Before this weekend, only four players of the No. 7 Boston University men’s hockey team had scored goals and the last time the Terriers (3-2-1, 1-0-1 Hockey East) had scored an even strength goal was during their first game against Minnesota State University in the second period.
However, junior forward and assistant captain Bobo Carpenter added a fifth player to that list on Friday night against the University of Connecticut and continued his success into the following night with a hat-trick to give BU a 6-3 win over the Huskies (2-3-1, 1-2-1 Hockey East).
Sophomore forward Patrick Curry also notched his first two goals of the season, both during five-on-five play, and senior defenseman and captain Brandon Hickey registered his first goal of the 2017-18 season to contribute to the win.
Curry noted that the win and the two conference points were very important to the team.
“Obviously we hadn’t won in three games and that’s something we were pretty upset about,” Curry said. “We came in here and wanted to put together a good effort and play three periods of good hockey, and that’s what we did so hopefully we can take that into this coming week and next weekend.”
After Carpenter backhanded a goal 69 seconds into the game past UConn’s sophomore goaltender Adam Huska, Curry carried that momentum with his first goal of the season 20 seconds later.
The Schaumburg, Illinois native added to that total with a late tally off a nice feed from freshman forward Brady Tkachuk in the first frame to put BU up 3-0.
The previous night Curry had played right wing for the Terriers’ fourth line, but was moved up in the third period next to junior forward Jordan Greenway and freshman forward Shane Bowers.
On Saturday night, the forward found himself moved to the first line next to Carpenter and freshman forward Brady Tkachuk.
“He was very good and he’s earned that opportunity,” BU head coach David Quinn said. “Pat’s come a long way in the last month and a half from a guy who wasn’t in the lineup to [a guy] who’s creating a spot for himself. He’s got a good hockey sense. He’s quick-minded, he’s got a good shot and as long as he plays physical and plays at a pace, he’s going to contribute for us.”
UConn responded to the Terriers’ strong offensive showing in the first period and the three goal deficit with two goals of its own midway through the second period of the contest.
Carpenter collected his second goal of the night, his fourth of the weekend, after capitalizing off a rebound from sophomore defenseman Chad Krys during BU’s third power play of the evening.
After two days, Carpenter now has the most goals on the team with five — all of which were collected this weekend.
The Terriers got another early goal in the final period of the game. Hickey knocked in his first goal of the season.
This marked the seventh player to score on the BU lineup and the third player to score their first goal of the season over the home-and-home series.
With five minutes remaining in the contest, Carpenter secured a hat-trick to complete his weekend success.
Although, the team got two goals very early in the game, Carpenter said that it was imperative that the team kept its focus.
“The focus has to stay there and I think we really did a good job with that tonight,” Carpenter said. “It’s easy to kind of lose the focus after that happens and kind of wander out of the game, but our guys really focused in and really gave it to them the rest of the game so that was really a key point.”
Saturday’s game also marked the highest offensive production in terms of goals the Terriers have seen this year so far. BU registered four goals against Union College in its season opener on Sept. 29.
Quinn said that it’s only a matter of time before other players on the team find goal-scoring success as well.
“It’s going to happen,” Quinn said. “Like I said last night, we’re going to score goals. I know we’re going to score goals … They’re all going to chip in and once one goes in, they start flowing in just like what happened to Bobo this weekend. He gets five on the weekend, but really it was a good weekend.”
