Robbie redirects an elevated puck to open the scoring! #BUBeanpot pic.twitter.com/JZ9CT3F5vT

— BU Men's Hockey (@TerrierHockey) February 2, 2016

Freshman defenseman Charlie McAvoy, who scored the second of BU’s three goals, credited a lot of the Terriers’ success to the preparation the team had put in over this latest stretch.

“This is huge,” McAvoy said. “We’ve been having great practices, great weeks of practices lately and it’s been showing on the weekend. We come into these games with a lot of confidence, and we know that we’ve done all the work during the week to come in and win the game.”

Now having won four games in row and taking points in five straight contests, Quinn said after the win that his team performed well from the get-go.

“Just, I thought, really good team effort,” Quinn said. “I thought from start to finish we were ready to play. I thought our forwards had a good night, I thought our D-corps had a good night, I thought our goalie had a good night. Our power play was 0-for-2, but I liked a lot of things that happened with our power play.”

Though both teams played conservatively for the first few minutes of the game, limiting the number of shots on net, BU struck first just a little more than halfway through the frame.

Freshman center Bobo Carpenter started the play with two chances, the latter of which bounced in the air toward the net. Junior forward Robbie Baillargeon, standing on the side of the cage, batted the puck out of midair past Northeastern goaltender Ryan Ruck for the first goal. It was Baillargeon’s third career Beanpot goal.

Just over three minutes later, McAvoy doubled the lead. The play started as senior assistant captain Danny O’Regan skated just over the offensive blue line and fed McAvoy on a drop pass. The freshman, after dragging the puck around the Northeastern defense, sniped the top left corner, just out of the reach of Ruck’s blocker.

Charlie doubles the lead with a pretty goal on the rush! #BUBeanpot pic.twitter.com/ptvAOtn3R4

— BU Men's Hockey (@TerrierHockey) February 2, 2016

Neither team scored in the middle frame, though each had their chances. The Terriers failed to convert on two power-play opportunities, firing six shots off in that timespan.

On the other side, the Huskies recorded eight shots in the frame, but senior goaltender Sean Maguire stood tall with eight saves. Maguire finished the night with 24 saves on 25 chances.

However, for most of the game, BU limited the number of high-percentage chances Northeastern could get and forced the Huskies to take shots outside of the slot area.

Still, Northeastern did itself no favors with a few missed opportunities on odd-man rushes, including a whiff on an attempt near the net from former Terrier forward Sam Kurker.

“We had good effort, but we just didn’t have that second gear to our game that allowed us to jump on the loose pucks,” said Northeastern head coach Jim Madigan. “ … We didn’t have that, you know, extra energy that you need in this game.”

BU appeared to have extended its lead late in the third, when O’Regan was awarded a rebound goal. However, upon further review, the officials determined the puck did not fully cross the goal line.

Minutes after the call was overturned, the Huskies got on the board on Stevens’ backhander near the crease, as he slid the puck under Maguire.

The Huskies continued to push, but with Ruck on the bench again, Somerby sealed the game with an empty-net goal with 40.3 seconds remaining in the game.

BU’s own win, coupled with BC’s earlier semifinal victory over No. 7 Harvard, sets the stage for a championship game between the Commonwealth Avenue rivals. A BU-BC Beanpot title game has not happened since 2012, a game the Eagles won in overtime.

The chance to play BC, a team that BU has not defeated since Nov. 7, 2014, is something O’Regan said he has wanted to happen for a long time.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to play them in the finals,” O’Regan said. “It’s kind of how you draw it up. We definitely owe them after a few weeks ago, so we’re all definitely excited to play them.”