ST. LOUIS — And so, in a season full of drama, frustration and, at times, legitimate pessimism, it was a mistake-free night that sent the Boston University men’s hockey team back to the national championship game.
BU entered Thursday night’s Frozen Four semifinal against Penn State universally considered the better pound-for-pound team, and in a relatively straightforward 3-1 victory on the sport’s biggest stage, the Terriers played like it.
That has not always been the case this season — it’s why head coach Jay Pandolfo admitted on Wednesday there were moments his team “didn’t have a great feel” it would make it to St. Louis. But it was certainly the case at the Enterprise Center.
Pandolfo, at last, is past the Frozen Four’s first hurdle in his third try, and the remarkable start to his tenure at BU is now a victory over Western Michigan on Saturday away from delivering the program its sixth title, and first since 2009. When sophomore forward Jack Harvey clinched the win with an empty-netter at 19:01 of the third, Pandolfo, normally stoic on the bench, jumped over to associate head coach Joe Pereira for a high-five.
Jack Hughes put BU in front at 1:35 of the second period, pouncing on a botched save from Penn State goalie Arseni Sergeev, who didn’t realize he dropped a wrister from Matt Copponi. Star freshmen Cole Hutson and Cole Eiserman delivered the killshot nine minutes later, perfectly executing a two-on-one rush that ended with Eiserman blasting home his 24th goal of the season.
PSU freshman forward Nic DeGraves punched home a rebound early in the third period to give the Nittany Lions a chance. The rest of the frame was far more even than the first two — Penn State recorded 18 shots on goal in the third after entering it with 15 — but BU freshman goalie Mikhail Yegorov (32 saves) still didn’t need to be a superhero.
The Nittany Lions’ desperate late surge was always going to come, but the Terriers didn’t allow many quality scoring chances as they nursed their lead.
But really, this was a game the Terriers won in the opening 40 minutes.
For all of the ways things could’ve gone wrong for BU on Thursday night, nearly everything went right in the first two periods. BU was not plagued by an inexplicable lack of energy in the first period. It did not struggle to break out of its defensive zone, nor did it find much resistance as it glided through the neutral zone. Penn State did not jump on the Terriers like it did the Black Bears of Maine in the first round of this tournament; in fact, save for an odd-man rush here and there, the red hot Nittany Lions didn’t do much of anything, until their third-period push was too little, too late.
BU and its 14 NHL draft picks had the space and time to do what they wanted.
And though the Terriers never truly put their foot on Penn State’s throat, they were there to capitalize off the Nittany Lions’ mistakes while making few of their own — something that cost BU at the Frozen Four last season and at several different points this season.
PSU, which Pandolfo said was “probably the hottest team in college hockey” coming in, simply didn’t bring much to the table in its first Frozen Four appearance. The Nittany Lions’ forecheck barely affected BU, and Guy Gadowsky’s team — which boasted one of the most dangerous and confident offenses in the nation — never made the ultra-talented Terriers all that uncomfortable.
Penn State found a few Grade-A chances on the rush — which it does so well — but it couldn’t convert. And the Terriers, whose defense struggled immensely early in the season but are surging at that end since, prevented PSU’s speed from becoming a real problem. The Nittany Lions’ top six entered with a combined 221 points, but it was blanked on Thursday.
The Terriers, meanwhile, didn’t light the world on fire but didn’t beat themselves either, and avoiding the latter has been most of the struggle this season.
Perhaps, they’ll need to be more assertive in the rock fight with Western Michigan that awaits them on Saturday in the program’s first title game since 2015. But BU spoke as if this was a business trip in the lead up to the game, then took care of business on Thursday, arriving at Enterprise Center stone-faced and unmoved by the gaggle of fans lining the walkway to the arena before delivering a drama-free performance.
This story will be updated.
