Terriers dodge Crimson bullet

Despite playing its worst period of hockey so far this season in the first 20 minutes of Monday’s game, the Boston University men’s ice hockey team reeled off a pair of third-period goals to outlast Harvard University and its last-second bid at a game-tying goal.

Down by one after BU (18-6-2) senior forward Jason Lawrence’s game-winning blast over Crimson (5-12-4) freshman goalie Matt Hoyle’s left shoulder at 18:14, Harvard worked the puck behind BU’s net following an offensive-zone faceoff with 7.6 seconds remaining.

With the clock spiraling toward zero, Crimson freshman forward Alex Killorn found junior captain Alex Biega open in the slot from behind the net, but Beiga’s shot whistled across the goal line after time had expired.

Skating full speed toward the Crimson bench, Biega leaped over the boards in celebration of what was thought around the arena to be the game-tying goal.

The puck, however, crossed over the red line nearly a full second after the game clock had expired.

‘I, myself, thought it wasn’t a goal, but thank God it wasn’t,’ Lawrence said. ‘We saw the play develop, and luckily the time ran out. We didn’t want to go into overtime ‘-‘- we wanted to win right there.’

Biega, despite his celebration, knew the decision was up to the team of referees.

‘[Killorn] gave me a great pass,’ Biega said. ‘Obviously, it was in the heat of the moment. I don’t have a say. They definitely made the right call. It was a close call. It was a great pass by [Killorn] and that’s why the Beanpot is so special ‘-‘- you’re guaranteed to get a good game. It was close.’

Capitalizing on BU’s inefficiency in the first period, Harvard jumped out to an early 2-0 lead. Crimson sophomore forward Michael Biega slid a wrist shot toward BU freshman goalie Kieran Millan at the 12-minute mark that ricocheted past the netminder’s right pad.

‘I thought that Harvard played unbelievably hard throughout the game,’ BU coach Jack Parker said after the game. ‘We were getting outworked in the first period. Shots were in their favor, even though we had the power plays. I was concerned. We played hard and competed when [we] weren’t playing our best.’

Harvard doubled its lead a minute into the second frame as Killorn trickled the puck past Millan on a 5-on-3 power-play bid.

BU failed to surrender to its second first-round Beanpot loss in as many years, though, as sophomore forward Nick Bonino beat Hoyle for a pair of goals in the second.

‘We came in knowing we had to play BU hockey after the first period,’ Lawrence said. ‘We put our nose to the grindstone and started working. They worked hard. We tried to match their intensity, and luckily, we came out with a victory at the end.’

Fighting through a scrum behind the net, BU senior co-captain John McCarthy and senior forward Brandon Yip scraped the puck out from behind Hoyle’s cage to Bonino, who slipped it under Hoyle’s blocker to make it 2-1.

Bonino added his second tally of the game less than two minutes later. The beneficiary of BU senior co-captain Matt Gilroy’s stick work on the half-boards, Bonino lifted the puck past Holye in the crease with a second-chance bid.

‘We talked about hard-wrapping it when we came in the zone, so I moved it around to Gilroy,’ Bonino said. ‘He squeaked through, I went to the open ice, and he found me. It was a great play around the wall.’