Featured Image by Jenny Chen<\/p>\n
By Jenny Chen<\/p>\n
It was not the night for Boston University Men\u2019s Hockey (11-10-1, 7-7-0 HEA), which fell 4-3 to the UMass Lowell River Hawks (9-13-0, 5-7-0 HEA) in a game testing Hockey East and NCAA Percentage Index standings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a few guys that played really well, but we had a lot of passengers, and it\u2019s tough to win like that,\u201d BU Head Coach Jay Pandolfo said.<\/p>\n
Needing a couple of minutes to settle in, the Terriers started shakily with giveaways and skating up and down the sheet of ice.<\/p>\n
Sophomore forward Nick Roukounakis generated his team\u2019s first dangerous chance, waiting in the crease to tip in a shot that ended up wide in the third minute of the first period.<\/p>\n
For the next seven minutes, however, the River Hawks controlled most of the play with consistent cycling in their offensive zone. Despite this, BU was still able to generate a couple of looks off various rushes and went on to control shots in the first frame 17-5.<\/p>\n
Freshman forward Jonathan Morello broke the deadlock between the two teams in the 16th minute of the first period, firing a rebound from the goal line extended with traffic in front.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The fourth line] plays the game the way it\u2019s supposed to be played,\u201d Pandolfo said.<\/p>\n
The second period mirrored the first, with back-and-forth skating and frequent changes in possession.<\/p>\n
The Terriers again found the back of the net first in the frame, this time on the man advantage that Roukounakis drew on a holding call in the fifth minute.<\/p>\n
Recording their first power-play goal since Red Hot Hockey on Nov. 29 \u2014 six games ago \u2014 forward Jack Harvey wristed the puck home in the seventh minute off high-to-low movement from BU\u2019s second power-play unit.<\/p>\n
Drawing another penalty in the 13th minute of the period, the Terriers headed back on the power play, but this time the tide turned for the worse.<\/p>\n
Amid a change, the River Hawks capitalized shorthanded, bringing the puck into their offensive zone and ripping a one-timer past BU sophomore goaltender Mikhail Yegorov to cut their deficit in half in the 15th minute.<\/p>\n
In a game marked by constant changes in puck possession, UMass Lowell once more sent BU defending a quick rush off a turnover in the Terrier offensive zone and scored in the 19th minute of the second.<\/p>\n
With the game\u2019s momentum completely flipped, the Terriers just could not solve the River Hawks\u2019 offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cGive them credit. They were down 2-0. They didn\u2019t quit. They kept pushing,\u201d Pandolfo said.<\/p>\n
Junior defenseman Aiden Celebrini was called for cross-checking in the waning seconds of the 20-minute period, and UMass Lowell took the lead on a power-play goal with four seconds left on the clock.<\/p>\n
Hoping to salvage the game, BU\u2019s coaching staff made a change in net for the third period, turning to junior goaltender Max Lacroix in place of Yegorov.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just thought you give up three late there \u2026 that\u2019s it really, to give the team a spark,\u201d Pandolfo said.<\/p>\n
Instead, the Terriers headed back to the kill on another Celebrini penalty. However, just under three-quarters of the way through the man disadvantage, sophomore forward Kamil Bednarik created a turnover in the offensive zone and slipped the puck over to Harvey for his second goal of the night in the seventh minute of the third period.<\/p>\n
BU was unable to score on any remaining chances, even with one more power play, and Lacroix made several crucial saves to negate any goals from the visiting team. For the fifth time this season, the Terriers needed overtime to decide the contest.<\/p>\n
Off the initial draw in overtime, sophomore defenseman Cole Hutson drew a hooking penalty, but the Terrier power play was negated on the next sequence when the River Hawks were called for interference.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the Terriers could not defend the number of rushes UMass Lowell created throughout the game, and the River Hawks buried a wraparound goal to earn the extra point two minutes into overtime.<\/p>\n
BU wraps up the weekend series in Lowell on Saturday night, with puck drop scheduled for 6:05 p.m. Streaming will be available on ESPN+.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Featured Image by Jenny Chen By Jenny Chen It was not the night for Boston University Men\u2019s Hockey (11-10-1, 7-7-0 HEA), which fell 4-3 to the UMass Lowell River Hawks (9-13-0, 5-7-0 HEA) in a game testing Hockey East and NCAA Percentage Index standings. \u201cWe had a few guys that played really well, but we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25252,"featured_media":52188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1026,1028,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25252"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52209,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52207\/revisions\/52209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}