Photo by: Rich Gagnon
Unlikely Suspects Light the Lamp in Epic Overtime Win over BC
March 17, 2018 | Men's Ice Hockey
By Scott Weighart, Special to GoTerriers.com
BOSTON – For Boston University, tonight's epic overtime win over archrival Boston College in the Hockey East semifinals felt like the whole 2017-18 season in a nutshell.
Both this season and this game saw the Terriers get off to a tough start and some bad breaks, but what followed was a dominating stretch and a show of the grit required to overcome adversity.
For BU senior captain Brandon Hickey, the 4-3 win meant that he could say his team came out on top in his 12th and likely final game against the Eagles. Reflecting in a game that featured huge momentum changes that put each team on the ropes repeatedly, Hickey was hard pressed to rank this win against others against BC.
"I'd say right at the top," said the Leduc, Alberta, native. "Playing against them with something on the line to be able to come out with the victory the way we did, I definitely would put it in the top three with the first game and the first win at their barn. Pretty special."
Another thing that was pretty special tonight was the fact that all four BU goals were scored by relatively unlikely suspects. None of BU's top nine goal scorers this season put one in the net tonight. Instead, we saw freshman Ty Amonte getting his sixth goal, freshman David Farrance scoring just his second collegiate goal, right wing Drew Melanson picking up his fourth goal, and sophomore Patrick Curry scoring his third of the season.
Those four players have now scored 15 goals this season—four less than the 19 that team leader Bobo Carpenter has scored over the course of the year.
"It's awesome; it shows the depth of our team," Hickey said. "If the guys on our top two lines aren't scoring, we've got a whole bunch of guys who can chip in and score and make the big plays. Dave's goal was huge; Drew's goal was huge, and Curry at the end, too. It shows that we have a deep team."
The team needed that depth tonight. Just 46 seconds after the opening faceoff, BC took a 1-0 lead when Connor Moore flipped in a high shot from the left point. Given how much was on the line, it was a real gut check. The Terriers responded well, ultimately outshooting the Eagles 13-5. Their reward? They fell behind 2-0 on a bang-bang play by BC at 3:26 of the second period, as Julius Mattila one-timed the puck in after David Cotton teed him up from behind the net.
Once again, BU didn't fold. Amonte showed great patience with his goal at 8:57, holding the puck until BC goalie Joseph Woll lunged forward and lifting the shot over defenseman Michael Karow in the crease. That set the stage for Farrance's goal just 1:37 later after a left-wing rush by Jordan Greenway and Chad Krys.
"Chad made a great pass up to Greenway, and it found its way back to Chad.," Farrance said. "I kind of just found myself on the back door, and he made a great pass. It was pretty easy to tap it home and a great play overall. It felt great to tie the game at that point, and I think the guys fed off of it."
They did indeed, outshooting BC 14-7 for the period. For a long stretch, it was all BU, and it felt almost inevitable when Greenway buried the apparent go-ahead goal early in the third period, only to have it waved off because Brady Tkachuk was in the crease.
BC seemed to regain its composure and ultimately scored a potential back-breaking goal on a wild scramble with just 5:19 left. But just 45 seconds later, Melanson notched the crucial equalizer.
Melanson, a newcomer as a graduate transfer student from Rensselaer this season, has been playing right wing with two skilled power forwards in Greenway and Tkachuk over the last couple months, and he was the beneficiary of a great play by Greenway this time.
"Those guys are really good at creating space for themselves, so I was just camping out front," Melanson said. "I think their D lost me a little bit or lost my stick; he was standing next to me and didn't expect Jordan to make a pass. Jordan made a great backhand pass, put it right on my tape, and I just tapped it home."
It was perhaps the hockey moment of a lifetime for Melanson. "Essentially we had to get one back to force overtime. it was definitely the biggest goal I've ever scored."
When the game went into overtime, Melanson also factored in the most nervewracking bend-but-don't-break moment of the night for the Terriers. For the better part of two minutes starting around the 6:00 mark, BU simply could not clear the puck from its zone. Goalender Jake Oettinger lost his stick for a spell, and for a long stretch defenseman Cam Crotty also was without his stick and taking great care to avoid drawing a penalty.
BC had any number of chances, and at one point was outshooting BU 11-2 during the overtime period. Somehow, Melanson and four other Terrier skaters survived the brutal stretch along with Oettinger, who overcame that early goal and saved his best netminding of the night for the overtime period.
"It was physically painful because I know I was cramping in both my legs; I couldn't really push off," Melanson recalled. "It was mentally painful because of the circumstance: they've got us hemmed in, and if they score our season is over. It was particularly painful for me because I'm pretty sure I had two chances to get the puck out, and I was 0-for-2, so I'm just glad the guys bailed me out, and we won 10 minutes later."
On the game winner, freshman Shane Bowers made a great effort to shove the puck over to Curry, who finished it at last.
"When you're in the playoffs, you have to go through a lot of adversity," Hickey said. "The boys battled through it, and that's the sign of a really good team.
"I couldn't be more proud of those guys—the way they handled that long shift, and the way they handled overtime. When you have a goalie like Otter back there, you can't doubt your team. He played outstanding tonight and kept us in the game in overtime, gave us a chance to win the game."
Can it get any better than potentially ending your archrival's season to advance to the Hockey East Championship? It certainly can. A win on Saturday night would not only give the Terriers their ninth league title and first since 2015, it also would give them a berth in the national tournament. It would mark the first time ever that a BU team has won its way into the NCAA tournament by getting the automatic bid that teams earn by winning their conference.
"We want to win championships, and everyone's biggest goal is to be in the national championship," Farrance said.
"We're aware of the circumstances, but I think our preparation needs to be the same as it has been throughout the tournament," Melanson said.
After starting the year with an 8-10-1 record, BU is now 12-2-3 since early January. If you throw out the four games missed when Greenway competing for Team USA in the Winter Olympics, the current cast of characters on the roster is 11-0-2 in its last 13 games.
If they can extend that streak by just one more game, the Terriers will complete one of the most impressive turnarounds in program history.
Thanks to the depth of the lineup in tonight's win, BU is poised to go even deeper into the postseason.
BOSTON – For Boston University, tonight's epic overtime win over archrival Boston College in the Hockey East semifinals felt like the whole 2017-18 season in a nutshell.
Both this season and this game saw the Terriers get off to a tough start and some bad breaks, but what followed was a dominating stretch and a show of the grit required to overcome adversity.
For BU senior captain Brandon Hickey, the 4-3 win meant that he could say his team came out on top in his 12th and likely final game against the Eagles. Reflecting in a game that featured huge momentum changes that put each team on the ropes repeatedly, Hickey was hard pressed to rank this win against others against BC.
"I'd say right at the top," said the Leduc, Alberta, native. "Playing against them with something on the line to be able to come out with the victory the way we did, I definitely would put it in the top three with the first game and the first win at their barn. Pretty special."
Another thing that was pretty special tonight was the fact that all four BU goals were scored by relatively unlikely suspects. None of BU's top nine goal scorers this season put one in the net tonight. Instead, we saw freshman Ty Amonte getting his sixth goal, freshman David Farrance scoring just his second collegiate goal, right wing Drew Melanson picking up his fourth goal, and sophomore Patrick Curry scoring his third of the season.
Those four players have now scored 15 goals this season—four less than the 19 that team leader Bobo Carpenter has scored over the course of the year.
"It's awesome; it shows the depth of our team," Hickey said. "If the guys on our top two lines aren't scoring, we've got a whole bunch of guys who can chip in and score and make the big plays. Dave's goal was huge; Drew's goal was huge, and Curry at the end, too. It shows that we have a deep team."
The team needed that depth tonight. Just 46 seconds after the opening faceoff, BC took a 1-0 lead when Connor Moore flipped in a high shot from the left point. Given how much was on the line, it was a real gut check. The Terriers responded well, ultimately outshooting the Eagles 13-5. Their reward? They fell behind 2-0 on a bang-bang play by BC at 3:26 of the second period, as Julius Mattila one-timed the puck in after David Cotton teed him up from behind the net.
Once again, BU didn't fold. Amonte showed great patience with his goal at 8:57, holding the puck until BC goalie Joseph Woll lunged forward and lifting the shot over defenseman Michael Karow in the crease. That set the stage for Farrance's goal just 1:37 later after a left-wing rush by Jordan Greenway and Chad Krys.
"Chad made a great pass up to Greenway, and it found its way back to Chad.," Farrance said. "I kind of just found myself on the back door, and he made a great pass. It was pretty easy to tap it home and a great play overall. It felt great to tie the game at that point, and I think the guys fed off of it."
They did indeed, outshooting BC 14-7 for the period. For a long stretch, it was all BU, and it felt almost inevitable when Greenway buried the apparent go-ahead goal early in the third period, only to have it waved off because Brady Tkachuk was in the crease.
BC seemed to regain its composure and ultimately scored a potential back-breaking goal on a wild scramble with just 5:19 left. But just 45 seconds later, Melanson notched the crucial equalizer.
Melanson, a newcomer as a graduate transfer student from Rensselaer this season, has been playing right wing with two skilled power forwards in Greenway and Tkachuk over the last couple months, and he was the beneficiary of a great play by Greenway this time.
"Those guys are really good at creating space for themselves, so I was just camping out front," Melanson said. "I think their D lost me a little bit or lost my stick; he was standing next to me and didn't expect Jordan to make a pass. Jordan made a great backhand pass, put it right on my tape, and I just tapped it home."
It was perhaps the hockey moment of a lifetime for Melanson. "Essentially we had to get one back to force overtime. it was definitely the biggest goal I've ever scored."
When the game went into overtime, Melanson also factored in the most nervewracking bend-but-don't-break moment of the night for the Terriers. For the better part of two minutes starting around the 6:00 mark, BU simply could not clear the puck from its zone. Goalender Jake Oettinger lost his stick for a spell, and for a long stretch defenseman Cam Crotty also was without his stick and taking great care to avoid drawing a penalty.
BC had any number of chances, and at one point was outshooting BU 11-2 during the overtime period. Somehow, Melanson and four other Terrier skaters survived the brutal stretch along with Oettinger, who overcame that early goal and saved his best netminding of the night for the overtime period.
"It was physically painful because I know I was cramping in both my legs; I couldn't really push off," Melanson recalled. "It was mentally painful because of the circumstance: they've got us hemmed in, and if they score our season is over. It was particularly painful for me because I'm pretty sure I had two chances to get the puck out, and I was 0-for-2, so I'm just glad the guys bailed me out, and we won 10 minutes later."
On the game winner, freshman Shane Bowers made a great effort to shove the puck over to Curry, who finished it at last.
"When you're in the playoffs, you have to go through a lot of adversity," Hickey said. "The boys battled through it, and that's the sign of a really good team.
"I couldn't be more proud of those guys—the way they handled that long shift, and the way they handled overtime. When you have a goalie like Otter back there, you can't doubt your team. He played outstanding tonight and kept us in the game in overtime, gave us a chance to win the game."
Can it get any better than potentially ending your archrival's season to advance to the Hockey East Championship? It certainly can. A win on Saturday night would not only give the Terriers their ninth league title and first since 2015, it also would give them a berth in the national tournament. It would mark the first time ever that a BU team has won its way into the NCAA tournament by getting the automatic bid that teams earn by winning their conference.
"We want to win championships, and everyone's biggest goal is to be in the national championship," Farrance said.
"We're aware of the circumstances, but I think our preparation needs to be the same as it has been throughout the tournament," Melanson said.
After starting the year with an 8-10-1 record, BU is now 12-2-3 since early January. If you throw out the four games missed when Greenway competing for Team USA in the Winter Olympics, the current cast of characters on the roster is 11-0-2 in its last 13 games.
If they can extend that streak by just one more game, the Terriers will complete one of the most impressive turnarounds in program history.
Thanks to the depth of the lineup in tonight's win, BU is poised to go even deeper into the postseason.
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