By Kevin Dillon/DFP Staff
It looks like all the Boston University men’s hockey team needed to win on the road was to play as close as it could to home, as the Terriers topped No. 9 Northeastern University 4-2 to finally earn their first road win of the season Saturday night at Matthews Arena.
The victory also marked the Terriers’ first back-to-back win since Nov. 17 and 22, and the first two-win weekend of the season since the first weekend. The back-to-back wins came despite several different Terrier players suspended by the team both nights.
“I’ve been coaching almost 20 years and I don’t know if I have been prouder,” said BU coach David Quinn. “Through some difficult times and a difficult season to respond the way we did over the last two nights shows our resiliency and our character and our leadership.”
It was sophomore forward Matt Lane – who did not play in Friday night’s game due to a team suspension – who put the Terriers on the board first six seconds into its first power play of the contest. With Northeastern forward John Stevens in the box for tripping, freshman defenseman Doyle Somerby sent a shot off of Huskies goaltender Clay Witt’s pad right onto Lane’s stick for an easy rebound goal.
It was Lane’s sixth goal of the season, and BU’s first power play goal in its last 16 power play opportunities, a span during which it had allowed two shorthanded goals against.
Northeastern (18-12-4, 10-8-2 Hockey East) brought the game with a little less than eight minutes remaining in the period though, when winger Braden Pimm capitalized on a shot from the top of the slot. BU goaltender Matt O’Connor got a piece of it, but he failed to keep it from crossing the goal line as Pimm scored his second goal in as many nights against BU.
The Huskies even took a brief lead in the second period when freshman Zach Aston-Reese received a pass as the trailer on a 3-on-2 and ripped it past O’Connor’s glove for his eighth goal of the season. The goal came off a great feed from winger Kevin Roy, who added to his team-leading 43 points on the season.
The Terriers struck back with two quick strikes in the final six minutes of the second though. Lane scored his second goal of the game on a breakaway in which he deked past Witt and scored on his backhand. It was Lane’s first-career multi-goal game.
“I just I marked my guy and fortunately got a good stick on the puck and then I was just off to the races,” Lane said.”
Less than two minutes later, Somerby added his first-career goal on a backhander that beat Witt to his blocker side. The goal came after a nice steal at the defensive blue line by freshman forward Tommy Kelley, whose one-on-one deke left the puck sitting in the slot for Somerby to capitalize on. It was a two-goal swing that gave BU a lead it did not surrender.
Sophomore forward Mike Moran added to the scoring 7:39 into the third period, ripping a snap shot off the left post and in for his fifth goal of the season. Freshman winger Nick Roberto added an assist on the play.
Sophomore forward Danny O’Regan, freshman forwards Brendan Collier and Kevin Duane and senior defenseman Matt Ronan all did not play due to what appeared to be disciplinary reasons. Freshman defenseman T.J. Ryan also did not play, but he was out with an injury.
The thin lineup could be here to stay though, especially with all the success the team has been having.
I’ve written it before, and I’ll write it again. Back on November 30th, before the beginning of the first of the two 8 game winless streaks, the Terriers won a game away from home, and much further away than St. Botolph Street to boot.
That said, I’m glad they are now riding a 2 game winning streak. Let’s go for 3, then 4, then who knows.
what,,, beat ND and then have to get crushed by BC in two straight. no thanks. i say, let’s lose to ND, get this season over with and prepare for next year
I really hate to say this, but I agree.
Madison Square Garden does not count as a road win; It’s a neutral site win. This is their first in another team’s building.
I get the semantics, Scott (or whoever), but when it is written, be it on this site or in the press overall, that BU had gone x number of games or days without winning “on the road”, it makes things worse than they are (not that winning only 1 game in 17 tries or being winless on the road in league is somehow better). The implication is that they could not win away from Agganis, which, as I claim, is not true.