Midway through the first period against Northeastern University on Saturday, the No. 4 Boston University men’s hockey team had already secured the Hockey East regular-season title and the No. 1 seed in the Hockey East Tournament, by way of No. 9/10 Boston College’s 3-1 loss to the University of Notre Dame. With no regular-season games remaining, it was impossible for anyone to catch the Terriers.
Regardless, they didn’t take any chances. BU (21-7-5, 14-5-3 Hockey East) closed out its regular season in convincing fashion, capitalizing on its special teams and posting a 6-1 win against the Huskies (16-14-4, 12-8-2 Hockey East) at Matthews Arena.
BU put enough goals on the board early to give graduate student goaltender Anthony Moccia his first playing time of the year — the final 3:19 of the game, replacing starting junior goaltender Matt O’Connor, who recorded 24 saves in the contest.
Junior Ahti Oksanen, starting his first game of the season as a defenseman, had four points for BU. Freshman center Jack Eichel had three points for BU, giving him 55 on the season, the most for any Terrier since Colin Wilson had the same number in 2008-09.
The win snapped an 0-3-1 stretch of Hockey East play for the Terriers, and gave BU its first regular-season conference title since 2008-09. BU needed just one point in its last three games to clinch the title outright, and came up short with losses in its first two chances.
But the third time was the charm.
“To finish first in this league is never easy and I know it’s been a tough few weeks for us,” said BU head coach David Quinn. “We’ve actually played a few good games in the process of trying to clinch this, but to respond the way we did … says an awful lot about our group, our resiliency, our leadership.”
Eichel commenced the flurry of scoring for BU, securing an unassisted shorthanded goal at the 8:04 mark of the first period. Three-and-a-half minutes later, Oksanen added a goal of his own.
About two minutes later, Oksanen completed an impressive behind-the-legs pass to junior forward Danny O’Regan, who sent it past Northeastern goaltender Clay Witt for O’Regan’s 100th career point and a 3-0 lead for the Terriers.
Northeastern earned a tally back with a goal from left wing Kevin Roy at 15:45, but junior captain Matt Grzelcyk quickly gave BU its three-goal lead back with a strike from the blue line 26 seconds later.
BU took a 5-1 lead with 1:41 left in the second period with another goal from Oksanen when BU had a 5-on-3 man advantage. Eichel added BU’s third power-play goal of the game with 1:38 remaining in the third period to give BU its sixth goal and the ultimate final score.
The result was a commanding win — a complete turnaround from Friday’s 6-5 loss to Northeastern, which Quinn called an “unacceptable” performance.
Tonight was a different story. And the win didn’t come from a technical adjustment.
“It certainly had nothing to do with X’s and O’s,” Quinn said. “It had everything to do with each guy elevating their game.”
For the Terriers, the regular-season title not only alleviated the winless run, but marked another milestone in the team’s turnaround year. BU improved its overall win total from last season by 11 wins, and its conference win total by nine victories — and has already won two trophies.
“To experience what we’ve gone through this year, to respond from nights like last night the way we have, we’ve done that all year long,” Quinn said. “When we have a stinker, we really have the ability to respond. That’s a sign of a mentally tough, resilient team.”