Box Score | Season Stats | Highlights
BOSTON - On a night when the six Terrier seniors were being honored in the last regular-season home contest of their careers, it was the Terrier second line of sophomores Pete MacArthur (Clifton Park, N.Y.) and Bryan Ewing (Plymouth, Mass.), along with junior Kenny Roche (South Boston, Mass.), that combined for three goals to lift the No. 3 Boston University men's ice hockey team to a 5-3 victory over Northeastern. The win, along with a Boston College loss at New Hampshire, gave the Terriers the outright Hockey East Regular-Season Championship for the first time since 2000.
BU finished the regular season with a 21-9-4 record, and a 17-7-3 Hockey East mark, and will host eighth-seeded UMass in the quarterfinals next weekend. Meanwhile, Northeastern ended with a 3-24-7 overall record and 3-17-7 league mark.
The teams traded goals in the first period to take a 2-2 tie into the second frame. BU grabbed the 3-2 lead late in the second before NU tied it back up early in the third. A pair of goals in a 1:20 span around the midway point of the last stanza gave the Terriers the 5-3 victory and the league crown.
“So we finish the season 16-2-2 in our last 20 games - that’s quite a run for us and might be the best run we’ve ever had since the 1978 team that only lost one game all year,” said BU Head Coach Jack Parker. “It was a great regular season for us and we get rewarded with the league championship outright. To enjoy the evening tonight - getting the championship and getting it in the style we did down the stretch is pretty nice.”
Northeastern got on the board first for the second night in a row after Rob Rassey won an offensive-zone faceoff and directed the puck to Andrew Linard for a quick wrister from the left point through heavy traffic at 6:32 of the opening period.
The Terriers took little time in evening the score as senior John Laliberte (Saco, Maine) was set up by junior Tom Morrow (Afton, Minn.) for the one-timer from the slot that beat Husky goaltender Jake Thaler five-hole at 8:34. Senior co-captain Brad Zancanaro (Trenton, Mich.) added a helper on the play.
Just 15 seconds later, NU’s Chuck Tomes was whistled for obstruction tripping, and just 17 seconds in the man advantage, the Terriers converted for the 2-1 lead. MacArthur took a shot from the slot, caught his own blocked shot off a NU player and took another shot that got through and was stopped by Thaler. Ewing caught the rebound at the left post and tipped it in at 8:49.
Although it appeared that BU would take the one-goal lead into the first intermission, the Huskies used a late power play to re-equalize the score at two goals apiece. Rassey grabbed Tomes’ rebound at the left post and circled around the back of the net, before shoveling the puck past Terrier netminder John Curry (Shorewood, Minn.) at the right post.
The deadlock lasted through the majority of period two, until the Terrier second line combined for its second tally of the night. Taking a pass from MacArthur, Ewing skated up the slot and took a shot that ricocheted off Thaler to the left of the net, where Roche picked it up. Roche took a low shot from the boards that found its way to the back of the net at 15:32 for the 3-2 score.
Northeastern again broke the tie in the final frame, when Louis Liotti hooked a rebound in the blade of his stick while flat out on the ice near the left post and slid the puck between Curry’s legs at 5:56.
MacArthur got the eventual game-winner at 12:03 with a rocket one-timer from low in the slot off a feed from freshman Brandon Yip (Maple Ridge, B.C.) while with the man advantage. Just over a minute later, senior co-captain David Van der Gulik sealed the win when he swatted in a loose puck on the goal line after a junior Kevin Schaeffer (South Huntington, N.Y.) shot from the right point at 13:23.
The Terriers were 2-for-7 on the power play and out shot the Huskies, 35-21. NU was 1-for-3 with the man advantage.
BU will face the University of Massachusetts in a best-of-three Hockey East quarterfinal series starting on Friday, March 10 at Agganis Arena.
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