Northeastern’s path to winning its first-ever Hockey East regular-season championship is exactly why games aren’t played on paper.
After being shut out Tuesday night in Vermont, the Huskies trailed first-place Massachusetts by five points in the league standings with just two games to play. That’s where the comeback story starts.
Boston College’s back-to-back weekend wins over UMass allowed Jerry Keefe’s squad to burst through an open door Saturday night, seizing the trophy with its own sweep of Merrimack. It took a dramatic finish to get the job done as junior Aidan McDonough (Milton, Mass.) scored a one-timer with 9.6 seconds remaining in regulation to break a scoreless tie against the Warriors.
“Winning the regular season is a really hard thing to do in this league. There’s a lot of really good teams,” said Keefe, whose team’s 24 overall wins lead Hockey East. He is the winningest first-year head coach in Northeastern history. “I’m proud of the way our guys stuck to it and found a way to win there. …
“We felt like we kind of gave one away (in Vermont). At the same time, we know the importance of all these games, so we still had a lot to play for. We knew the deal going into today. As much as I think our guys were trying not to worry about the other game, they did know the outcome.”
Falling short of a regulation win would have dropped the Huskies from title contention and potentially as low as third in the final standings, but the league’s top goal scorer picked no better time to register his conference-best 23rd of the season and sixth in as many games.
McDonough has been one of the league’s best shooters since his freshman year, but it has been incredible depth and youthful energy that pushed the Huskies to another title. Of course, sophomore goaltender Devon Levi -- who picked up his 10th shutout -- has been the backbone for the large majority of the team’s success.
It was highly touted freshman Jack Hughes (Westwood, Mass.) who made the winning play Saturday, winning a key offensive zone draw and feeding the puck out to an open McDonough in the slot. Hughes is one of the numerous forwards who has stepped up, especially since Justin Hryckowian has missed the last nine games due to injury.
“He’s an amazing kid. He was 17 when he first came in. He’s obviously Riley’s little brother, but he’s kind of like the little brother to all of us,” McDonough said of Hughes, who is the youngest player in all of college hockey. “... He’s an unbelievable player, but the thing that impresses me the most is how hard he works. He has a lot of second effort in battles, he skates, he competes.”
The skill and will that Hughes has brought to his freshman year and the stick-to-it mentality that his teammates showed to pull out a win in one of the league’s toughest environments in North Andover, Mass., will only help when the “second season” begins for the Huskies next Saturday. They will play the lowest remaining seed following Wednesday’s three opening-round games.
While the schedule is to be determined, it has already felt like the postseason to McDonough.
“It really did,” McDonough said. “Every play matters in the playoffs, and that’s kind of what it felt like tonight. It’s a really small rink, so we were getting hit pretty good, but it really did feel like a playoff atmosphere out there and in the locker room between periods.”
Recent wins have set Northeastern up well entering the home stretch, as it has lost just twice since a heartbreaking setback of its own -- 1-0 against Boston University -- in the Beanpot Championship on Feb. 14. A home-and-home sweep of No. 4 UConn followed during that stretch.
“They’re growing up, they’re maturing, they’re playing the game the right way. … They play for each other,” Keefe said on Saturday. “...No matter what happened (at UMass), this game was huge for us whether we’re dealing with seeding or Pairwise (up to No. 14). It was a must-win for us. That’s how we approached the game.”
Falcons pull off sweep
Wins were hard to come by for Bentley during the back half of the regular season in Atlantic Hockey, but the memories of an 11-game winless stretch dating back to Jan. 21 were erased in one weekend.
The ninth-seeded Falcons are moving on to face four-time regular-season conference champion American International after a pair of first-round victories at eighth-seeded Niagara, 3-2 in overtime and 4-1.
“The one key term with our group has been resilience,” coach Ryan Soderquist said. “We went through the toughest month in the history of the program in February, although we played some pretty good hockey and just came out on the wrong side. It could have been easy for the group to fold, but our guys kept with it and had belief. … Some teams get hot at the beginning and some at the end. We knew our best hockey could be in front of us.”
Sophomore Cole Kodsi scored a pair of third-period goals to propel Bentley after graduate students Brendan Hamblet (Hopkinton, Mass.) and Kohei Sato made it a 2-0 game in the opening frame. Sophomore defenseman Drew Bavaro’s second of two assists came on the game-winner by Kodsi, who has a team-leading 10 tallies on the season.
In Game 1 of the series, Dartmouth transfer Collin Rutherford netted his second goal of the game at the 9:47 mark of overtime. Evan DeBrouwer made 30 stops to earn his first of two wins on the weekend.
“We have a lot of upperclassmen who know how tight college hockey is. They know it’s a detail or two that separates wins from losses, so our guys did a great job not getting too high or two low during the streak,” Soderquist said. “... There’s nothing like experience. Their maturity level really shows when they can be alright showing up to a playoff game not having won in a month. I thought Saturday was one of our most complete games of the season, playing 60 minutes.”
The matchup between Bentley and AIC is two years in the making as the Massachusetts rivals had been scheduled to meet in the 2020 and 2021 conference tournaments before both series were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related protocols.
The two teams split a November series in which the Falcons earned a 2-1 overtime win.
“We’re going in there playing with house money and to kind of prove ourselves. They have (the championships) that we want,” Soderquist said. “We’re going to have to earn every inch and compete every shift to come out on top against their extremely disciplined team.”
Both of the league’s opening series finished in sweeps. Holy Cross was edged in two 2-1 decisions at Mercyhurst.
Local ECAC teams shut out in first round
Very little separated Brown and St. Lawrence all season long as four of their five total meetings went to overtime, including two playoff games to finish this past weekend. The Bears forced a deciding third game with a 2-1 overtime win Saturday, but host SLU returned the favor and snagged a 4-3 win of their own to take the series.
After scoreless second and third periods, senior Justin Jallen extended Brown’s season with an overtime goal at the 2:06 mark Saturday. It was his second goal in as many games and second game-winner this season. Freshman defenseman Brett Bliss (Chelmsford, Mass.) had three assists in the series, registering his first multi-point game in the series finale.
Rookie goaltender Mathieu Caron stopped at least 22 shots in all three games. He was aided on defense all year by junior Luke Krys (Ridgefield, Conn.), who leads the nation with 3.22 blocked shots per game.
Despite being seeded 12th in the ECAC Hockey standings, Dartmouth took a series lead on RPI with a 3-2 Friday win before falling in three games. Freshman Sean Chisholm scored the Big Green’s first goal and assisted on those by junior Mark Gallant (Concord, Mass.) -- his team-leading 11th -- and senior Jeff Losurdo on the way to recording his first career three-point game in the win.
Sophomore Ryan Sorkin scored in both the second and third games of the series, but Dartmouth fell by 3-2 and 5-3 scores. The Engineers scored four of their five goals in the third period of Sunday’s series finale. Sophomore Clay Stevenson stopped 25 shots after a series-high 36-save performance in the opener.
Hockey East finales
Northeastern’s improbable finish was made possible by BC’s first stretch of three consecutive wins since December as it topped then first-place Massachusetts, 2-1 and 4-3. Senior Patrick Giles was the key cog in Saturday’s triumph with two goals and an assist, while Jack McBain scored his fifth goal in four games since returning from his Olympic duty with Team Canada.
Bowling Green transfer Eric Dop has started all three of BC’s recent wins between the pipes and made a season-high 42 saves for the second time during that stretch. He reached that mark in BC’s Feb. 27 win over archrival BU.
UMass Lowell also finished with a sweep, edging past New Hampshire, 1-0, in a 23-save Owen Savory shutout in Saturday’s series finale. Junior Carl Berglund scored the lone goal after assisting on three in the series-opening, 6-3 road win. Andre Lee had two goals in the opener.
UConn claimed the fourth and final quarterfinal home ice spot with Saturday’s 4-0 shutout of Vermont, which earned a 5-3 win to begin the series in Hartford, Conn. Union transfer Darion Hanson needed to make only 12 saves in the Huskies’ win, which was his Division 1 program record-tying 18th of the season.
The team’s mark is its highest since coach Mike Cavanaugh’s first season at the helm back in 2013-14. The Huskies were then an Atlantic Hockey member.
THREE MORE STARS:
Hockey East - Jacob Schmidt-Svejstrup & Lynden Breen, Maine
The Black Bears may have finished at the bottom of the Hockey East table, but four-point weekend efforts from this pair of forwards were a major factor in Saturday’s dominating 8-1 home win over Boston University. The victory snapped a four-game skid.
Schmidt-Svejstrup scored all four of his points in the lopsided triumph. His first goal since Maine’s Jan. 14-15 series at UMass Lowell came in the second period, preceding three of his nine assists on the season.
Breen assisted on junior Ben Poisson’s goal Friday before logging a goal and two assists in the victory to finish the season as the top Black Bear scorer with 24 points.
ECAC - Nathan Reid, Yale
Reid kept the Bulldogs in a pair of eventual setbacks against Colgate, making 50 saves including 31 in Friday’s 3-2 overtime loss. The sophomore allowed three goals or fewer in seven of his last eight contests to finish the season with a .901 save percentage.
Yale forced the extra session after sophomore Teddy Wooding (Wrentham, Mass.) scored a game-tying goal with seven seconds to play in regulation.
Atlantic - Ryan Leibold, Holy Cross
The senior from Ashburn, Va., broke a nine-game goal-scoring drought in the second of two 2-1 playoff losses to Mercyhurst, cutting down the Crusaders’ deficit at the 5:41 marker of the third period.
Despite finishing on a slower offensive pace, Leibold matched sophomore Jack Ricketts for the team lead with 10 goals on the season after scoring nine in his first three seasons (84 games combined) at Holy Cross.
THIS WEEK’S HAT TRICK:
1. Hockey East opens playoff week: A win or two is all it will take for Hockey East teams to continue their seasons at TD Garden, where the semifinal and championship games will be held for the first time since 2019. The conference’s one-and-done playoff format begins with a trio of opening-round games for the bottom six teams in the standings Wednesday.
The middle two teams playing for their playoff lives right away will be No. 8 BC and No. 9 UNH, while Vermont and Maine travel to Providence and Merrimack, respectively.
Waiting for Wednesday’s results will be top three seeds Northeastern, UMass and UMass Lowell. UConn and BU -- the former of which has never won a Hockey East playoff game -- are locked into the No. 4 vs. No. 5 game.
2. AHA rivalry clash set: Three New England teams remain alive in Atlantic Hockey postseason play: No. 1 AIC, No. 5 Sacred Heart and No. 9 Bentley.
The Yellow Jackets and Falcons will renew their in-state rivalry in a best-of-three set at AIC’s former home, the Olympia Ice Center, due to a scheduling conflict at the MassMutual Center.
Sacred Heart had a bye and a locked-in opponent, getting two weeks to prepare for a meeting with No. 4 RIT in Rochester.
3. Bobcats, Crimson get their tests: Top-seeded Quinnipiac will meet St. Lawrence in a best-of-three series with a trip to Lake Placid, N.Y., on the line. The Bobcats handed the regular-season meetings between the two teams by a 11-3 score, including an 8-0 shellacking back in November.
A series in Cambridge will pit No. 4 Harvard against No. 5 RPI, two more teams that were slated to meet in March of 2020 before the ECAC and Ivy League seasons ended abruptly. The Crimson just forced a split of the series with a Feb. 26 win in Troy, N.Y.
