Boston University on a roll heading into Frozen Four matchup with top-seeded Minnesota
BOSTON -- The Boston University men's hockey team is on a roll heading into their Frozen Four matchup with the top-seeded Minnesota Golden Gophers on Thursday night. Winners of nine straight, the Terriers are going for their first title since 2009.
While some of BU's younger players have made the biggest impact this season, it's the veteran Terriers that have inspired the team's winning ways. Nobody on the roster wants the 11 seniors on the team to leave their NCAA career empty-handed.
"It's my last crack at it," said senior forward Jay O'Brien. "For a lot of guys, this is it for college hockey. We've put ourselves in a great spot to compete for another championship and we want to win that last game of the year, go out on top."
BU's group of seniors has been a huge help to first-year head coach Jay Pandolfo, who got to know the group as an associate head coach for the Terriers last season. After losing in the Hockey East quarterfinals last year, many of those seniors could have signed their professional deals and moved on to the next step.
Instead, they returned to school, hoping to capture the ultimate glory in a Boston University sweater.
"They were in between whether they were going to sign or not, and as a group, collectively, they came back. And they came back motivated to get to the point we're at now," Pandolfo told WBZ-TV's Dan Roche ahead of the team's departure for Tampa. "That has helped me in my first year; the leadership we've gotten from them and how they've brought the younger guys along.
"We've gotten some great contributions from our younger group, and they've all come together as a group," added Pandolfo. "That's a big reason we are where we're at right now."
Where they're at is the Frozen Four for the first time since 2015. Pandolfo knows plenty about reaching this point, having done so as a player in each of his four years at Boston University from 1992-96. He also knows how difficult is it to win two more games, having won a title just once -- in 1995 -- in those four Frozen Four appearances.
"The margin of error is so slim," Pandolfo recalls. "The big thing is you have to make sure you're ready from the drop of the puck. Every mistake is magnified; you don't have a second chance. It's one and done. You have to make sure you're ready from the start of the game, making sure you're playing the right way and doing all the little things well.
"Discipline is a huge factor," he continued. "You don't want to be taking any penalties that could be costly. All the little things add up throughout the game and you want to make sure you're on top of it."
Boston University's title tally sits at five, with their most recent championship coming back in 2009. These Terriers are looking to add a title of their own to that collection, and are drawing from a winless Beanpot just a few months ago.
Last year's Beanpot champs, the Terriers came up empty on TD Garden ice this year, losing to Northeastern in the first round and then Boston College in the consolation game. Those two losses then turned into a four-game losing streak, as BU dropped back-to-back games to Merrimack.
They were down at that point, but the Terriers didn't hang their heads for long. Those four straight losses have been followed by nine straight wins. And a few months after coming up short in the Beanpot, the Terriers scored two huge wins on the TD Garden ice to win the Hockey East tournament.
"I think it helped us a lot," Pandolfo said of that losing streak. "Up until the Beanpot, we were rolling pretty good. We had won seven in a row and hadn't lost two games in a row the whole year. Their goal was to defend the Beanpot, and to lose that first game, I think they were really disappointed and we kind of got down as a group a little bit. We kind of got into a little bit got into a rut. Losing four in a row, you learn from it.
"As a group, we talked about certain things we had to get back to and do the things to help us be successful. Any good team is always going to go through some adversity, and it's going to help you down the line," said Pandolfo, who led the Terriers to a 29-10-0 record in his first season on the bench. "I think that really helped us going into the Hockey East playoffs and Hockey East Championship, knowing we had to be better and more desperate. I think the teams in the Beanpot were a little more desperate than we were."
The Terriers' ability to bounce back in the face of adversity was on full display in the Hockey East Tournament. They never led in the semifinal against Providence or the final against Merrimack, winning both games in overtime at the Garden.
It was freshman defenseman Lane Hutson who ended it for BU against Merrimack, scoring his second goal of the tilt just two minutes into the extra frame. Hutson was one of the best blue liners to play college hockey this season, earning the Walter Brown Award as the top American-born player in New England. He racked up 48 points as a freshman, with 15 goals and 33 assists, making him the highest-scoring freshman in Hockey East history.
After the Terriers handled Western Michigan, 5-1, in their first game of the NCAA Tournament, seniors Wilmer Scoog and Ethan Phillips scored to lift BU to a 2-1 win over Cornell. It locked down a spot for Boston University in the Frozen Four for the 23rd time in school history.
Standing in the Terriers' way in Tampa is the top-seeded Minnesota Golden Gophers, who are 28-9-1 this season and outscored Canisius and St. Cloud State, 13-3, in the first two rounds of the tournament. They have 14 NHL draft picks on the roster and a pair of Hobey Baker finalists in freshman Logan Cooley and sophomore Matthew Knies. Cooley's 57 points this season ranked second-most in the country, while Knies led all of college hockey with seven game-winning goals.
"They're obviously a great team, but I truly think that when we are playing hard and fast – the way we know we can play – there isn't a team in this country that can play with us," said Terriers sophomore forward Ty Gallagher. "Just using our speed, size, and competitiveness is the key to success."
"What we've concentrated on more than anything this year is how we play and how we play our game," said Pandolfo. "Our mindset is -- and has been all year -- to go into this tournament with confidence and play our game. If we do that, we have a good chance."
"We have a saying that we're never satisfied until it's over," added Gallagher. "We have had a lot of success this year, and we wont be satisfied until we walk out of Tampa with that trophy."
The puck will drop on Thursday's Boston University-Minnesota Frozen Four matchup shortly after 5 p.m., with Thursday's winner moving on to Saturday's Championship game against either Michigan or Quinnipiac.
