BEANPOT GAME DAY: Terriers vs. Huskies UPDATED

UPDATES (scroll down for ranking updates)

BU Beanpot Get Charged Up Video

Hockey East Monthly Awards: Lane Hutson wins Player of the Month for January. Ty Gallagher wins Defender of the Month. A 4-peat for Defender honors: Hutson in Oct. & Nov., Fensore in Dec. 

● GoTerriers.com report

● Terriers sign 7-year-old Logan Gatto

 

#3 Terriers begin defense of their 2022 Beanpot Championship in a rematch of last year’s title game as they face #20 Northeastern in the second semifinal at TD Garden, set for an 8:00 p.m. start. It follows the other semifinal matching Boston College and #8 Harvard. Both games will air on NESN.

This year marks the 70^th Beanpot Tournament and the first with a sponsor, Dunkin’ Donuts. BU has claimed the silver trophy 31 times. Northeastern has won it seven times, most recently in 2020.

In last year’s championship game, BU broke a scoreless deadlock in the third period on Dylan Peterson’s goal with 2:46 remaining in regulation. Neither of tonight’s starting goalies, BU’s Drew Commesso and NU’s Devon Levi, played in that title game as both were in Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The netminders that night were BU’s Vinny Duplessis and, for the Huskies, TJ Semptimphelter, who subsequently transferred to Arizona State.

While tonight’s game doesn’t impact the Hockey East race, BU and Northeastern are first and second in the standings, separated by just three points. The Huskies (13-10-3, 11-5-2 HE) have recovered from a late November-December lull (2-6-0) and are 5-2-0 in 2023, including Friday night’s 4-3 overtime loss to UConn.

The teams played a home-and-home in mid-November. The Huskies won at Agganis, 2-0, on a pair of third-period scores (one was an ENG) despite being outshot 41-26. The next night at Matthews, the Terriers rallied to tie in the third period and then won, 4-3, on Lane Hutson’s overtime goal.

“They always play us very well,” Head Coach Jay Pandolfo said of the first-round match-up. “We just have to be ready for it. “It’s obviously a big stage and I think last year our guys rose to the occasion.”

The Huskies, like BU, boast several of Hockey East’s top scorers. Senior Aidan McDonough is fourth in points with 32 including a conference-best 17 goals. Justin Hryckowian is fifth with 28 points and Gunnarwolfe Fontaine is tied for ninth with 23. Levi, last season’s Mike Richter Award winner as the NCAA’s top goalie, brings a 2.38 GAA and a .927 save percentage.

BU's offense, paced by Hockey East's top scorer, Matt Brown, leads all D1 teams in goals per game with 4.23. Brown told The Boston Herald:

“We have a really deep team this year and I think that’s showing right now. We have a very fast team and we have been playing well in transition and that has been a lot of our offense this year."

 TONIGHT’S BU LINE-UP- Case McCarthy returns

Brown-Skoog-Kaplan

Tuch-O’Brien-Peterson

Wilmer-Greene-Hutson

Zabaneh-Stevens-Amonte

Fensore-Gallagher

Hutson-McCarthy

Webber-Copeland

Jarman

Commesso

Duplessis

Schena

 

● GoTerriers.com preview, Game Notes, Live Stats, BU All-Access (audio), BU Men’s

Hockey Twitter

● 2023 BU Beanpot Primer

● Boston Hockey Blog preview, Four in a Row for Class of '98

 ●Boston Herald BU set to defend Beanpot crown

● College Hockey News Tale of the Tape

● BU Alumni Beanpot Watch Parties

● NCAA.com Everything You Need to Know About the 2023 Beanpot

 

►Elite Prospects: "Director of North American Scouting Mitch Brown takes you into the Film Room™️ to look at the progress of Montréal Canadiens second-round pick Lane Hutson in his freshman season at Boston University." 

 

Polls & Rankings

-USCHO Division 1 Weekly Poll: Terriers remain at #3 but are second in first-place votes with 8

-USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Poll Terriers remain at #3 with 3 first-pace votes.

-Everything College Hockey: BU is #2

-ESPN’s John Buccigross kept the Terriers at #2 in his rankings. 

-In the Pairwise rankings, BU remains at #3, trailing only Minnesota and Quinnipiac

 

►TSN will air 18 college games in February including both ends of BU’s home-and-home with Merrimack, 2/17&18.

FNL (Friday Night Leftovers)

►For the second game in a row, the home team (it was BC last week) didn’t post game highlights, so once again @BartRhett rode to the rescue.

● BU-Maine Video Highlights

►Terriers now have Division 1’s longest winning streak—seven games— after Minnesota State’s eight-game streak was derailed by St. Thomas on Friday night.

 

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Jay Pandolfo gets his 20th win of the season, the most for a Terrier Head Coach in their first season https://t.co/aBiyhnfLGV

— BU Hockey Stats (@BUHockeyStats) February 4, 2023

 

►The current Terriers are the third BU squad to begin the Beanpot tournament with 20 wins under their belt. The first to achieve it was the 1983-84 squad, which was 20-5-0 before beating BC, 6-5, in the first-round game. That team included all-time scoring leader John Cullen, Scott Shaunessy and Cleon Daskalakis. The second squad was the 1993-94 team (20-5-0), captained by current BU director of hockey operations Doug Friedman and included Mike Pomichter and two future Terrier captains, Jacques Joubert and Jay Pandolfo.

►Friday’s victory also gave BU a perfect 16-0-0 record in games where they’ve led after two periods.  When tied after 40 minutes, the Terriers are 3-2-0.

►BU now sits atop the NCAA team scoring chart with 4.23 goals per game, just ahead of Western Michigan’s 4.17.  BU had previously co-led Division 1  (tied with Michigan)  with 3.9 gpg in 2014-15 and also in 2008-09, tied at 3.9 with RIT and Mercyhust, en route to the national championship. Way back in 1970-71, BU’s first national champions averaged 6.77 goal per game, aided greatly by a 40% power play.

► Matt Brown’s team- and conference-best mark of 37 points are equal to his combined total for his two seasons at UMass Lowell. He has 10 multi-point games this season.

►Wilmer Skoog’s game-winner on Friday (third of the season) was his eighth goal in eight career games against Maine.  He never faced the Black Bears as a freshman, having joined the team mid-season after games with Maine had been played.

 

►The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler is ranking prospect pools for all NHL teams and has pegged the Blackhawks at #5.  He profiles the three Terriers on his top 15 list for Chicago: Ryan Greene, Commesso, and Alex Vlasic.

● Trio of Terriers in Blackhawks Prospect Pool

Looking ahead

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Doug Grimes’ third goal in the last four games was the second of three straight in the second period to give the Stars the lead! #AllAboard🚂 pic.twitter.com/gVBlyp6eHv

— Lincoln Stars (@LincolnStars) February 5, 2023

2023 recruit Doug Grimes’ 12^th goal broke a 3-3 tie as Lincoln skated to a 5-3 win against Sioux City. The power forward from Brookline has 23 points in 24 games for the Stars.

2023 recruit Shane Lachance scored his 24^th goal and 12^th power play tally in Youngstown’s 5-1 win against Muskegon.

2023 recruit Jack Harvey scored his league-best 27^th goal and added an assist in the Steel’s 5-3 win against Cedar Rapids. With the two points, the left-shot forward takes back the top spot (47 points) on the USHL scoring chart from teammate and fellow recruit Macklin Celebrini.

On Saturday, 2024 recruit Jack Pridham scored his 24^th goal as St. Andrews College defeated Culver Academies, 4-1. Sunday’s rematch was a 4-4 tie and Pridham led a late third-period comeback, scoring his 10^th Prep Hockey Conference goal at 18:49 and setting up the tying goal with three seconds left in regulation.  He has a 25-29-54 scoring line in 38 games with 12 goals in the last 13 games.