BOSTON – There’s no such thing as a must-win game in November in college hockey, but it still felt close to that for Boston University tonight.
After starting the year with two great wins over ranked teams in Union and Quinnipiac, the Terriers had gone 1-4-1, including a deflating loss against No. 1 Denver last week. BU had rallied twice to tie the game against the defending national champs, only to give up the game winner with less than 15 seconds to play.
BU followed that up with 3-0 road loss to Providence on Saturday, so beating the No. 6 Friars seemed all the more essential tonight. It wasn’t easy, as BU’s scoreless streak went almost 114 minutes as tonight’s game was scoreless well into the third period.
But after the long wait, sophomore defenseman Chad Krys scored two goals in just 97 seconds to lead the Terriers to the 2-0 win in front of 3,293 fans in Agganis Arena. Sophomore goalie Jake Oettinger played a pivotal role, as the Terriers were also outshot 11-1 in the first eight or so minutes of the game. Oettinger wound up with 31 saves and his first shutout of the season.
“Just really proud of our team,” BU coach David Quinn said. “I didn’t care how we did it; I didn’t care what the score was; I didn’t care how it looked: We needed a win tonight, and we needed to feel good about ourselves.
“We were a little fragile mentally, and obviously our start tonight wasn’t what we wanted. I thought we were a step slow. But after we killed some penalties in the first, we started playing better and spent some time in the offensive zone, and then we played better as the game went on and our best in the third.”
It certainly looked like it could be the Friars’ night in the early going with the lopsided shot totals. Despite dominating the shots on goal, Providence couldn’t capitalize. Finally, a shorthanded two-on-one by BU forwards Jordan Greenway and Bobo Carpenter seemed to turn the tide around the 12-minute mark. Although the duo didn’t score, BU ended up with an 8-0 run of shots on goal and was back in the game from then on.
“I thought we had a great first seven or eight minutes, and then I thought we showed some immaturity,” Providence coach Nate Leaman said. “We thought that the game was going to come easy to us. We kept losing momentum with our power plays. We were working hard and causing them to take penalties to give us power plays. But then our second unit got so outworked tonight. Our first unit would go out and get some good looks and chances, and then we’d lose momentum.”
As the scoreless game wore on, the first goal loomed larger and larger. “You just had the feeling that the first team that was going to score was going to take hold of that game, and it happened to be them.,” Leaman said. “We hit a couple of posts; they had a couple go in, and I thought that was the difference in the game.”
On the first goal, Krys and BU right wing Patrick Harper worked a give-and-go. Krys dished to Harper near the left wing, and Harper floated a short pass right on to Krys’s stick in the left-wing circle. His shot went through the five-hole of Providence goalie Hayden Hawkey.
Just over a minute and a half later, Krys raced in on the left wing, got around a defender, and then went to his backhand to tuck it around Hawkey on the far side.
Quinn admitted that it can feel like you’ll never score again when you over five periods without a goal. “I’d be lying to you if I said it didn’t feel like that at some point. But scoring goals can be streaky. Sometimes when it goes in, it starts going in even when you don’t deserve it. And other times you deserve to score and you don’t. That’s the nature of the game. If we can find ways to win while we’re trying to be more productive offensively, we’re going to be a really good hockey team.”
HOCKEY EAST ROUNDUP
Boston College 3, Merrimack 1
Merriamack defenseman Johnathan Kovasevic scored his first goal of the season to give the Warriors a 1-0 lead midway through the second period at Boston College, but the Eagles responded with three unanswered goals to pull out the win. Junior centerman Christopher Brown led the Eagles with two points, including an empty-net goal that sealed with just eight seconds remaining. BC goalie Joseph Woll made 21 saves for the win, while his counterpart Craig Pantano stopped 31 BC shots.
Connecticut 5, Vermont 1
After emerging from the first period with a 1-0 lead, UConn really took it to Vermont in the second period, outshooting the Catamounts 20-6 while extending their lead to 4-1. Curiously, the Huskies’ explosion began after Ross Colton tied the game up 1-1 on a power-play goal at 2:41 of the second period. Just eight seconds later, sophomore Justin Howell scored his first goal of the season and just his second collegiate goal in 28 games played. Howell had not played in the previous five UConn games. Spencer Naas led the victors with two goals, while Maxim Letunov and Joseph Masonius added two assists apiece.
UMass-Lowell 3, Maine 2
Despite trailing 1-0 and 2-1 during the second period, the River Hawks rallied with two goals to pull out the 3-2 win despite getting outshot 29-27 by the visiting Black Bears. Sophomore Colin O’Neill had been held pointless through the first eight games of the season, but his shorthanded goal tied it 1-1, and he assisted on the goal to make it 2-2. Nick Master and Mattias Göransson notched two assists apiece for the winners, while freshman left wing Emil Westerlund scored his first two collegiate goals in a promising performance for Maine. Although the River Hawks were ranked only second to Boston University by a narrow margin in the Hockey East preseason poll, this was the first win in five league games thus far this season for UMass Lowell.
