After squeezing its way between the post and the skate of Boston College goaltender Cory Schneider, Brandon Yip’s shot lingered in the crease late Saturday night, with 5:38 to go in the first overtime of the Hockey East championship game.
There was no way it wasn’t going in. But before the lamp lit and before Yip and Chris Higgins jumped into each other’s arms behind the net at the west end of the TD Banknorth Garden, there was a moment that, if the Terriers could rewind time, they would relive over and over.
“I’ve never felt anything like that,” said BU goalie John Curry. “That was the most incredible feeling I’ve ever had.”
BU’s 2-1 overtime win over archrival and defending champion BC Saturday for the Hockey East title was, in many ways, the win this program has been waiting for. Sure, there are higher goals that start Friday in Worcester when the Icedogs take on the University of Nebraska-Omaha in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
But Saturday night, the Terriers went from a team that hadn’t really won anything in a while but Beanpots to the powerhouse that they’ve been before – and that everyone along this end of Commonwealth Avenue was hoping they’d become again.
“It’s nice to savor this,” said 33rd-year BU coach Jack Parker, who won his sixth Hockey East title to lead all coaches. “We haven’t won this tournament since ’97. We’ve been in the finals a couple times, we’ve been in the semifinals a lot. But we haven’t been able to get the championship trophy. That’s been a goal of ours all year long.”
Now, it’s been accomplished. After winning another Beanpot championship in February and the league regular-season title earlier this month, the Terriers ensured that Agganis Arena will have to be well-staffed with banner-raisers at the home opener next fall, as Saturday’s win will warrant its own Scarlet and White sign.
“All that hard work in the summers, getting up early in the morning, working out when everybody else is out partying – it finally feels like it’s paying off,” said sophomore center Pete MacArthur. “Now you got something to show for all that hard work. We’re really pumped that we get to raise another banner, especially for the seniors, who have had a great four years and haven’t had a chance to get a championship.”
And though the Terriers advanced to Saturday’s title game with a 9-2 drubbing of the University of New Hampshire (see below) and carried the play for long stretches of regulation time against BC, they almost lost that chance in overtime. After BU outshot the Eagles, 35-20 in the first three periods, the shots were at 10-3 in favor of BC in overtime before Yip’s goal.
For 15 minutes, the young Eagles came charging at a near-frozen Terrier team, blasting shots at Curry from all angles and nearly ending the game when Benn Ferriero jarred the puck into the net from under Curry’s pad just after the whistle blew.
“We weren’t getting the puck out, and they were beating us up in our zone for a while,” said BU co-captain David Van der Gulik, the tournament’s Most Valuable Player with six goals. “But that’s how it happens, a lot of times the team that’s all over you gets the bad bounce and then goes back and we score. That’s hockey. We didn’t really obviously play a great overtime, but we were pretty solid and we tried to limit their chances.”
When the Terriers got a chance of their own, they buried it. The all-freshmen Orange Line of Yip, Higgins and Jason Lawrence hadn’t scored a goal since the Beanpot, but they smelled blood at just the right time. Lawrence came streaking in up the left side, snapping a pass across the offensive zone to Higgins. The center saw Yip cutting to the far post, and despite the best efforts of Schneider – who was outstanding all night – the big British Columbian slipped it off the post, off the goalie’s leg and across the line, setting off a jubilant celebration with sticks, gloves and hockey players flying through the air.
“Obviously it’s probably the biggest goal of my career,” Yip said.
“It’s probably the biggest goal of your career?” Parker shot back, laughing.
“It definitely was,” Yip said.
It also followed what was definitely a high-pressure, high-intensity 60 minutes of regulation between archrivals playing for the fifth time this season. The Terriers’ win was their fourth in a row against BC.
But the Eagles struck first, and quickly, when defenseman Mike Brennan followed a sliding puck through traffic three minutes into the game. He looked up to find himself alone in front of a surprised Curry, who had already gone down and was helpless to stop the high wrister.
The rest of the first, and much of the second, was quite the grind for BU, after Friday’s wide-open contest had produced goals by the bundles. Against an explosive Terrier team, BC packed it in defensively, blocking BU shots and relying on a poised Schneider to turn back everything he saw.
“Out of the last four games that we played, this probably perhaps was our best game of the four,” said BC coach Jerry York. “We’re disappointed. We wanted to bring the trophy back to BC, but I think we’ll wake up in the morning and realize how well we played.”
The Eagles frustrated all six BU power plays in the first two periods and didn’t allow a goal until there were five minutes left in the second. The equalizer came from the unlikeliest of sources, as fourth-line freshman center John McCarthy reached for a loose puck in front of Schneider and flung it off the goalie’s side and in.
“We were playing well, we just couldn’t get the puck in the net,” said McCarthy, whose two goals this season have both been against the Eagles. “I was fortunate enough to get a loose puck and just found its way through some traffic.”
McCarthy was again the hero minutes later, when the Terriers had to kill off more than half a minute of BC 5-on-3. The freshman – Parker’s typical choice for the forward to kill a two-man advantage – came up with a huge blocked shot to kill the penalties.
“I actually like it,” McCarthy said. “I did it in high school. You just stay close, block shots.”
It stayed close throughout a scoreless and penalty-free third and inevitably carried into overtime, when the Eagles changed their game and turned the tables to dominate the Terriers. But in the end, the Terriers turned them right back.
“They were defending their title,” MacArthur said. “We wanted to take it from them, but they definitely played very well in the overtime – probably the best hockey they played all night. Like we’ve said a million times, we bend, but we don’t break.”
Finally, they’ve broken every other team in Hockey East. And it’s been a long time coming for seniors like Van der Gulik, who lost in overtime in the Hockey East finals his freshman year and struggled through the worst BU season in years his sophomore year before two disappointing playoff losses last year.
“That’s not what we’re all about. We want to see if we can win something big at the end of the year. That’s been our M.O. for a long period of time,” Parker said. “Win something postseason, and you’ve had a great year.”
Consider it a great year. And the playoff fever at BU has only just begun.
