Stop me if you’ve heard this story before.
Notre Dame skated through much of the season as a somewhat mediocre team in Hockey East before upsetting the first-place team as the season draws to a close.
A season ago, it was a dominant Boston College team that ran into the Irish, falling on the final day of the regular season at home before losing a best-of-three quarterfinal series in the Hockey East playoffs.
This weekend, an unranked Irish team skated into Boston University’s Agganis Arena and took three-of-four points in the penultimate weekend against the No. 3 Terriers, culminated by a 3-2 victory on Saturday.
“With this team, I think we’re trying to pick up our play right now and head into the postseason on a good note,” said Notre Dame defenseman Robbie Russo, whose three assists on Saturday continued his torrid scoring pace of 30 points in 32 games.
A year ago, Notre Dame’s heroics at the end of the regular season didn’t do a ton to the Hockey East standings. This year, that’s hardly the case. The win, coupled with other results around the league, pushed the Irish into a three-way tie for third place with Providence and Mass.-Lowell, that after holding a 5-5-3 league record just seven games ago.
“It’s taken time for the young guys to acclimate,” said Irish coach Jeff Jackson. “Last year was a veteran group that knew how to deal with the pressure. This group is different.
“The young guys are figuring it out and the veterans are elevating their game at the right time.”
In a way, two major turning points in the game came in a combined span of less than a second. After BU dominated the first period, Notre Dame grabbed a 1-0 lead on a Mario Lucia one-timer with one-tenth of a second remaining in the first.
After the teams had traded goals and BU was pressing on a power play at the end of the second period, Terriers rookie phenom Jack Eichel took a roughing penalty after the final buzzer that led to a Notre Dame power-play goal — the eventual game-winner — by Vince Hinostroza at 1:45 of the second.
“The [goal] at the end of the first period was really a back-breaker because we felt so good about how we had played,” said BU coach David Quinn. “It was tough to overcome mentally.
“I thought we did a nice job battling back to make it 2-1. Now we have something to feel good about ourselves. Then we go into the end of the second period and take a bad penalty. You can really say one second cost us two goals, but when you’re playing playoff-type hockey games, all those things matter.”
After the last-second goal to end the first, Notre Dame extended its lead in the second, this time on a power play. Russo’s shot from the point was saved by Connor LaCouvee (19 saves), but Sam Herr easily wheeled around in front of the crease to poke the rebound home at 7:26.
After the Irish owned possession time for the minutes following, forcing BU to use its timeout following an icing, a Notre Dame penalty turned the momentum.
The Terriers failed to score when Thomas DaPauli was whistled for tripping, but just seconds after the penalty expired, BU’s forecheck forced a Russo turnover, leading to Nicholas Olsson feeding Mike Moran for his third goal of the season at 15:39 to pull BU within a goal heading to the third.
After the Eichel penalty and Hinostroza, the Terriers, the nation’s best third-period team, stormed the Notre Dame net. Matt Grzelyck pulled BU within one with 12:10 remaining, firing a bad-angle shot over Petersen.
The rookie netminder stood tall in the remainder of play, finishing the third period with 18 saves, 10 from the grade ‘A’ area, and a total of 45 saves on the night.
While Notre Dame (14-15-5, 9-6-5 Hockey East) jumps up to a third-place tie, the loss for BU (19-6-5, 13-4-3 Hockey East) puts its celebration of a league title outright and the number one seed on hold.
The outright regular season will be far away from the Terriers’ mind in the coming days as they focus on winning the Beanpot title in a championship game that has been delayed for 14 days because of one of many snow storms in Boston.
“The good news is we don’t have to live with this too long,” said Quinn. “We get to play another hockey game on Monday night with a chance to win a championship.”
