MANCHESTER, N.H. — In a year where most in the sports world forgot about the man they call A-Rod, let us introduce you to E-Rod.
Evan Rodrigues, senior forward for Boston University, put forth one of his best efforts on the game’s biggest stage. His Northeast Regional-winning goal with 2:24 remaining gave top-seeded BU a 3-2 victory over Minnesota-Duluth on Saturday and punched the Terriers’ ticket to the Frozen Four in their hometown.
[scg_html_ne2015]Rodrigues finished the game with two goals and took home regional most outstanding player honors after contributing three goals and four points in two games.
And as impressive as his individual effort was, it was his patience when the puck came onto his stick in the game’s waning moments that was unforgettable.
After the Bulldogs’ Andy Welinski was whistled for holding with 4:23 remaining, it appeared UMD might be able to kill the penalty. But the Terriers won a scrum along the left boards, and a quick pass from Friday’s overtime hero, Danny O’Regan, across to captain Matt Grzelcyk was quickly touch passed to Rodrigues.
With seemingly plenty of room to shoot, Rodrigues instead faked, toe dragged the puck around the sliding Bulldogs defender, walked in further and fired a bullet into a minuscule space, beating goaltender Kasimir Kaskisuo (27 saves) short side to send the heavily partisan crowd of 4,721 into hysterics.
“As soon as I passed [the puck] to him, I really wanted him to shoot it; he seemed so wide open,” Grzelcyk said of the game winner. “But he made a great play and just a great shot after that.”
From that point, the game was hardly over as Minnesota-Duluth pulled its goaltender with 1:37 remaining and peppered the BU net. Terriers goaltender Matt O’Connor (27 saves), who in the second period surrendered what might be the softest goal he has all season, proved his bounce-back ability and with 37 seconds remaining somehow got a pad on Adam Krause’s would-be tying goal to save the victory.
“You’re going to make mistakes and obviously when you’re the goalie, everyone in the world knows when you make mistakes,” BU coach David Quinn said of his netminder. “But [O’Connor] just kept playing. That’s what he had to do. You’re going to make mistakes.
“You can either mope around or you can get gritty and do your job. Boy, did he do his job.”
Boston University controlled the early tempo and play, although Minnesota-Duluth had the best early scoring chance. Dominic Toninato was set up in the right slot and fired a shot that O’Connor stopped with the left pad. The rebound came right back to Toninato and, with O’Connor down, he roofed a shot over the net at 6:13.
[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000uc3SfA3VMEQ” g_name=”20150328-BU-UMD” f_show_caption=”t” f_show_slidenum=”t” img_title=”casc” pho_credit=”iptc” f_link=”t” f_bbar=”t” fsvis=”f” width=”500″ height=”375″ bgcolor=”#AAAAAA” bgtrans=”t” btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” crop=”f” trans=”xfade” tbs=”4000″ f_ap=”t” linkdest=”c” f_fullscreen=”f” f_constrain=”f” twoup=”f” f_topbar=”f” f_bbarbig=”” f_htmllinks=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”f” f_show_watermark=”f” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”f” f_up=”f” target=”_self” wmds=”llQ6QNgpeC.p1Ucz7U.f22AHktcpsgA2GwXPPEVu.kGgUovyOyo3c3unQGnGDXjfK9MtlQ–” ]The Terriers then had their best opportunity 65 seconds later and they converted. Brandon Fortunato whacked at a puck at the left side of the blue line to keep it in the zone. The puck went right to Rodrigues, who made a highlight-reel, 180-degree spin move to one-time the puck out of midair and past Kaskisuo for a 1-0 lead.
The goal came on BU’s sixth shot and the Terriers led the shot totals 6-1. But it also woke up the Bulldogs, who seemed to better balance the ice for the remainder of the period and finished the frame tied at 11 in shots.
It took only 37 seconds in the second period for Minnesota-Duluth to tie things. A scrum around O’Connor not only tied up the goaltender in traffic with his defensemen but forced him to lose his stick. That allowed Willie Raskob to one-time a shot from the right point into an empty net to tie the game at 1.
BU responded at 3:32 when a makeshift line of Matt Lane, Chase Phelps and J.J. Piccinich, forced together with an injury to Nikolas Olsson on Friday. Lane was the beneficiary of nice passing down low, and his ability to attack the net and wrap the puck around Kaskisuo’s left skate gave the Terriers a 2-1 edge.
Minnesota-Duluth responded at 7:31 on what looked like an innocent play. Kyle Osterberg floated a puck on the rush from just inside the blue line that O’Connor didn’t catch cleanly. The puck hit his glove and rolled over the goal line to tie the game 2-2.
Although BU dominated the third period territorially, there wasn’t much time and space to generate Grade A shots until the penalty, one that Bulldogs coach Scott Sandelin was notably upset about being called in a game where his team never got a chance on the power play.
“I was surprised [at the call],” said Sandelin. “But there are things that you can’t control. All we could control was trying to kill it. We almost did. But [BU] ended up making a great play and scoring the winning goal.
“You guys saw it. You saw how the game went. It’s frustrating sometimes.”
