DURHAM, N.H. — Jay Pandolfo emerged from the locker room for postgame questions at the Whittemore Center on Friday night slightly disappointed and hung up on a second period in which the Boston University men’s hockey team let a commanding 3-1 lead turn into a legitimate scare.
BU was hemmed in for the final 10 minutes of the frame, conceded the equalizer with less than two minutes until the intermission and, most pressing for the head coach, committed its ninth game misconduct of the season. No. 18 UNH suddenly had a three-minute power play on the other side of the break and all the momentum.
Not exactly the type of slack you can be cutting for the Wildcats — sitting at 13th in PairWise entering the night — especially on the road.
“Still,” Pandolfo concluded, “we have to learn from some things again tonight that can hurt you. As you’re continuing to get into these more important games in the second half in Hockey East, which I think we all know is a very difficult league, it’s just going to keep coming every night.”
But the No. 11 Terriers killed that penalty — a welcome sight, to say the least — then scored three more goals in a dominant third period to head home with a 6-3 victory.
They’ll take it. UConn defeated Maine at Alfond Arena at the same time, giving BU sole possession of the Hockey East lead, remarkable considering the turbulence of the first semester. And after sweeping a weekend series for the first time this season versus Vermont, the Terriers took care of business the ensuing Friday, the first time they’ve done that following a two-win weekend all year.
“We’re definitely trending in the right direction,” junior captain Ryan Greene said.
After a brutal 7-5 loss at Yale to start the second semester and conclude the 2024 calendar year, the Terriers have won three in a row — only their third such win streak this season. They’ve outscored their opponents 19-8 in those three contests, too, the type of dominance expected from a group that started the season the No. 3 team in the country.
“Losing at Yale definitely kickstarted us after break,” junior assistant captain Quinn Hutson said. “We worked on a lot that weekend off, then had two hard weeks of practice, just trying to find our game and kind of restarting the season, you could say.”
“It definitely lit a fire under us a little bit,” Greene added. “We were pretty upset about that.”
In the aftermath, Pandolfo made a commitment to finding a set of forward lines and sticking with them, something he hadn’t done all year. Following a runaway and, at times, viral, offensive performance against Vermont, BU rolled out the same lineup on Friday night and looked better going forward than it did at any point in the fall. Pandolfo said postgame BU’s desired identity was “transitioning fast,” among other things, and the Terriers certainly played fast against UNH, regularly gliding through the neutral zone with impressive one-time passes.
There is a rhythm and flow to the way BU is playing right now, probably not a coincidence now that the lines are remaining the same.
“It’s helping us,” Pandolfo said.
Added Greene: “When you switch a lot, it definitely gets a little tough playing with new guys and having new looks.”
Pandolfo was especially impressed with Greene’s top line, on which he centers sophomore Jack Harvey and senior Matt Copponi. Greene (10 goals, 12 assists on the season) scored twice Friday, on a wrister from the point that found the back of the net through traffic midway through the first and a tight angle shot on an empty net after a turnover from UNH goalie Jared Whale, the go-ahead goal six minutes into the third.
The turnover was forced in part by Copponi.
“Matty’s a dog,” Greene said. “Always forechecking, always all over the puck creating turnovers. And then Harv is just so smart when he has the puck on the stick, so it’s easy to play with those two.”
Junior assistant captain Devin Kaplan opened the scoring only 1:15 in, flicking a backhander that squeezed through Whale — a struggling goalie (.898 save percentage) who had another tough game Friday. Pandolfo also shouted out Kaplan’s line postgame, which is centered by freshman Kamil Bednarik and flanked by sophomore captain Shane Lachance.
“They were excellent defensively,” Pandolfo said. “We were trying to get them out their against their top line. I thought they were really good tonight.”
UNH’s potent top line (Ryan Conmy, Liam Devlin and Cy LeClerc) have a combined 55 points but didn’t record one on Friday. BU’s defense — eighth-worst in the country at 3.4 goals conceded per game — was much better against the Wildcats, as was the penalty kill (sixth-worst at 73.4 percent). BU allowed one goal in the 5:18 UNH was on the advantage, but, in that critical three-minute stretch to start the third, the Terriers stood tall.
Greene scored a couple minutes after, then junior Jack Hughes and freshman defenseman Cole Hutson added insurance tallies.
“Penalty kill helped us a lot,” Greene said. “Obviously gave us a lot of momentum.”
“We were just getting in lanes,” Pandolfo said of the improvements on the kill. “We were aggressive, and when they did get their opportunities, (senior goalie Mathieu) Caron (39 saves) was there. That’s what you need if you’re going to be an aggressive penalty kill.”
There’s still Gavin McCarthy’s game misconduct that led to the penalty, and Pandolfo seemed irritated when asked about it. BU leads the country in penalty minutes.
“I could talk about this until I’m blue in the face,” he said. “It’s nine majors — I get it. I don’t know what to do.”
But BU has now allowed only one goal in 17 minutes killing penalties over the last three games, and that, as with BU’s performance for most of Friday night, was a significant sign of progress.
“We’re getting there as a team,” Pandolfo said. “It’s just being able to do it shift after shift, and we’re still not there yet.”
Maybe not, but they’re a lot closer than they were a couple weeks ago.
So happy to see BU hockey team wins again at UNH last night!
BU hockey teamwork = “Fast & Furious” to Win Championships!
GO BU!