BOSTON — Between a heartbreaking loss to Boston University in Monday night’s Beanpot championship and sitting in the middle of a tight scrum in the Hockey East standings going into the last weekend of the season, Northeastern appeared to have plenty of motivation going into its home-and-home series with the Terriers.
However, the Huskies put all of that aside and focused merely on making the first period their best 20 minutes of the season.
Northeastern came out and scored the first three goals of the game – outshooting BU by a whopping 13-2 margin in the first ten minutes alone – and then held on for dear life as the Terriers stormed back. In a wild ride that continued right up until the final buzzer, Northeastern held on for a 6-5 win in front of 5,729 at Agganis Arena.
Brothers and linemates John Stevens and Nolan Stevens combined for four points for the Huskies, while Evan Rodrigues had a proud showing on senior night with a hat trick for BU.
“It was an unbelievable game,” said Northeastern associate head coach Jerry Keefe, filling in for head coach Jim Madigan, who was suspended for two games due to his behavior toward the officials following Monday night’s Beanpot loss. “I was actually really surprised that we didn’t have to get to seven to win the game, to be honest with you. That’s an unreal team we just played, and I can’t say enough about our guys.”
When asked about his team’s motivation for tonight, Keefe discarded the ideas of payback for the Beanpot loss or keeping hopes alive for home ice and a first-round bye in the Hockey East playoffs.
“I know it’s a cliché, but we just focused on the next game,” Keefe said. “It didn’t really have anything to do with Monday night. This was a league game, our next game, and we just wanted to keep moving forward. It’s as simple as that.”
Keefe attributed the team’s grit and persistence to its 0-8-1 start back in the fall.
“We’re a desperate team, right?” Keefe said. “Because we started off so slow, and our guys just seem to go game to game. Tonight, we just broke it down. Going into the game, we said, ‘This is going to be our best 20 minutes of the year in the first period.’ That’s all we talked about.”
At the five-minute mark of the opening period, Northeastern kept the puck in the BU zone for well over a minute, with the Stevens line dominating. BU goalie Matt O’Connor held the fort until 14:17, though, when Mike Szamtula redirected a Dustin Darou shot from the point for the first goal.
Less than two minutes later, Northeastern made it 2-0 on another redirect – this time it was Colton Saucerman getting the goal off a Kevin Roy shot. Just 23 seconds later, it was 3-0. Garret Cockerill’s shot seemed to carom off of Nolan Stevens for the goal.
“It’s unacceptable,” BU coach David Quinn said. “You can’t go down 3-0 in the fashion that we did. The zone time they had was just unacceptable. You’ve got to defend with your legs, not with a lunge and a lean and shadowing people. You’re not going to win anything big if you can’t defend and you spend that much time in your end.”
At that point, the game brought to mind BU’s 9-1 post-Beanpot loss to Providence way back in 1995, when the Terriers never lost again after the rout in Rhode Island. This time, however, BU startled the visitors with a pair of goals in a 35-second span with just 1:15 left in the period.
First, Nick Roberto redirected a Doyle Somerby shot into the net and then freshman sensation Jack Eichel made a terrific cross-ice feed on a power play to set up Rodrigues for a short wrist shot and a goal.
BU had all the momentum and looked crisp early in second until taking a dumb penalty. Northeastern, which went three-for-three with the man-advantage tonight, made it 4-2 in less than 40 seconds. This time the Huskies were helped by a bounce as Cockerill’s shot from the point was blocked, only to have the puck go right on the stick of Zach Aston-Reese for the shot and score.
At that point, O’Connor was lifted from the net in favor of freshman Connor Lacouvee.
At 9:11, the Huskies make it 5-2 when John Stevens streaked behind the net and threw the puck in front for Dylan Sikura to knock home. Then Roy set up Dalen Hedges for a five-on-three goal that made it 6-2 at 12:04. That would prove to be the decisive goal, but not for quite some time.
BU continued its late-period heroics with a goal at 19:05 with Rodrigues lunging to tip in a Danny O’Regan shot. Then the Terriers made it really interesting by scoring a power-play goal in the opening minute of the third period as Ahti Oksanen took two swats at the puck in the slot before knocking it in.
Brian Diffley put a long shot in the net at 8:41 for the Terriers, only to have it waved off after video review due to a crease violation. Still, Rodrigues completed his hat trick with another power-play goal, this one a high floater from the right point that beat goalie Clay Witt high on the stick side.
BU had plenty of time and chances, mounting great pressure with the extra attacker, but the Huskies held on.
“This game was going to be about who handled Monday night better,” Quinn said. “Were we going to handle winning the Beanpot better than they handled having a tough loss? And it was obvious they did a much better job of handling Monday night’s game than we did.
“That’s about as bad as we’ve played all year. We showed some spurts, especially on our power play, but the better team won tonight without question.”
BU (20-7-5, 13-5-3 Hockey East) can still clinch the top seed with either a win or a tie at Northeastern tomorrow night or a Boston College tie or loss at Notre Dame. Northeastern (16-13-4, 11-8-2) is currently in fifth place, but can finish as high as third with a win or as low as tied for sixth with a loss.
