Analysis, Men's Hockey

The vision gets clearer for BU men’s hockey at Friendship Four

by Sam Robb O'Hagan Views: 258
Photo by Annika Morris.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — There is only one team in the country with more NHL draft picks on its roster than Boston University men’s hockey.

Thirteen of them litter the Terriers’ line chart, and this past weekend in the Friendship Four at SSE Arena, all four forward lines and three defensive pairings featured at least one player in an NHL organization. It is the reason why, during such a disappointing start, it’s been so difficult to quit on these Terriers. Eventually, you’d assume, talent wins out, and BU’s got more of it than almost everybody else.

Well, go figure. No. 11 BU just broke its trophy drought in Belfast. Why? Because the talent won out.

Consider Kamil Bednarik. The freshman forward, a second-round NHL draft pick in June, is among the highest-pedigree players in college hockey. Still, he hasn’t even cracked the Terriers’ top six, illustrating the roster depth that is supposed to fuel BU to a third consecutive national semifinal — and possibly further than that. It had been a quiet start to the year for the Islanders’ draft pick. He’d yet to score a goal when he arrived in Northern Ireland.

But when Bednarik found himself at the far blue line with only a defender and the goalie to beat on Saturday, he whipped out a move Notre Dame could do nothing about. His toe drag-deke-backhand combo ended with Irish goalie Owen Say, well, on his ass, a merciless goal while BU was on its own penalty kill.

It was, as head coach Jay Pandolfo joked after the game, “not a bad first goal.”

Consider Gavin McCarthy, too, who later scored on a sudden one-timer from the high slot to spark BU’s raging third-period comeback, a cathartic moment for the sophomore defenseman who’d struggled most of the season but was still a third-round pick of the Buffalo Sabres in 2023. That was his second goal of the year; the first came the day prior, in a 6-2 win over Merrimack, on another shorthanded rush started by Bednadik. Don’t forget sophomore defenseman Aiden Celebrini, either; he also scored his first goal of the season against the Warriors, and he, too, is an NHL draft pick (VAN).

Freshman forward Kamil Bednarik. Photo by Annika Morris.

“You’re so happy for those guys, because they work so hard,” said sophomore co-captain Shane Lachance, whose third-period goal against the Irish won the Belpot for BU. “They put it in every day, and it wasn’t going in for them.”

Seven different Terriers scored across both games. Lachance (team-leading 17 points) and fellow co-captain Ryan Greene (team-leading nine goals), delivered the late heroics. But the Terriers needed eight goals to put Lachance and Greene in a position to win their first tournament since 2023 — and five of them came from players on either the bottom six or the bottom two defensive pairings.

They were impressive tallies, too.

“We feel like all four of our lines can score,” Pandolfo said Thursday during his midweek video call. “I still think we have some guys that haven’t been shooting the puck enough or haven’t gotten side enough to really dig in to find ways to score more goals.”

There have been myriad reasons for the Terriers slow start. Mysterious first period and Friday woes, a young defensive core struggling with discipline, an apparent lack of leadership. All things that no amount of draft picks can solve. Once frustrated, Pandolfo had become completely disheartened; BU was reeling at 6-5-1 and No. 13 in the latest USCHO.com poll heading into Belfast.

But 13 NHL draft picks are still 13 NHL draft picks. That’s a tidal wave that’s hard to stop, even if it isn’t playing fully to its standard.

“We’re playing one of the most talented rosters in the country,” Merrimack coach Scott Borek declared before heading across the pond.

It’s been telling that so many opposing coaches continue to talk about BU as one of the most dangerous teams in college hockey. Maine’s Ben Barr, before his team promptly outplayed the Terriers a few weeks ago, said “they’re just as good as they have been.”

He was then asked about the departures of Macklin Celebrini and Lane Hutson, BU’s two leading scorers from a year ago who are now lighting up the NHL. Their absence has been, and still is, a key talking point surrounding the Terriers’ slow start.

“I don’t see it looking much different,” Barr said. “It’s not like they’re putting in players that don’t belong.”

Lachance, Greene and freshman phenoms Cole Eiserman and Cole Hutson were the players who figured to most directly assume the reins, but the idea was always that BU would attack it by committee. When he was asked before the season about the loss of Celebrini and Hutson, assistant coach Joe Pereira responded by essentially listing out BU’s roster. The message was clear — BU’s strength was in its numbers.

“There’s no question we need scoring from up and down our lineup, and we need it from the back end as well,” Pandolfo said.

In Belfast, they got it.

BU played its best hockey of the year. Certainly, the Terriers made progress within their aforementioned deficiencies, which contributed. 

But BU won the Belpot because it had the deepest roster at the Belpot.

Finally, something that went according to plan.

More reading from the Friendship Four:

Photo by Annika Morris.

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