NEW YORK — As time expired here on Saturday night, Joe Pereira ripped out his earpiece and pumped his fists. He scurried over to Jay Pandolfo and Kim Brandvold for a group embrace, their players leaping over the boards in front of them and beelining to Mikhail Yegorov’s goal.
They mobbed Yegorov for a while. Longer than normal for a regular season game, certainly. As the huddle broke, Gavin McCarthy and Mick Frechette shared a big hug. Eventually, McCarthy skated over to collect the Kelley-Harkness cup, and the Boston University men’s hockey team took photos with its hardware before parading down the tunnel at Madison Square Garden under a shower of applause. Music blared from the locker room as postgame press conferences began.
It always means a little bit more at MSG, of course. BU and Cornell have a legitimate rivalry, one renewed every other year at Red Hot Hockey, and the Terriers hadn’t won this event since 2013. No doubt, part of the jubilation on BU’s end after Saturday’s 2-1 victory was because of that context.
But then there’s also the fact that the sky was falling on Comm. Ave a couple weeks ago. The fact that BU — 37th in NPI entering Saturday — desperately needed to beat Cornell to stay in the race for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. The fact that a popular national championship pick before the season had lacked a signature win against a strong opponent through 14 games.
It certainly felt like that context was baked into the emotion, too. BU’s representatives at the postgame press conference, at least, had no problem admitting that.
“We’re a young team, a little bit of a fragile team at times,” Pandolfo said. “And this certainly helped us move forward.”
Either way, the vibes are getting better. And that matters for a team that’s still a huge work in progress, one that, more than anything, just needs to start moving in the right direction. The Terriers have now won two in a row. They’ve got some wind in their sails for the first time all season.
“We need these big wins,” star sophomore Cole Eiserman said. “And hopefully in March, when we’re looking back, we can look at this one and know it’s kind of our spark we needed. They’re a really good team, and I’m happy for our group. We really needed it.”
This was not exactly the performance of a bona fide national title contender. No. 19 BU (7-7-1) had just 17 shots on goal and allowed Cornell 29. Yegorov kept the Terriers in the game for the first two periods, and Cornell left MSG lamenting the chances it didn’t take. It also left thinking it executed its game plan against BU’s loaded offense, and for good reason — the Terriers barely created Grade A chances throughout the 60 minutes, and the two goals it did score were greasy at best and lucky at worst (Cornell clearly thought the latter, but that’s neither here nor there).
Point is: Goodness, do these Terriers still have a long way to go.
“I could sit here for hours, if you want, and talk about all the things we need to get better at,” Pandolfo said over a chuckle.
Yet rather than bemoan everything they still aren’t, the Terriers seemed far more focused on all they’ve become over these last three games. And that’s a team that, as Pandolfo loves to say, is playing the game “the right way” and providing itself a floor that can grind out victories against strong opponents. And a reliable floor was precisely what the Terriers were lacking through a disastrous month-long stretch in October and November, when BU allowed at least five goals in four of seven games and freefell to No. 18 in the USCHO poll. The goals have since dried up — about the only thing BU did well during that stretch was score — but the Terriers have found the physicality, maturity and effort needed to actually win hockey games. BU’s two options this season have been to lose pretty or win ugly. No secret as to which Pandolfo prefers.
After a brutal 6-2 defeat at Quinnipiac on Nov. 15, Pandolfo said BU overhauled its practice strategy to ensure the details — things like stopping and starting in the defensive zone, going to the right spots in the offensive zone and crashing to the net — were tighter. Pandolfo admitted he wasn’t stressing those things enough early in the season. But both before the series split with Northeastern and after the victory at MSG, he said he was satisfied with the Terriers’ practices.
“Our guys have bought into it the last two weeks after we had that really disappointing performance against Quinnipiac,” Pandolfo said. “So it’s been better that way, and we’re starting to see the results carry over into games.”
The No. 17 Big Red (6-3-0) will demand you compete, and the Terriers, who looked lazy and entitled to start the season, were willing to do the work. That was especially true as BU nursed its 2-1 lead in the third period — the Terriers were everywhere in all three zones, muddying the game when Cornell needed to establish a firm grip. BU’s high-flying offense was neutralized all night, but instead of getting frustrated, BU put its head down and found a way to jam two pucks past red-hot Cornell goalie Alexis Cournoyer, both on opportunistic plays from Eiserman.
And consider this: After getting dominated in front of a thoroughly pro-Red crowd of over 17,000 in the second period, BU snatched the momentum right back and held on after Eiserman’s go-ahead goal with 14 minutes to play. The Terriers killed three penalties in the third frame and only allowed six shots on goal.
“We talked about it before we went into the third period: You have to be comfortable playing in games like that,” Pandolfo said. “You’ve got to be able to be comfortable in the third period of a tie game in a hostile environment.”
That’s a far cry from the team that allowed a combined 29 goals over five games against UConn, Maine and Quinnipiac. Whereas BU capitulated in those environments against each of those ranked opponents, the Terriers showed some mettle on Saturday. Yegorov, who’s been left out to dry by his team on far too many occasions this season, was immense in the first two frames but didn’t have to be a hero in the third.
“Obviously, I’m not playing out there with the guys, but just seeing the group sticking with it is always great,” Yegorov said. “From my point of view, the team is playing awesome. And I think the energy is amazing in the locker room. We’re just more together.”
