PROVIDENCE – More than 127 minutes of hockey over two nights were barely enough to decide a Hockey East series winner between Northeastern and Providence.
Saturday night at Schneider Arena, though, the host Friars made one more play. And, that was the difference.
At the 2:11 mark of overtime, freshman Greg Printz picked a loose puck out from under Northeastern goaltender Cayden Primeau’s pads and buried his fourth goal of the season, lifting the No. 10 Friars to a crucial 2-1 win. The teams skated to a 4-4 tie Friday in Boston.
“I thought it was a good game tonight, kind of a carryover from last night,” said Providence head coach Nate Leaman, whose team enters the final month of the regular season on a 5-2-1 run. “Last night’s game was a little more wide-open. I thought tonight, for both teams, ice was harder to come by. It was a little bit more of a rock fight tonight.”
The Friars held a 29-19 shot advantage in the game, testing Primeau with quality chances throughout the night. The freshman – and one of two Montreal Canadiens prospects playing in the nets – finished with 27 saves, including nine apiece in the first and third periods.
Hayden Hawkey made 10 of his 18 stops in the second period for the Friars, who rise to 17-8-3 on the season and 10-5-3 in Hockey East play.
It was a close, well-played weekend between two teams in the league’s upper echelon, and there was a fine line between the positive and negative result. For Northeastern head coach Jim Madigan, the right effort was there for a second consecutive night, but just not the result.
“Five of the top scorers in the league were in this game, two of the top defensemen in points (Providence’s Jacob Bryson and Northeastern’s Jeremy Davies), and two of the higher-ranked goaltenders,” Madigan said. “I don’t want to say we’re evenly matched because we’re built differently, but there are good players on both sides. They’re a well-coached team.
“In most hockey games, there’s a winner and a loser, and we were the loser tonight, but I liked our effort. I wish we had a little bit more offensive opportunity, but we had a few and Hawkey made some saves.”
Against the run of play, Northeastern opened the scoring 1:43 into the second period. Defenseman Eric Williams sent a pass out of the left wing corner and right onto the tape of sophomore Matt Filipe, who flicked home his fifth goal of the season and first in seven games after moving through center ice ahead of the Providence defense.
While the Friars got the better of the play in a scoreless first, the Huskies held an 11-8 shot edge in the middle frame, but found themselves in a tied hockey game.
The hosts stayed the course, knotting the score at a goal apiece at the 8:05 mark of the second. It was a wild sequence as Brian Pinho’s initial shot from the point bounced in the air, off the body of credited goal scorer Kasper Bjorkqvist just outside the crease, and ultimately over Primeau.
The Friars had a great go-ahead look late in the second, too, as Pinho lobbed the puck ahead to Printz for a tip-in try, but Primeau directed the puck away for one of his seven stops in the period. Nine more followed in the third, including three on one shift with less than seven minutes to play.
Both teams had golden chances in overtime before Printz scored his third game-winning goal of the season. After Brandon Duhaime’s shot deflected off Primeau’s paddle and off the crossbar, Filipe took a shot on Hawkey as he crashed the net and ultimately knocked the junior netminder’s mask off.
“That was a great look,” Leaman said of Duhaime’s shot. “It hit his paddle and then hit the crossbar, so you’ve just got to come back and get the next one in the net.”
The Friars did get the next one in the net, burying their third shot on goal of the extra session to clinch a crucial win that lifts them just one point behind the second-place Huskies in a tight Hockey East race.
“They can make plays. That’s what they do,” Leaman said of the Huskies. “So, the key to us winning was staying out of the box. Both nights, we only gave them two looks on the power play.
“I really liked our push in the third period and overtime. We showed some great mental toughness there in the third, and to stay with it when we were down 1-0. That’s something we’ve struggled with a bit – when we get down. Against a good team, we stayed with it and we got rewarded.”
