After playing the University of Connecticut to a 2-2 tie on their home ice, the No. 7 Boston University men’s hockey team traveled to the XL Center in trtford, Connecticut for the second half of their home-and-home series — where the Terriers picked up a 6-3 win.
The scoring started early for the Terriers (3-2-1, 1-0-1 Hockey East) with a three goal first period, and BU head coach David Quinn said this early scoring helped the team relax.
“You could feel it on the bench,” Quinn said “It was definitely a dark cloud lifted from our bench from a freewheeling standpoint. We were making more plays and not gripping the stick as tight as we have been over the last three games, you could definitely feel it.”
After putting up two goals last night, junior forward and assistant captain Bobo Carpenter shot the puck past UConn’s (2-3-1, 1-0-1 Hockey East) goalie Adam Huska 1:09 into the opening stanza
Sophomore forward Patrick Harper and junior forward Jordan Greenway picked up assists on the goal, each picking up their third helpers of the season.
BU doubled its lead 20 seconds later when sophomore forward Patrick Curry scored his first of two goals of the period. This was BU’s first even strength goal in its last 10 periods.
BU would score one more time in the period — Curry picked up his second goal of the game and his second of the season 16:43 into the first — assisted by freshman forward Brady Tkachuk for his fourth of the season.
UConn got on the scoreboard 9:49 into the second period thanks to sophomore forward Alexander Payusov’s goal, just seconds into the Huskies’ power play. Senior defenseman Johnny Austin picked up his team leading seventh assist on Payusov’s goal.
The Huskies were able to pull within one goal of the Terries less than two minutes. Senior forward Spencer Naas snuck the puck past sophomore goaltender Jake Oettinger for his first goal of the season.
Carpenter would answer the call for the Terriers and picked up his second goal of the night and his fourth in the past two games. Sophomore defenseman Chad Krys and Dante Fabbro picked up assists on the goal.
The Terriers would strike again 27 seconds into the third period. Senior defenseman and captain Brandon Hickey connected on a pass by Greenway for his first goal on the season.
“[To] come out in the third and get a goal within the first 30 seconds [to] make it 5-2 really gives the signal that we might be growing up quicker than maybe I thought we would,” said Quinn.
Senior Kasperi Ojantakanen snuck shot past the right side of Oettinger 5:18 into the third period, but BU would answer back with a third goal by Carpenter 14:46 in the third period.
Thanks to his two-goal performance Friday and his hat-trick on Saturday, Carpenter now finds himself leading the team with five goals.
Last season, Carpenter finished with fourteen goals — which was good for a tie of second place in the category
Greenway, Krys, Tkachuk and Harper are now tied for the team lead with four assists each.
Quinn added that he felt his team played “real man’s hockey.”
These two teams will meet once again in the regular season on Feb. 16 at the XL Center and Carpenter said BU wants to be the “same team” in that game.
“We want to be the same team every night,” said Carpenter “We want to be a hard team to play against, we want to play fast, we want to play hard, make sure teams have a hard time against us.”
The Terriers will return to action against No. 1 University of Denver this Friday night at Agganis Arena.
“Obviously last year we were swept by them and we’re not too happy about that,” Curry said “We’re going to try to go into this next game with a chip on our shoulder and try to really make a statement to college hockey.”
