Men’s Hockey: No. 1 Terriers Set to open season at Bentley

By Miranda Lemus

After months of anticipation, No. 1 Boston University Men’s Hockey will head over to Waltham, MA to play in their first game of the season against the Bentley University Falcons in front of a sold out crowd.

“We’re excited to get going here.. I think our guys are ready to get some real game action against a different opponent rather than themselves, I think they’re starting to get a little chippy now just from this many practices together. We’re excited to get the season going,” said coach Jay Pandolfo.

Although Bentley Arena will be full of opposing fans, the Terriers are ready to show that their No. 1 pre-season rankings are well deserved and here to stay.  

“We’ve been going at it for about five weeks now and we’re ready for the first game. We know it’s gonna be a tough environment,” said senior assistant captain Cade Webber. 

Last season, BU opened up their 2022-2023 campaign with a home game versus Bentley and won in decisive fashion. The Terriers put up eight goals on the Falcons and saw a lot of production from last year’s freshman class. Expect for this year’s freshman class to do the same.  

“I think we’re gonna get contributions from some freshman maybe not as highly touted as Macklin [Celebrini], but there’s some other guys that come in and looked really well throught the pre-season.  We can talk about [Shane] LaChance, [Doug] Grimes, Aiden Celebrini, [Tom] Willander, I could go up and down the list. All of them have looked good so far and I expect them all to contribute,” said Pandolfo.

While BU Fans may have gotten a sneak peak of what’s to come at this past weekend’s Scarlet and White Scrimmage, this Saturday’s tilt will be the first true test to see how the Terriers compete as one team.

The Terriers will look to take advantage of Bentley’s lack of success in special teams. Last season, the Falcons finished with a measly 11% power play success rate and 77% penalty kill rate. 

Working together on the power play will be freshman forward Macklin Celebrini and sophomore defenseman Lane Hutson. With Huston consistently creating open space for his teammates, anticipate Celebrini to float into those spaces and capitalize on his chances with the puck all season.  

Catch the No.1 Boston University Terriers’ season opener against Bentley this Saturday at Bentley Arena. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. The game will be available to stream on ESPN+.