When the Boston University men’s hockey team fell 5-1 to Northeastern last night, head coach Jay Pandolfo lambasted his team for its lack of effort in the postgame press conference.
“Guys don’t want to play hard,” Pandolfo said. “It’s effort, having the willingness to win a battle. There was a lack of that all night long from way too many players.”
He continued, saying: “It’s very difficult to coach effort.”
On Saturday evening, it’s clear Pandolfo’s message reached the team.
BU didn’t shy away from aggression, putting its body on the line and fighting for space in the offensive zone in game two of the twin bill.
The Terriers (18-12-1, 12-8-1 Hockey East) bounced back — as they have all year — on night two of the series, taking down the Huskies (11-16-3, 6-11-3 HEA) with a gritty 3-1 win at Matthews Arena.
“The first adjustment was competing and having effort for 60 minutes,” Pandolfo said after the win. “This time of year, on the road, you got to play in tight games. You got to find ways to win them. And tonight, we did that. We weren’t perfect by any means, but we were more competitive, and that’s what we wanted to see.”
While the Terriers weren’t afraid to get greasy throughout the evening, they were forced into discomfort early in the contest. Defenseman Cole Hutson took a tripping penalty 1:22 into the first period. An extremely moveable BU penalty kill — ranked 12th worst in the nation — met an extremely stoppable Northeastern power play — ranked third worst in the nation.
Last night, Northeastern came out on top, finishing two-for-two on the man-advantage. The Terriers held stout in the Huskies’ one opportunity of the first period. Although, a bad change gave Northeastern captain Jack Williams a wide-open look that missed the mark.
BU goaltender Mikhail Yegorov stood on his head throughout the game, finishing with 28 saves on the day. It was a much-needed bounceback for the netminder after giving up a career-high five goals the previous night.
“You have to have [short-term memory] as a goaltender, and clearly he does,” Pandolfo said. “I expected him to respond, and he did. So it says a lot about him and his belief in himself and his confidence.”
The Terriers rolled out a new-look lineup up and down the lines and defensive pairings. The fourth line cracked the game open when senior forward Jack Hughes ripped a shot that deflected off Matt Copponi’s stick to a flanking Tristan Amonte. The puck ended up behind Northeastern goaltender Cameron Whitehead for a 1-0 lead at 12:30.
“[Hughes] stole the puck back, and I saw him take a peek, and I knew it was coming my way,” Amonte said. “[Copponi] got a stick on it, and I just stuffed it in, shoveled it in, nothing set, nothing special.”
The second period was much more dormant. Each team killed off a power play, but both teams had little to show for themselves for the majority of the frame — until the final minutes.
Northeastern seized momentum at the tailend of the period, sustaining two full minutes of offensive zone time. To make matters worse, Jack Hughes wasn’t able to change on a three-plus minute shift, while a slapshot snapped Quinn Hutson’s stick, leaving him empty-handed for 45 seconds.
The Terriers and Yegorov survived the onslaught, earning a clear in the final 25 seconds. BU maintained a 1-0 edge entering the third.
The Huskies didn’t slow at puck drop in the final frame. Within the first minute, Northeastern had back-to-back looks on the doorstep, but Yegorov continued to hold strong.
They finally cashed in at 5:53 when defenseman Joaquim Lemay deked through the entirety of the Terriers’ defense and firing a shot at Yegorov, bouncing it off his pad and in.
As the Northeastern faithful mocked Yegorov, Cole Hutson silenced Matthews Arena with a wrister from along the left boards. The puck slid through traffic, past a Shane Lachance screen and under Whiteheads legs. The goal at 8:04 of the third gave BU the 2-1 lead.
“Honestly, really lucky,” Hutson said about his goal. “Just shake it off and push for offense, and we didn’t let the game go to OT.”
The Huskies were still abuzz in the latter half of the period. With numerous chances stymied by Yegorov, Whitehead looked towards the bench until BU earned possession. The clock ticked below two when Northeastern’s Dylan Hryckowian took a back-breaking slashing penalty.
Captain Shane Lachance buried the empty-netter to cap off a 3-1 victory. As the buzzer sounded, a powderkeg that had been building throughout the series exploded as fights broke out across the ice, ending with Northeastern head coach Jerry Keefe screaming at the officials before storming to the locker room. Northeastern’s Christophe Tellier was assessed a game disqualification for fighting, and Keefe was assessed his second game misconduct in the last three games.
The Terriers turn their attention to the red hot UConn Huskies on a short week — puck drop is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday Evening in Storrs.
“We might need to imagine we lost the game on Monday,” Amonte said. “That might be the secret for us.”
A grinding effort by the Terriers again to keep up their recent pattern of play. Northeastern is their ” bet noir” having beaten BU often in recent seasons, Especially in the Beanpot, by playing a physical style to offset the Terriers usual advantage in talent. Although i didn’t see Friday nights game ( just the highlights,) this was a much better effort defensively , which is the way they need to play the rest of the way to have any chance of more hardware this season. They won’t score as many goals but they need to understand that just winning games is more important. With the exception of a prolonged period near the end of the second period when the Terriers could not get the puck of their zone ( and it seemed inevitable NU would score) they shut down NU’s offense. Let’s hope they can break the win , lose pattern vs UCONN, a team they might very well meet in the HE quarterfinal.
yawn