Men’s Hockey: Terriers Sweep Regular Season Series with Northeastern
By: Jake Reiser
After a hard-fought 5-4 win against the Northeastern last night at Agganis Arena, the Boston University Terriers (5-3-0, 2-2-0) traveled across town to Matthews Arena to finish the home-at-home series against the Huskies (1-6-1, 0-2-1). Connor LaCouvee and the Terriers played strong, and defeated Northeastern in front of a raucous home crowd 4-1.
BU had a decisive shots on goal advantage through the first period, ending the first frame with 18 shots to Northeastern’s 2. At 4:39 of the first period, Ryan Rosenthal cross-checked Matt Lane to put the Terriers on the power play, and the captain, Matt Grzelcyk sent a wrist shot over Huskies’ goalie Ryan Ruck’s glove to give BU the lead 1-0.
“It was great, any time you can sweep a Hockey East team, in my opinion, probably the best league in the country, we’re really feeling good,” Grzelcyk said.
BU had two other power plays in the first, but couldn’t convert.
With just under 14 minutes in the second period, Doyle Somerby drove the puck from the defensive zone into a 2-on-1, and shot the puck over Ruck’s blocker to make it 2-0.
Northeastern put the pressure on for the last 40 minutes, taking a 32-13 SOG advantage. But with Ruck pulled, Ahti Oksanen flung a puck into an empty net.
A shorthanded goal by Northeastern’s Adam Gaudette with 55.6 seconds to go ended LaCouvee’s shutout bid, but Danny O’Regan hit another empty net for his second goal of the season to clinch victory for BU.
“Just really proud of our guys. It was a great weekend, I thought we really came to play tonight,” said BU Coach David Quinn
After starting last night against the Huskies at home, LaCouvee made 33 saves and earned First Star of the Game honors in his second victory of the weekend.
“I just felt like he’s getting better,” said Quinn. “Two great third periods against Denver and Northeastern last night, I just felt like he earned it.”
“It was the first time [starting two games in a row] in college, it was pretty exciting, I just ran with it, “ said LaCouvee. “I carried a great energy from last night into today.”
Grzelcyk scored his second goal of the season in just his second game back, and Coach Quinn sees how much of a difference he makes on this team.
“He’s obviously a guy that’s an elite player at this level, any time you get a guy like that, your lineup instantaneously gets better, you have a little bit more swagger, play with more confidence, when you’re adding arguably the best defenseman in the country in your lineup, it’s gonna make an impact and you saw the impact he made all weekend.”
BU now shifts to a decisive weekend against a formidable Hockey East foe in Providence College, a rematch of the 2015 National Championship game. The Terriers start in Providence at Schneider Arena with a 6:00 p.m. start, then come back to Agganis Arena on Saturday at 4:00p.m..