From the left side, Boston College’s Joe Rooney centered the puck, looking for Benn Ferriero to get to the middle in time to make something happen. It’s kind of a blur. He couldn’t. I’ve seen it a thousand times, so I should know [what happened]. The score was 1-1, and there was 5:52 left in overtime when the play started. Boston University winger Jason Lawrence picked up the loose puck deep in the Terriers’ zone and banked it off the boards to get around Dan Bertram. J-Lo picked up the puck and we just came down on a 3-on-2. It was a promising transition – and an unexpected opportunity – exploding out of the young fourth line. Yipper drove to the net, I kinda stayed back a little and J-Lo made a nice cross-ice pass to me. I kinda kicked it off my foot and beat a defender and threw it backdoor where Yip was standing, and he just one-timed it. We were all behind the net just looking at it . . . Three sets of ice-level eyes to complement the hundreds staring down from the rafters of the TD Banknorth Garden. And it hit off Schneider’s back pad and trickled in. That was March 18, 2006. And the celebration went on from there. This is Chris Higgins’s best moment dressed in scarlet and white. And why wouldn’t it be? How much better can it get for the all-freshman line of Higgins, Lawrence and Brandon Yip than netting the golden goal against their maroon-and-gold rivals and propelling the Terriers to their sixth Hockey East Championship. “Our line was kinda struggling, we kind a went on a drought,” Higgins said, “and to help the team and to have Yippy score a big goal like that in the overtime and to get an assist on that – to help the team win the championship like that – I was definitely excited.” As a freshman, Higgins was excited about championship hockey – he still is. But as a sophomore now, championship hockey is excited about him, and not just because of the recent reunion of last year’s touted line. Rather, it is because the Lynnfield, Mass. native is tearing it up on the ice no matter who he’s playing with. His 12 goals and 30 points are second to only junior Pete MacArthur (15 and 31, respectively), even with a right wrist that’s nagged him all season. “I think he’s had a real good year,” said BU coach Jack Parker. “He’s had a bad wrist injury that’s bothered him all year, so he hasn’t shot the puck as well, can’t get as strong as he’d like to be off faceoffs, but despite that, I think he’s had a very, very good year. I think he’s had a better year than last year as far as confidence and being more important to the team.” What Higgins does best – besides fake a defender out of his pads or tear down center ice to open a plethora of offensive opportunities – is make his linemates better. His team-leading 18 helpers are a product of knowing when to be selfish and when it’s time to pass the puck off. “He’s a good player and he’s fun to play with,” MacArthur said, Higgins’s linemate for 15 games in 2006-07. “He’s pretty clever, he always finds the open man and he’s probably one of the best puck-handlers in the league, if not the best. So a lot of guys like to play with him – it produces points.” “He’s extremely clever and great with the puck, and he makes you a better player, playing on his line,” Yip said. “He gets the puck and puts you in a good position to score.” In fact, on all the different line configurations Higgins has centered (and in cases, played wing on), he has teamed up with eight different skaters. And in 33 games this season, his linemates have scored 21 goals and notched 25 assists. Add in Higgins’s scoring line of 12-18-30 and that’s 33-of-89 goals this season scored by Higgins’s line, to go with 43-of-145 helpers. “It was a little difficult at first,” Higgins said of the juggled lines. “When Yipper went down with his injury, I was so used to playing with him and J-Lo from last year and then I got paired up with Pete. He’s a great player and so it was good to play with him. It took a little bit of time for me and him to get comfortable, and then we played a chunk of the season together and felt pretty comfortable. “Then when they made the decision to put me, Yip and JLo back together, I was pretty excited,” he continued. “We played together last year, we know where each other is, so I definitely feel comfortable and I’m excited to get into the playoffs with them.” Yip and Lawrence have combined for five goals and nine assists playing with Higgins. The pair have totaled seven scores and 17 dishes all season. “I think people want to play with him,” Parker said. “He’s so clever and he moves the puck so well . . . . He can play with a lot of different guys, but he plays the same game no matter who he’s playing with.” Higgins’s mastery of stickhandling, a fine art requiring finesse and power, is what makes the 5-foot-11 center so potent. And weighing in at a team-low 165 pounds, his quickness and creativity with the puck help to counteract what he’s lacking in size. “He’s not an overly big kid, and he’s not gonna really run anybody over. But a guy will try to pick up and play him, and he just has real quick lateral movement and he can hang onto the puck at full speed and move through traffic, which a lot of people can’t do,” MacArthur said. “It’s tough to defend someone like that.” “I think that Higgins’s biggest asset is his skating ability, his ability to beat people one-on-one,” Parker said. “He’s very very clever, he’s terrific laterally, he can attack with speed and all of a sudden cut on a dime and lose a defender. He can break out of the zone well, cause he can lose guys the same way, so his skating ability and his puck-handling ability are his two biggest assets.” Higgins got the opportunity to hone those skills once he made the jump to the Eastern Junior Hockey League in 2004-05, playing for the New Hampshire Monarchs, where he scored 22 goals had 21 assists in 44 games. “I did three years of prep school at Pingree and then my senior year I talked to the coaching staff at BU and we all agreed that I did my time at Pingree and it was time for me to play at a higher level of hockey, to play with the older kids, to play against 21-year-olds and at more physical, fast-paced games,” Higgins said. “It was a pretty grinding schedule, so it definitely prepared me better for coming to college. “It was great being able to play for the Monarchs and play against better competition so I could really work on my game, become a better player,” he continued. “Just playing against top Division I players game-in and game-out definitely helped me work on all aspects of my game for college.” So Higgins and the Terriers enter tonight’s matchup with Causeway Street in their sights, hoping to add another league trophy to their hardware. But BU wants to rule more than just the Hockey East. And the first step is getting past a gritty Catamounts squad that has taken 2-of-3 from BU this season. “I feel pretty good about how this year has gone,” Higgins said. “I’m always pretty hard on myself, I always think that I can do better, so it’s just a great feeling being able to help out the team, help out my linemates get some goals and be able to win.” And maybe tonight, Higgins will find a new favorite BU moment.