by Scott Weighart, GoTerriers.com

BOSTON – A lackluster 7-5 road loss at Yale on Dec. 29 represented a low point for the Boston University men's ice hockey team this season.

Yet, it could prove to be the turning point.

Granted, the Terriers were seriously shorthanded for that final game of 2024, with four players (Cole Hutson, Cole Eiserman, Brandon Svoboda and Tom Willander) representing their countries at the World Junior Championship. Regardless, it was disheartening to lose to a Yale team that came into the game with a 2-7-1 record.

Despite the frustration over flashes of brilliance marred by mistakes, a glass half-full perspective also will tell us that the Terriers remain on top of a tight quartet of teams leading the Hockey East standings. They are currently eighth in the all-important PairWise Rankings and they have started 2025 with back-to-back Hockey East sweeps over Vermont and Naw Hampshire.

"First half was clearly a lot of ups and downs, a lot of inconsistencies—even the practices," Terrier coach Jay Pandolfo said after Saturday night's 2-1 overtime win over UNH. "That's on me. I don't think I did a good enough job of getting the guys to practice a certain type of way, so we can play a certain type of way. That was the mindset after Yale. We had a lot of time to work on things and get to where practice was difficult, so when you get in games, they're easier sometimes."

Thee practices after the Yale loss helped the team re-imagine their approach to the penalty kill.

"We're a lot more aggressive now - that's made a difference for us," Pandolfo said. "And we're getting saves when we need it. We've tried to create an identity on the kill that we're going to be aggressive. You'll give up some chances when you're aggressive, but early in the season, I thought we were just sitting in too much, letting them be in our zone too long, and now we're trying to eliminate that."

The upshot was a 5-for-5 showing in killing off penalties in the overtime win on Saturday. In fact, the Terriers have killed 14 of 15 power plays over this modest four-game win streak.

Meanwhile, some Terriers are heating up. Senior Jack Hughes was snakebitten throughout the first semester, failing to score in the team's first 17 games despite playing well. As often happens, the puck began to jump in for him, as he netted goals in three straight games.

"After a certain amount of games, it creeps into your head a little bit," Hughes admitted. "I think it's just trying to stick with it and do the same things the right way. Eventually, guys get rewarded."

Hughes cited winger Jack Harvey as an example. After notching just one assist in a five-game stretch, Harvey has recorded eight points (2g, 6a) over this four-game win streak, including a beautiful cross-ice feed for a Ryan Greene tap-in goal for the OT-winner on Saturday.

"Harvs was working tonight," Hughes said. "Had a couple nice plays, got a couple assists. Now, it doesn't always show up on a score sheet. It's just about going to the net and hoping for some bounces."

Hughes also is having a blast centering the team's two top snipers in Eiserman and junior Quinn Hutson.

"It's great. I need to change my mindset a little bit I need to shoot, too, but they make the game easy in the o-zone. They know where to go to score, they've got great shots and they can make plays as well. So, it's obviously really fun to play with them."

With some help from Hughes and company, Quinn Hutson has charged to the top of BU's scoring leaders thanks to seven goals and five assists over his last six games.

"He's taking a step for us for sure," sophomore co-captain Shane Lachance said after Saturday's win. "He's a leader on our team, and we need a guy like him to be scoring. That's what he's best at, and when he's doing that, we have success. I can't say enough good things about him. Defensively, he's been really good too. He's also got 14 assists this year too; we can't forget about that. He's really rounded out his game from when I first got here,  becoming more of a playmaker as well as a sniper. It's good to see for him."

While there are several promising signs of better things to come, no one is about to say that the makeover is complete, especially with a huge home-and-home series looming against No. 1 Boston College this weekend.

"I'd say Yale was definitely a low point, a bit of a wake-up call for us," Hughes said. "But we've responded since then - last weekend and this weekend. I don't want to say quite yet that we have turned it around with obviously a huge test coming up with BC. So maybe you could ask me again next Saturday. But we've turned the page and put in a lot of work."

"It's hard to identify it as the turning point yet." Lachance agreed. "Obviously, we've had four good games. We've responded well after that game, and I think it's important for us to just look ahead now. We've got two big ones this weekend against BC, so we're looking forward to that."

"I feel good about the team," Pandolfo said. "I think we're heading in the right direction. I was happy with the response tonight. We didn't play a perfect game, but the way we competed defensively was a big improvement on last night. We're gaining momentum. We were making a lot of mistakes early on. It's getting better; it's still a work in progress."

It's also encouraging to see the Terriers finding different ways to win. In the first win of 2025 hosting Vermont, BU scored three goals in the first period and never looked back. The next night, the Terriers blew open a tight game with three third-period goals.

On Friday night at New Hampshire, they were more erratic, coughing up a 3-1 lead in the second period. But they responded with three unanswered goals in the final frame despite getting outshot, 15-6, over those 20 minutes.

Saturday was totally different again. The game was more of a defensive struggle, and the Terriers were outshot, 35-21. Senior goaltender Mathieu Caron truly rose to the occasion and the team managed to kill off three third-period penalties, setting them up for the OT win.

"It's important," Lachance said of winning in all sorts of ways. "We'd been scoring six goals a game the past few games and obviously a tight game tonight. But we're going to be in those types of games if we want to be playing deep into the season; we're going need to bear down. They're going to get a lot of shots sometimes; you're going to get hemmed in, and you have to learn how to bend, don't break. I think we did that well tonight."

"The most important thing is being predictable for your linemates," Hughes said. "And whoever it is, just playing simple. As long as we're being simple and we're working, we've got a really talented team and a good goaltender."

Points taken. Time will tell if the Yale loss was a turning point. For now, though, that low point foreshadowed some course corrections that have led to 11 points in the Hockey East standings over the last four games. Getting five or six points against archrival BC this weekend would be a high point of the season thus far.