BOSTON — They leaned as far over the boards as they could. Some of them locked arms with each other as they waited for their superstar assistant captain to take his chance.
And when Cole Hutson’s penalty shot trickled ever-so-slowly across the goal line, BU exploded off the bench, beelining in the direction of its Hobey Baker nominee.
Jay Pandolfo could’ve picked anybody but Jack Harvey and Cole Eiserman to hop over the boards. With a chance to win the Beanpot semifinal, he probably didn’t even think about it.
Hutson looked like he was going for Lawton Zacher’s five hole, but the puck found a way to slide to the left of the NU goalie’s left pad. Hutson’s shootout winner lifted BU to its third consecutive Beanpot final, where the Terriers will face Boston College in a rematch of last season’s victory.
Nick Roukounakis tied the game at 2-2 midway through the second, rifling a wrister past NU goalie Lawton Zacher. He had Ryder Ritchie on the 2-on-1 if he wanted him — and Northeastern defender Dylan Finlay clearly thought he did. And so, with the Huskies’ assistant captain selling out to defend a potential pass across to Ritchie, BU’s grizzly, hard-working sophomore did it by himself, scoring just his fifth collegiate goal with the calmness of a man scoring his 100th.
When BU needed a play on Monday night, it was the star-studded Terriers’ lesser-known names who showed up, as they so often have this season. The sight of Roukounakis, a 22-year-old undrafted winger, going alone on a 2-on-1 with Ryder Ritchie, a freshman out of the CHL drafted in the second round, was a quite perfect encapsulation of BU’s season. As the Terriers’ high-end talents have largely failed to live up to the hype, bottom-six regulars like Roukounakis have consistently performed.
Before Roukounakis’ goal, linemate Jonathan Morello worked himself into position at the net front to tap in a pass and tie it at 1-1. The freshman, a fifth-round pick of the Bruins two years ago, has also spent most of the year in the bottom six and given Jay Pandolfo everything the coach could ask of him and more. His tally was his sixth of the year.
Northeastern opened the scoring in the first on a Dylan Hyrckowian power-play blast, the Huskies swiftly working the puck around to their assistant captain after BU committed two of its four penalty killers to a puck battle in the corner, which the Terriers didn’t win. Hyrckowian assisted linemate Jacob Mathieu’s go-ahead goal in the second, an out-of-nowhere transition goal after an extended spell of BU possession.
Though the Terriers dominated possession and zone time early, the Huskies slowly worked into the game. BU outshot NU 15-7 in the third but, like in the first, Pandolfo’s team didn’t create many dangerous looks with its favorable ice tilt.
Husky freshman Giacomo Martino rang the post, Mikhail Yegorov made an enormous stop against Hryckowian after a brutal Cole Hutson turnover and Ritchie and BU sophomore Cole Eiserman both botched transition chances at the other end. But Zacher and Yegorov weren’t tested much otherwise.
The Terriers outshot the Huskies 38-26. Here are two takeaways:
BU was able to sustain offensive possession during the second period.
The Terriers came out in the second and dominated offensive zone time. BU was able to stack shifts and keep the puck in its zone for the majority of the period. The Terriers won battles on the forecheck and recovered rebounds.
Though the Terriers’ didn’t have many high danger chances, as reflected in the total shot attempts to shot-on-goal ratio, which was 58 to 22 at the end of the second, regaining possession and generating pressure on net was what BU needed to tie things up.
It’s no secret the Terriers have struggled with offense as of late, but control in the middle frame gave them a crucial spark. — Hannah Connors
BU’s third line showed up.
Pandolfo has shuffled his forward lines frequently as he desperately searches for an offensive spark. But despite its spot on the line chart shifting — with appearances on the first, fourth, and third line — the trio of Roukounakis, Morello and Ritchie has become a mainstay for the Terriers in the second semester.
That was, at least, until Friday. The group had featured together on five consecutive line charts before Pandolfo split it up in BU’s 4-1 loss to BC on Friday night.
Pandolfo reunited the group on Monday, and it delivered, netting BU’s first two goals of the game.
Morello’s tip-in came at the end of a long stretch of offensive zone time, in which the trio did well to chase after the puck and keep possession. The Terriers were rewarded for it.
Roukounakis then showed his explosiveness on the Terriers’ second tally, knifing through the neutral zone to set up a 2-on-1 with Ritchie, which he took himself and buried.
While Ritchie struggled for a lot of the first half, he has looked much better next to Morello and Roukounakis. He generated multiple chances on the rush and looked fluid carrying the puck through the neutral zone.
Morello finished with the Terriers’ highest plus-minus at +2. — Henry Dinh-Price