The remnants of a pane of glass Patrick MacGregor shattered. Junhee Chung/DFP Staff

By Arielle Aronson/DFP Staff

The No. 4 Boston University men’s hockey team ended a four-game home losing streak on Friday night when it topped Northeastern University, 5-2, on BU Senior Night. Over 30 former BU players, some of whom had traveled from as far away as the Bahamas and Canada, attended the game to wish the Terriers well.

The BU win, combined with a victory from the University of Massachusetts, ended Northeastern’s playoff hopes. BU remained in sole possession of second place in the league, and the Terriers can win first place in the league tomorrow with another win combined with a Boston College loss.

The Terriers (21-11-1, 17-8-1 Hockey East) came out sloppy in the first period, and Northeastern (12-16-5, 8-14-4 Hockey East) took advantage of that immediately. Garrett Vermeersch netted the first goal of the game just 38 seconds into regulation when, on a 3-on-1 rush, his shot deflected off a BU stick and past senior goaltender Kieran Millan.

“I didn’t like the way my team played tonight,” said BU coach Jack Parker. “Northeastern had much better chances and much better opportunities. They played harder and smarter than we did for the most part.”

BU did not pressure the Huskies well in either zone and seemed to lack energy through most of the first period, but sophomore defenseman Patrick MacGregor created some excitement for the crowd when, 13 minutes into the period, his hit on former Terrier Vinny Saponari shattered a pane of glass above the circle in the BU zone.

“It was fun to watch, I guess,” said junior forward Wade Megan of MacGregor’s destruction. “It was pretty cool.”

BU responded to the lackluster first period with a four-goal second period, as the Terriers changed the entire momentum of the game in a span of just 19 seconds. The stretch started when Steve Morra took a hitting from behind penalty to put BU on the power play. Sophomore forward Matt Nieto cashed in with a wrist shot aimed off Rawlings’ back to tie the game at 5:30 into the second.

Megan gave BU its first lead of the game just 19 seconds later, as he snuck a wrister into a small slot above Rawlings’s blocker to make it a 2-1 game.

Northeastern had a chance to regain momentum at 7:04 in the period when Kevin Gilroy was whistled off for a hit from behind. The Terriers kept momentum in their favor, however, when BU broke out on a 3-on-1 led by sophomore defenseman Garrett Noonan, who passed, got the puck back and beat Rawlings top corner. Millan earned his first collegiate point on the goal, as he made a save that jump-started the odd-man rush. The goal increased BU’s lead to 3-1 with 11:28 left in the second.

BU capped off the period with a goal from junior forward Ryan Santana, who sent a low tip off a shot by redshirt junior forward Ross Gaudet past Rawlings, extending the Terrier lead to 4-1 at 17:22.

“I think the first period we were cheating on offense a little bit and not as defensively sharp as we should have been,” Nieto said. “Coach kind of told us that after the first intermission, so we went back out there and picked it up defensively and created offense off of defense.”

In the third period, Northeastern got a 15 second 5-on-3 when Noonan cross-checked Justin Daniels from behind with Yasin Cisse already in the box. Northeastern capitalized seven seconds into the 5-on-3 when a Ludwig Karlsson shot from the blue line beat Millan, tightening the game to a 4-2 BU lead.

Northeastern coach Jim Madigan pulled Witt in favor of the extra attacker with five minutes remaining in the game. Connolly made Madigan pay with an empty-net goal with 4:18 remaining, helping BU to a 5-2 lead. The point kept Connolly from going four consecutive games without notching either a goal or an assist at any time throughout his career.

“We knew that UMass was winning, so if UMass gets two points, we need at least a point,” said Northeastern coach Jim Madigan. “So we pulled the goalie trying to get close to tying the game, trying to survive.”

Of course, the Huskies ultimately could not come close to tying the game. Although they pulled Witt again with slightly more than two minutes left in the game, the Huskies could not capitalize and barely kept BU from scoring another empty-net goal in the waning seconds of the game.

Despite the BU win, Parker said he was concerned about his team’s fate in the playoffs if the Terriers continue to play the way they did Friday night.

“I asked the guys, ‘who do you want to be?'” Parker said. “’What type of team do you want to be? We’re not going anywhere playing the way we played tonight.’”