Terriers snare Hockey East title, 1-0

A first period goal by Brandon Yip and a sparkling 32-save performance by freshman netminder Kieran Millan gave the Terriers a 1-0 win over UMass-Lowell in the Hockey East title game at TD BankNorth Garden. The championship, in the conference's silver anniversary season, was BU's seventh Hockey East tournament win.
Millan was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player and was joined on the all-tournament team by co-captains Matt Gilroy and John McCarthy and by Colin Wilson.

With his game-winning goal tonight, Yip, a senior, ended his Hockey East career with a matching bookend to go with the overtime game-winner (video) in the 2006 title game when BU beat BC, 2-1.

BU, which improved its overall record to 31-6-4, has locked up the #1 seed for the NCAA tournament. Tomorrow, pairings for the four regionals will be announced on ESPN2 at 11:30 a.m. ET.

From HockeyEastOnline, a recap, boxscore, an in-game blog and the photo above. More recaps: USCHO, New York Times, GoTerriers.com. NESN video highlights. Comprehensive boxscore. Post-game comments from Coach Parker and the BU players were also made available by HockeyEastOnline and can be found below (click to begin).


►Sophomore forward Joe Pereira suffered a ruptured spleen when his stick became caught in the Lowell net and the handle was forced into his stomach. He was taken to the hospital. For the second consecutive game, BU had just 11 forward for the bulk of the game. Pereira's teammates will visit him Sunday, following the NCAA selection show.

► BU hit posts and crossbars five or six times during the game. During a late third period power play both Yip and Gilroy did so. When Lowell pulled its goalie for an extra-attacker, Kevin Shattenkirk’s long clear seemed headed for the empty net, but struck the post instead.

►The Terriers controlled 34 of 64 faceoffs and as was the case on Friday, they dominated the third-period draws, winning 17 of 26, including the last five.

► BU is now undefeated in its last 15 games (13-0-2) away from Agganis Arena.

USCHO's coverage included several Jack Parker quotes including this one.

"One of the biggest plusses of our team this year, and for me
personally as a coach, is to see the recognition of John
McCarthy. This is a fabulous kid; this is the best student on the team, this is the kid that does everything right. He does
the next right thing all the time and it just comes natural
to him."

Check back for more post-game information and coverage.