By the skin of their teeth

BU advanced to the Beanpot final, beating Harvard 4-3 tonight, but it would be more accurate to say that the Terriers “survived" to the championship game. In a season where many Hockey East games have featured last second goals, Harvard had an offensive faceoff with 8 seconds left--following an icing call--and a chance to tie. The Crimson put the puck in the net—about 1.5 seconds after time had expired.

A short recap: BU fell behind 2-0 on a Michael Biega wrist shot from the right-side dot that Kieran Millan wishes he had back, and on a 5-on-3 power play— early in the second period— that became a 5-on-2 when Colby Cohen was knocked down. BU, which had great first period chances—Nick Bonino (photo) hit the crossbar and Chris Connolly missed an open left side—, tied the game on a pair of Bonino goals: a snipe from the left circle, following tough corner work by Brandon Yip and John McCarthy, and a neat goalmouth move following Matt Gilroy’s charge to the net and a quick, short pass.

Terrier’s took the lead in the third period on Zach Cohen’s sharp angle goal that was matched by Harvard’s second power play goal. With just under two minutes remaining, Jason Lawrence rocketed a slapper past Matt Hoyle for his 10th power play goal of the year, which proved to be the game-winner, but not before Harvard’s “non-goal” that left BU players and fans with frayed nerves.

BU will meet Northeastern in the Beanpot final next Monday. The Huskies chewed up BC, 6-1, in the opening round's nightcap.

From USCHO, Scott Weighart’s recap and Lee Urton's BU-Harvard notebook.

From INCH reporter Jeff Howe’s live blog:

Jack Parker said when the final seconds were ticking down, he lost sight of the play in the far corner and began watching the action live on the video boards above center ice, something he said he very rarely does. Because of that, though, Parker knew Alex Biega’s goal would be disallowed because Parker looked at the adjacent game clock on the video boards. He said he was “very confident” BU locked up the win, which means he’s likely the only person in the building who knew with 100 percent certainty the officials would overturn it in the review.

Parker had the line of the night during the postgame press conference. He was very serious when he said, “For this decade, we had our Beanpot consolation game,” said Parker, whose Terriers had advanced to the Beanpot final 13 consecutive years before losing in the first round to BC last year. “We didn’t want another one.”

More game coverage:
►From Hockey East Online, we have a game recap, audio comments from Parker and comments from Bonino and Lawrence.
►From the GoTerriers.com Web site, a recap and a detailed boxscore.
►New York Times recap
►International Herald Tribune recap

►Jason Lawrence's game-winner made ESPN SportsCenter's Top Ten.

►The win was BU's 20th of the season, one more than last year's team won and equal to the 2006-07 team's total.

►Earlier in the day, BU moved up a notch to the become the top-ranked team in both the USCHO and USA Today polls. And sixteen players, including Terrier seniors Matt Gilroy and Chris Higgins were named semi-finalists for the fifty-seventh Walter Brown Award, presented annually to the best American-born college hockey player in New England.

►Former Terrier All-American and Hobey Baker Award Winner Chris Drury and Northeastern defenseman Dan McGillis were inducted into the Beanpot Hall of Fame.

Check back for more Beanpot coverage.