This is the second of four previews for teams playing in the 2023 NCAA Men’s Frozen Four this week in Tampa, Fla. Click here for all of USCHO’s Frozen Four coverage.
Boston University Terriers
Season record: 29-10-0
How they got to Tampa: Won the Manchester Regional, beating Western Michigan 5-1 and Cornell 2-1.
Top players: D Lane Hutson (15-33-48), F Matt Brown (16-30-46), F Wilmer Skoog (16-15-31).
Top goalie: Drew Commesso (24-7-0, 2.41 goals-against average, .914 save percentage).
Why they’ll win the national championship: None of the other frozen three are on as big as a roll as the Terriers, who have won nine straight and are the only one in the group to have won both their conference’s regular-season and tournament championships. They know a thing or two about clutch play — BU’s streak includes a pair of overtime wins and four by two goals or fewer.
Why they won’t win the national championship: BU has struggled with inconsistent play at times this season, including a 9-2 loss at Michigan, its potential opponent in the championship game should the Terriers get past Minnesota.
The Wikipedia page for the Boston University men’s hockey program lists, under the “rivals” section, the usual suspects — Boston College, Northeastern, Harvard and a few others, all based in the northeastern United States.
Conspicuously missing is the Terriers’ storied rivalry with Minnesota. BU and the Gophers have gone mano-a-mano eight times in hockey’s version of March madness, including a memorable 1976 battle that produced a bench-clearing brawl and a war of words between coaches Jack Parker of BU and Herb Brooks of Minnesota.
The rivalry will add another chapter on Thursday when BU and Minnesota meet in the opening game of the 2023 NCAA Frozen Four in Tampa.
“I know the BU-Minnesota rivalry in the ’70s was huge, and a lot of those guys played together on the ’80 Olympic team,” said first-year BU coach Jay Pandolfo, who had a front-row seat to the BU-Minnesota NCAA tournament rivalry in 1994 and 1995, each time as a player on a Terrier team that ended the Gophers’ season in the national semifinals. “I was fortunate to be on the winning side of games against them, but I don’t remember a huge rivalry. But it’s two incredible programs, tradition and it should be a lot of fun”.
Pandolfo — only the fifth coach in the last 30 years to take a team to the Frozen Four in his first season — can be forgiven if he didn’t get a sense of the BU-Minnesota rivalry during his playing days, as he was busy helping to lead the Terriers to the Frozen Four each year he played. But his sense of history is apt — the 1980 gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team, of “Miracle on Ice” fame, featured 13 out of 20 players (nine Minnesota, four BU) from the two schools on its roster.
Back to the present day, Pandolfo said for BU to have any success against overall tournament top seed Minnesota will require neutralizing the Gophers’ scoring line that has produced a total of 148 points among them — Logan Cooley (27-37-57), Jimmy Snuggerud (21-29-50) and Matthew Knies (21-20-41). Cooley and Knies, along with Michigan’s Adam Fantilli, are the three finalists for the Hobey Baker Award.
“Minnesota, they’re a heck of a team,” Pandolfo said. “Obviously, high-powered offense. I don’t think we want to get into a track meet with them, the way they play in transition. And we certainly have to be aware of the top line they have. (We) know they’re a great team. There’s a reason they’ve been No. 1 in the country all year long.”
BU has plenty of weapons to counter. Freshman defenseman and Hobey semifinalist Lane Hutson has been a stalwart all season for the Terriers, leading the team in scoring with 48 points. Senior forwards Matt Brown and Wilmer Skoog also are dangerous.
“Both those guys [Brown and Skoog] came back motivated to have really good seasons,” Pandolfo said. “Their preparation in the summertime was to come back and have great years. And they prepared themselves to do that. And give both of them a lot of credit, not just for their own individual accomplishments, either. They wanted to come back and have a chance to win.”
Backboning the Terriers to success all season has been goalie Drew Commesso. He has allowed just two goals so far in the NCAA tournament. In his last nine starts — all BU wins — Commesso has posted a .936 save percentage and two shutouts.
“The last month, he’s been excellent,” Pandolfo said. “I think it’s about that consistency. He seems very calm in the net. He has confidence and a bit of swagger to his game and I think goaltenders need that. They have to have some of that. He’s shown that. And we’re happy the way he’s playing right now. He’s been a big reason why we’re at where we’re at.”
