BOSTON — It wasn’t the prettiest play of the night, but it got Connecticut back to the Hockey East championship game.
Tristan Fraser threw the puck into heavy traffic, where it bounced off two defenders and into the net at 1:18 of overtime to give UConn a 4-3 win over Boston College in the Hockey East semifinals Friday night at TD Garden.
“I didn’t really realize it went in at first,” Fraser said. “(I) saw everyone celebrating and skating towards me. I was super excited. Kind of shocked, but excited at the same time.”
The win sent third-seeded UConn (20-11-5, 14-9-3 HE) to the Hockey East final for the second straight year, where it will face Merrimack Saturday night (7 p.m. Eastern). Neither team has ever won the Hockey East tournament; each has twice been to the championship game.
“The fans didn’t get cheated tonight,” Huskies coach Mike Cavanaugh said. “It was a great hockey game. (We) got a little puck luck, but I thought we played a really strong game, especially 5 on 5, all night long.”
After a scoreless first period, the teams traded four goals in the first half of the second, with both of BC’s goals scored by Dean Letourneau on the power play. UConn got goals from Trey Scott and Ethan Whitcomb.
In the third, Mike Murtagh gave UConn its first lead of the night with his seventh goal of the season. BC’s Ryan Conmy made it a tie game for the fourth time at 14:13.
UConn (20-11-5, 14-9-3 HE) solidified its case for an NCAA tournament at-large bid. The Huskies were 14th in the NPI entering the contest and moved up to 13th.
Tyler Muszelik of UConn came up with 22 saves. Louka Cloutier had 28 for BC (20-15-1, 14-12-0), whose NCAA tournament hopes depended on winning the Hockey East tournament, will be left out of the NCAA field for the first time since 2023.
“We did a good job battling, especially coming back in the third,” BC coach Greg Brown said. “But as often you see in overtime, a crazy goal bounced off two of our players and snuck in the back of the net. That’s how it goes sometimes.”
Merrimack 2, Boston College 0
BOSTON — Merrimack hockey fans will for years remember Ryan O’Connell’s goal that lifted his team to a 2-0 win over Massachusetts in the Hockey East semifinals.
The one who actually scored it? Maybe not so much.
“Yeah, I kind of blacked out,” said O’Connell about his fifth goal of the season. “But from what I remember, I saw a low blocker, and I just kind of shot there. I saw the puck go in the net, and I blacked out, yeah.”
O’Connell’s goal at the 3-minute mark of the third period broke a scoreless deadlock and held up as the game winner Friday night before a feisty crowd at TD Garden. Caden Cranston added an empty-net goal for good measure at 18:21 of the third, and Merrimack will play for its first Hockey East championship on Saturday night.
Following a turnover in the Merrimack defensive zone, Ty Daneault sent the puck from the center circle where it met O’Connell in stride. Beating his last defender, O’Connell went 5-hole on UMass goalie Michael Hrabal (27 saves) to send the sizable Merrimack cheering section into a frenzy.
“How about that?” said Merrimack coach Scott Borek, who has his team in the Hockey East final for the first time since 2023. “We didn’t come to the Garden to just play. We wanted to win this thing, earn some respect. (I) couldn’t be happier for our group. We have an unbelievable group of guys.”
Merrimack goalie Max Lundgren had 24 saves and now leads the country with 1,060 on the season.
Eighth-seeded Merrimack (20-15-2, 12-12-2 Hockey East) will face Connecticut in the Hockey East championship game Saturday night at 7 p.m. Eastern.
Merrimack outshot UMass 29-24. The Warriors will need to win Saturday to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. No. 3 seed UMass (22-13-1, 15-10-1), which entered the evening 13th in the NPI but fell to 17th, outside the bubble, saw its season end.
“I thought we had enough chances to score — their goaltender played really well,” UMass coach Greg Carvel said. “It’s a tough way to lose. (I) liked our game. I thought we had enough chances.”
CCHA championship
Minnesota State 4, St. Thomas 1
Minnesota State won its second straight Mason Cup as CCHA tournament champions, and fourth in five years, with a 4-1 win over St. Thomas on Friday night.
Luigi Benincasa, Evan Murr, Jack Smith and Tristan Lemyre all scored for Minnesota State (22-10-7, 18-8-5 CCHA). St. Thomas saw its season end at 21-12-5 (18-8-4 CCHA).
ECAC semifinals
Dartmouth 4, Clarkson 0
Dartmouth is one win away from its first ever ECAC Hockey tournament championship following a 4-0 semifinal win over Clarkson on Friday night in Lake Placid, N.Y.
Colin Grable, Nathan Morin, Jack Silverberg and Alex Krause were the goal scorers for the Big Green. Dartmouth (22-7-4) will face Princeton in the championship game, scheduled for Saturday at 5 p.m. Eastern.
Dartmouth’s Emmett Croteau had 31 saves in the Darmtouth net, while Clarkson’s Shane Soderwall had 22.
Dartmouth (21-7-4, 16-5-4 ECAC) was 8th in the NPI entering Friday, and will play in the ECAC title game for the first time since 1980. Clarkson’s season is over at 18-17-3 (12-11-3 ECAC).
Princeton 3, Cornell 2
Joshua Karnish’s third-period goal got Princeton back to the ECAC championship game for the first time since 2018 with a 3-2 semifinal win over two-time defending champ Cornell Friday night in Lake Placid, N.Y.
Julian Facchinelli and David Jacobs also scored for the Tigers. Princeton goalie Arthur Smith had 21 saves, while Cornell’s Alexis Cournoyer also had 21.
Princeton (18-12-3, 14-9-2 ECAC) will face Dartmouth in the title game Saturday night at 5 p.m. Cornell, 11th in the NPI following the loss, fell to 22-10-1 (17-8-1 ECAC).