‘One of the worst feelings you’ll ever feel:’ A remarkable journey for BU men’s hockey ended in heartbreak

ST. LOUIS — When Western Michigan punched home its fifth goal at the Enterprise Center on Saturday night, Gavin McCarthy leaned over, rested both his arms on the boards in front of him and dropped his head. He sat there on the bench, looking at nothing, for almost 30 seconds. The clock still read 3:56.

This was the moment it ended for the Boston University men’s hockey team. A group that defined itself on the brink, one that didn’t just survive with its back against the wall but almost welcomed it, was finally out of belief. Western, the last remaining No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, had outplayed BU behind an aggressively pro-Bronco crowd for 56 minutes of the national championship game, only for the Terriers, by sheer will alone, to keep their heads above water long enough to make it interesting. Then Bronco freshman Iiro Hakkarainen jammed a puck behind BU goalie Mikhail Yegorov to make it 5-2, and McCarthy’s head sunk.

The sophomore defenseman found the strength to watch again as play restarted. Yegorov was immediately pulled, and BU moseyed through another 110 seconds of hockey with the extra skater before Western scored on the empty net and the Terriers officially allowed themselves to sulk.

Nearly every head along BU’s bench dropped after that goal went in. Senior Matt Copponi went further, tucking his fully between his legs. He did not lift it to look on when the puck dropped again, nor did star freshman Cole Eiserman or junior captain Ryan Greene. Head coach Jay Pandolfo stood behind them and didn’t coach. Just watched.

On Friday morning, Pandolfo, who won and lost a national championship game as a player at BU, was asked about something a reporter called “the gap.” Basically, the difference between what Western was now feeling on one bench and what his own players were feeling on the other.

“I really don’t know how to put it into words, to be quite honest with you,” Pandolfo said then.

He won just about everything there is to win in this sport as a player, and when the third-year coach usually explains that he wants his players to feel what he’s felt is when asked what this all means to him. His players have now made three Frozen Fours and a title game in three years, and all they have to show for it is the same empty feeling three times over.

“I mean, happy we got here,” Greene, sitting beside Pandolfo, would eventually mumble, tears welling in his eyes at the postgame press conference. “Didn’t win it, so I don’t know.”

After the merciful final buzzer, sophomore captain Shane Lachance was the first to hop over the boards, headed straight for the freshman goalie Yegorov. He wrapped an arm around the 18-year-old Russian, who rested his helmet on the shoulder of his fellow New Jersey Devils prospect. It was probably the first time in the three months since he arrived at BU that the infectious Yegorov, who all weekend had giddily explained to a constant stream of adoring reporters that “goaltending is all about love,” couldn’t find something to smile about.

Senior goalie Mathieu Caron was next to console Yegorov. Caron was the one who sat motionless in his net at the Frozen Four last season after Denver ended BU’s run, and he was supposed to be the one who was mobbed after a national title on Saturday, until Yegorov parachuted onto Comm. Ave in January and immediately took his spot. Later, outside BU’s locker room as the Terriers were packing up, Caron would admit their relationship started off “competitive,” but said “once things kinda settled in, he’s probably the guy I spend most time with.”

Caron slung both arms around the 6-foot-5 freshman and delivered an extended message to his teammate, who stood tall but with his head down.

“Obviously, goaltending is a whole different animal. You’re one guy back there. It’s a pretty isolating position at times,” Caron said. “I was one game shorter than him last year, but it’s that same feeling. I completely understand how it feels.”

After handshakes with the Western coaching staff, Pandolfo, associate head coach Joe Pereira and assistant coach Kim Brandvold stood together in front of the bench, staring out into space as they exchanged fleeting words. When the Broncos, in the midst of celebrating the program’s first national title, realized BU was waiting to shake hands, the Terriers’ three coaches walked over to join their team in the handshake line.

Then, slowly but surely, BU’s players trickled into the tunnel. Brandvold waited for every one, the last of which Lachance, the prodigal son of a blueblood program who was then whisked away to the postgame press conference.

“It sucks,” he said at the dais, fighting back tears, “that we’re not on the other side of this.”

Both Lachance and Greene arrived at the press room in full uniform. BU’s locker room was made available to reporters, and when the Boston Hockey Blog entered around 30 minutes after the game ended, a majority of the players were still in uniform, too.

The silence was deafening. Most players sat at their stalls, staring out in front of them, saying nothing. Yegorov leaned over, resting his chin on his right leg pad. Senior Jack Hughes was bawling, and when Greene noticed, he got up and walked across the room to give Hughes a hug. 

When Greene was named a captain before the season, it came as a surprise to some that the talented-but-reserved forward was bestowed with such responsibility. Co-captain Lachance was known as an animated and outgoing character, and he appeared to handle most of the theatrics that come with being a captain earlier in the season.

But right before puck drop on Saturday, it was Greene who delivered an impassioned speech to the team in a huddle around Yegorov’s goal. 

“He was just reminding the boys to play with confidence,” freshman Nick Roukanakis said. “Because we worked all season for this, and we earned this moment.”

That they did. The preseason’s No. 3 team suffered through a miserable fall semester — by this program’s standards, at least — a time when Pandolfo said the Terriers’ leaders were putting too much pressure on themselves. They surged in the spring, winning a Beanpot with a cathartic win over arch-rival Boston College, but continued to battle infuriating inconsistency, which culminated in a brutal loss to UConn in the Hockey East semifinal.

Then, the NCAA tournament’s No. 7 seed turned around and made it all the way to the title game, a first for the historic program in 10 years. 

Then they ran into the buzzsaw that was Western Michigan and left St. Louis with the same feeling they left St. Paul and Tampa the previous two years, the one they told themselves they’d never feel again.

“The amount of work that goes into a season of this length is something that no one understands,” Caron said.

“To come this far and lose,” he concluded, “is one of the worst feelings you’ll ever feel in hockey.”