LOWELL, Mass. — Either way, the Boston University men’s hockey team wanted the puck at a Cole’s stick.
Eiserman or Hutson? Didn’t matter much. BU had an offensive zone face-off with just four seconds left in the second period. So the plan was pretty simple — win the draw, get the puck to Eiserman in the opposite circle or Hutson at the point, and let either hyper-talented sophomore shoot the piss out of the puck.
But for as good as Hutson is, UMass Lowell wasn’t exactly about to ignore Eiserman, who has maybe the most powerful shot in college hockey, when it knew BU needed a one-timer.
“I knew the puck was gonna come to me,” Hutson said. “No one in their right mind is gonna leave Cole Eiserman wide open.”
Sure enough, when Owen McLaughlin won the face-off, Hutson had daylight at the point. He had a lane to Austin Elliott’s goal, too, and proceeded to blast a pass from Gavin McCarthy into the back of the net. Hutson’s eighth goal of the year didn’t need a deflection.
And that’s what the reigning National Rookie of the Year can do. When his team needs a moment? He can provide it, even if he’s only got four seconds.
“Just trying to hammer it,” Hutson said. “And it went in.”
His tally was the difference at Tsongas Center on Saturday night in a 3-0 BU victory that was far closer than the score indicates. Lowell, which stunned the Terriers with a 4-3 overtime victory at Agganis Arena Friday, gave BU plenty of problems. But the Terriers and their loaded roster simply made a couple more plays, a reminder of their talent level in a season that hasn’t gone how any of them would’ve hoped, while Lowell coach Norm Bazin lamented that his 9-14-0 River Hawks didn’t execute in the offensive zone.
“Creating offensive zone time and actually executing are two different things,” Bazin said.
They are, and while the first can still be a struggle for BU, you can always count on Jay Pandolfo’s team to make you pay when it gets a chance. Even with the Terriers stumbling around .500 all season, opposing coaches — nearly to a man — have reminded reporters that BU can take a mile if given an inch. Hutson, who some will argue has been building a legitimate Hobey Baker case, is perhaps better at that than anybody. Saturday’s tally was his fourth game-winning goal of the season, and he also provided the lone assist on Nick Roukounakis’ game-sealing wrister midway through the third.
And look — the Terriers’ performance Saturday was hardly ideal, especially after BU collapsed in Friday’s loss. Pandolfo was likely looking for a sweep headed into this series with the ninth-placed River Hawks and got nothing of the sort. Still, in a heavy, physical and tight game, BU defended the lights out and created just enough offense to pull through. The Terriers blocked 21 shots (their second-most in a game this season) and allowed only 23 shots on goal despite UML’s offensive zone time. When the River Hawks did create a Grade A chance, goalie Mikhail Yegorov stood on his head.
World-beating? Of course not. Good enough? Sure. And Pandolfo, no stranger to brutally honest press conferences, was pleased with the performance postgame.
“Great effort by our group, great response,” he said. “We needed that tonight, and our guys stepped up.”
With the victory, BU (12-10-1, 8-7-0 HE) moved up five ranks in the NPI, from 23rd to 18th, meaning the Terriers actually gained two spots from the start of the weekend despite splitting with a Lowell team that entered 46th. Somehow, they are now just four ranks from the projected cutline for the NCAA tournament. A couple months ago, they were over 20 spots behind.
Make no mistake — BU is far from safe in the race for an at-large bid. But it’s firmly in striking distance now.
“We don’t really look at the NPI stuff,” Hutson said. “Doesn’t really matter where we are [in the NPI], we are where our feet are. We dug ourselves a big hole, and we just got to keep winning these big games.”
Plenty of those await No. 20 BU over the next month. Providence — NPI’s highest-ranked Hockey East team at 12th — is next weekend. A standalone game against Boston College (15th) is the Friday after. The Tuesday after that? The Beanpot semifinal against Northeastern.
Pandolfo has insisted that BU is taking its season one game at a time throughout 2025-26, and his philosophy remains unchanged.
“We’ve still got plenty of time, plenty of league games,” Pandolfo said. “So we’re just trying to take it one day at a time. We’ve said that, but we really are.”
It’s hard to blame him. In a league like Hockey East, BU can’t afford to take any game off. As the Terriers learned on Friday, the conference will make them pay.
“It’s a bear. From top to bottom, it’s so tough,” Bazin said. “There’s no gimme weekends, there’s no gimme games. And it’s gonna be like that from now until the end of the season.”
The task for the Terriers, then, is pretty simple.
“We just got to be consistent as a group,” Pandolfo said.
They haven’t been so far. But if the Terriers can find a way to play well night in and night out, they’ve gained enough ground that they’ll be rewarded for it.
