Megan nets two, leads BU to Beanpot final

Junior forward Wade Megan scored a combined 13 goals in his first two years on the Boston University men’s hockey team. In 25 games this season, he’s eclipsed what he achieved in his first 74 games as a Terrier, taking over the team lead in goals with his 13th and 14th tallies in Monday’s 3-1 Beanpot semifinals win over Harvard University.

Megan ranks fifth on the team with 20 points – quite a jump up from finishing 11th last year – but he’s found the back of the net more than anyone else, including junior assistant captain Alex Chiasson, senior captain Chris Connolly and sophomore forward Matt Nieto, all of whom scored more goals than Megan last year and had more experience playing on top lines before this year.

“I don’t really try to think about that stuff,” Megan said. “I don’t think a lot of guys on the team think about that stuff, and maybe that’s why we’ve been so successful.”

Almost as important as Megan taking over the lead was the player he overtook: Corey Trivino, who was dismissed from the team in December, was technically still the team’s goals leader with 13 until Monday.

Of course, Trivino’s departure, coupled with that of Charlie Coyle’s, made room for Megan to move up to the first line. Since then, Megan has proven himself worthy of a first- or second-line spot in the long term.

He’s improved a .080 shooting percentage in 2010-11 to a .171 mark this year, although he hasn’t taken many more shots – an average of 2.8 per game this year compared to 2.6 last year. He led the team with five against Harvard on Monday.

“He’s had a great year,” Parker said. “Before the break I remember thinking to myself that when we get back from the break, after Christmas, when we get everybody healthy – because Nieto was out a little and so was Connolly – it’s too bad, because we’ll probably have to move Wade Megan back onto the third line, and he doesn’t deserve to be there. He’s playing so well.

“As it turned out, we had a couple of exits stage right, and all of a sudden he’s playing on the first line.”

On Monday, Megan played on sophomore center Sahir Gill’s left wing on the second line. He’s also seen time on the top line with Connolly and Chiasson and adapted well to each new set of linemates, despite playing mostly on the third and fourth lines in his first two seasons.

“I try to play a physical game, work in the corners – I’m a bit of a power forward, I guess, so I guess that’s applicable to all three lines,” Megan said. “I just try to play hard and physical and go to the net and score goals that way.”

Although playing on scoring lines has certainly increased his offensive chances and his ice time, Megan isn’t just reaping the benefits of playing with talented linemates. His second goal on Monday was an almost completely individual effort – he picked up the puck in the corner, got Harvard goalie Steve Michalek to go down and flipped the puck over him into the top right corner of the net.

It might have been tough to predict Megan finding himself in the role of team sniper by February, but it would have been even harder to predict something else that happened to him during Monday’s game: After his second goal, which put BU up 3-1, he became a trending topic worldwide on Twitter.

Megan said he didn’t know what to say about his newfound Twitter fame. Parker, once he understood the situation, offered a snappier response.

“What does ‘trending worldwide on Twitter’ mean?” he asked.

When told, he said, “Boy, it’s a sad world.”

Scoring game-winning goals in the Beanpot to help your team advance to the finals can get you noticed, but Parker said individual recognition has never been Megan’s goal.

“[Megan]’s a very hard worker,” Parker said. “He doesn’t care what line he’s on. He knows he’s going to get a lot of ice time because he’s a part of every PK, every single power play, so he gets a lot of ice time for us and he’s having a terrific year.”