The Hockey East Tournament has begun.
The Boston University men’s hockey team ended the regular season with the fourth seed, earning a home game at Agganis Arena Saturday night for the quartefinals.
The sixth-seeded University of Massachusetts beat 11th-seeded University of Vermont 2-1 last Wednesday night.
BU last faced UMass to end the first half of the season in a home-and-home series that followed the pattern the team has followed throughout the entire season. The Terriers lost the first game at Agganis 4-0, suffering lapses in discipline and a lack of effort, only to bounce back in a come-from-behind win driven by freshman defenseman Cole Hutson.
Here’s what you need to know:
Hutson hot streaks
Cole Hutson took accountability for his underperformance after the last matchup against UMass where he scored two goals and contributed to all four in the 4-2 win.
“I take full responsibility for the first half of the season. I haven’t been good enough for this team,” Hutson said. “Lots of games have been on me from penalties and turnovers.”
Since then, and after winning gold in the World Junior Championship, he has racked up 25 points in 17 games, registering a point in all but two of them. He tallied three points in each of the last two games and has a goal in the last four.
Cole elevated the defensive side of his game, too. After the game in Amherst, he went seven-straight games without getting called for a penalty. He was just named a first-team Hockey East All-Star on Thursday, adding an extra boost of confidence.
Quinn Hutson has been on an offensive tear as well. He has recorded a point in seven-straight games, talling 13 points in that span. Against Providence, Quinn recorded four points, and then he turned around and scored two goals against Vermont. His 1.44 points per game leads the NCAA.
Breaking the pattern
The Terriers have strung together consecutive wins for only the fifth time this season, counting the shootout win over Maine on Nov. 16.
The last two games were convincing, too. After a shootout victory against No. 8 UConn, BU throttled No. 6 Providence 8-2 on senior night and continued to roll to a 6-1 win over Vermont.
Tristan Amonte said, “We might need to imagine we lost the game on Monday. That might be the secret for us,” in a joking tone when asked about his mentality going into the Tuesday game against UConn.
The team has been consistently inconsistent all year, so BU will be looking to finally correct the pattern.
Scouting the Minutemen
UMass has had a rough stretch of their schedule to end the regular season, and they performed well. The team split series with No. 1 Boston College and UNH, won in a shootout then defeated UMass Lowell outright, then lost to No. 4 Maine in a shootout before beating them.
The first round of the tournament was clean in the 2-1 win over Vermont. UMass did not commit a penalty. All of the scoring happened in the first period. The team was held to 21 shots on goal, but the Catamounts sold out for 17 blocks in front of their goaltender.
Junior forward Cole O’Hara has been on a tear all season. He has points in 12 of his last 14 games and is tied for second in the NCAA in points with 50.
Sophomore goaltender Michael Hrabal has started a bulk of the games with a .927 save percentage, tied for 10th in the country and fifth in Hockey East, and has a 2.32 goals allowed average. He was a second-round pick in the 2023 NHL Draft.
The team has allowed 2.4 goals per game, good enough to be tied for 14th in the NCAA, while their team scores 3.4 goals a game to be tied for 10th.
