AMHERST, Mass. — The Boston University men’s hockey team got the full Cole Hutson experience on Wednesday night.
The star freshman defenseman committed a crippling defensive-zone turnover — again — less than two minutes into the series finale with UMass, leading to a goal and a 1-0 lead for the Minutemen. But after that, Hutson was the most dangerous player on the Mullins Center ice, regularly slicing through the UMass defense and creating numerous chances for No. 13 BU.
And midway through the third period, Hutson turned the game on its head. The Terriers trailed, 2-1, before Hutson scored two goals in as many minutes — the winner coming on the power play at 10:07.
BU improved to 9-6-1 and 5-3-1 in Hockey East, narrowly avoiding a sweep at the hands of last-place UMass, who defeated BU, 4-0, Friday night at Agganis Arena.
Here are three takeaways from the victory:
BU (and Cole Hutson) needed that dearly.
One of the hopes coming off BU’s Friendship Four victory in Belfast, Northern Ireland, was that the Terriers had put their early-season struggles behind them.
But through two periods in Amherst, the Terriers were careening towards perhaps their worst result of the year. Then Hutson — who arrived at BU with huge expectations, but had become the subject of siginifcant criticsm — scored his first goals in over a month to revive BU.
Hutson still needs to clean up the turnovers — and BU still needs to clean up basically everything — but the freshman won a critical game near single-handedly on Wednesday. That type of impact is what the Terriers thought they were getting at the start of the year.
BU finally played direct, and it paid off.
The Terriers were dangerous going forward throughout the game. BU finished with 33 shots on goal to UMass’ 24.
BU created most of its chances with either sudden rushes or slicing individual carries. The Terriers got those from up and down the lineup — senior Matt Copponi and Hutson, in particular — and were then able to crash the net from the immediate chance it created. Star UMass goalie Michael Hrabal had his hands full all night.
Head coach Jay Pandolfo has often stressed the importance of playing direct — and he’s felt BU hasn’t done it enough so far this year. The Terriers were certainly direct on Wednesday, and it paid off at 12:38 of the third period, when freshman forward Cole Eiserman glided through UMass’ defense on a rush and fed junior Quinn Hutson for the game-sealing goal.
Jay Pandolfo changed the top power-play unit… and got bizarre results.
BU’s power play entered Wednesday the 19th-best in the country (22.2 percent) — not terrible, but a far cry from last year, when the Terriers’ 28.1 percent was third-highest.
So Pandolfo made significant changes to the top unit for the first time this year. Gone were Cole Hutson and Eiserman, replaced by Copponi and sophomore defenseman Tom Willander. According to the BU radio broadcaster Mark Linehan, the change was made in an effort to get more “movement” on the ice; Eiserman possesses an elite slap shot, but tends to stand still in the circle on the man-advantage.
The changes didn’t really work. On its first two power plays, BU struggled to keep the puck in the offensive zone.
The Terriers did eventually score on the power play, however, at 17:52 of the second and on Hutson’s game-winning goal. Ironically enough, it was Eiserman who created the first one…with a thunderous slapshot… from the circle. Junior Devin Kaplan poked home the rebound.
BU finished 2 of 5 on the power play, and both goals were produced by the two players it dropped from its top unit.
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