Entering the third period of Saturday’s regular season finale knotted at two goals apiece with crosstown rival Northeastern University, the No. 13 Boston University men’s hockey team had a chance over the remaining 20 minutes to improve its NCAA tournament resume with a win. If that wasn’t enough, a win by the Terriers in their own building would have given them at least a chance to earn the second seed in the Hockey East tournament, which, as it turns out, they would have gotten thanks to No. 2 Boston College’s 4-3 win at No. 7/8 University of New Hampshire.
The Terriers’ playoff destiny was essentially in their own hands.
But even with all of that on the line, BU let the golden opportunity fall by the wayside after it allowed two goals within 1:01, six-and-a-half minutes into the final frame, and never fully recovered. A goal by junior forward Kevin Gilroy with 2:50 left on the clock and a late offensive flurry with six skaters on the ice couldn’t provide the needed push the game into at least overtime.
With the 4-3 loss, the Terriers (18-10-8, 15-5-6 Hockey East) will remain at the third seed, meaning that they will take on the Huskies (12-14-8, 10-10-7) for the third, fourth and possibly even fifth time in two weeks this weekend for a best-of-three Hockey East quarterfinals series at Agganis Arena.
“Rule number one is don’t beat yourself and we just beat ourselves tonight,” said BU coach Jack Parker. “Stupid penalties, bad plays, bad passes, turnovers. We weren’t focused. . . Once we got up 1-0, once again this team does not know how to play for 60 minutes.
“I couldn’t be more disappointed with about 80 percent of my guys.”
The Terriers jumped out to a 2-1 lead in a first period dominated by the refereeing whistle. In that period, the two teams combined for 23 minutes in the sin bin on 10 penalties (six on NU, four on BU). However, it was BU that benefitted most on its rewarded power plays, going 2-for-5 with the man advantage. Sophomore defenseman Max Nicastro (slapper from the left circle 4:08 into the period) and junior forward Chris Connolly (wrister that went five-hole through traffic at 17:13) were both the benefactors assists from freshman forward Charlie Coyle to notch those two goals with the man up. Those scores sandwiched a Randy Guzior tip-goal to give BU its one-goal lead after 20 minutes.
But the biggest moment of the first period may have come with exactly 60 seconds left. At that time, freshman defenseman Garrett Noonan went for an upper-body hit in the left corner of the BU zone and ended up hitting his target in the head, according to the referees. The resulting call was a five-minute major and a game misconduct, Noonan’s third of the season, meaning he could be suspended for Game 1 of the quarterfinals barring the league office overturning the call.
That left the Terriers – who were down a starting defenseman already with junior David Warsofsky still recovering from a concussion – with just five blue-liners for the game’s remaining 41 minutes.
“It hurts when you lose one of your better defensemen and you’re playing five,” Parker said. “Warsofsky’s not here to boot. Depth-wise, it hurt us. Power-play-wise, it hurt us.”
The Huskies weren’t able to take advantage of the Terriers’ loss until they knotted the game back up at two apiece with 1:10 left in the second period. Defenseman Drew Daniels took a feed from his twin brother Justin and slid the puck past a sprawling Kieran Millan (30 saves).
That set up the all-important third period that ended being dominated by Northeastern.
Senior Mike Hewkin gave the Huskies their first lead of the game in the third when his snap shot from the high slot deflected off a BU defender and over the glove of Millan, who couldn’t react to the deflection quite quickly enough. One minute and one second later, Steve Silva extended that lead to two goals with another shot that sailed over a butterflied Millan.
After the fourth goal, Parker immediately called a timeout in hopes of regrouping his smarting team, but those efforts were all for naught. Nearly five hockey minutes later, sophomore forward Alex Chiasson took an ill-timed cross-checking penalty for which Parker openly, loudly criticized him for from the bench area while he sat in the penalty box. Even when a high-sticking call on NU forward Steve Quailer erased the Huskies’ advantage, Nicastro gave it right back to them with his own high-sticking penalty, putting BU at a disadvantage when it could least afford one.
Northeastern assistant coach Sebastien Laplante, who has taken over head coaching duties after Greg Cronin was suspended by the program for possible NCAA violations, believed that it was his team’s ability to calm down in the third and not take similar penalties that helped it earn two points.
“Keeping it simple was the key,” he said. “We didn’t try to make orange juice out of lemons. We tried to just play our game. . .It was nice as a coach to be behind the bench and see those guys apply the system, but it all comes down to being simple.”
All three games between the two teams this season were one-goal contests (BU won the season series 2-1-0), but BU senior captain Joe Pereira, who was honored along with senior goalie Adam Kraus after the game during Senior Night ceremonies, refused to believe that there’s something about the Huskies that gives his team fits.
“I don’t think it’s more Northeastern, I think it’s us,” he said. “At the end of the day, we have to – I’m not even going to say learn because I keep saying that – we have to either step up or we’re going home.”
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