As it were, the 52nd annual Beanpot Tournament wasn’t all that unlike the 51st. Or the 49th. Or the 48th. Or most of the others for that matter.
Northeastern and Harvard squared off in the consolation game for the fourth time in five years on Monday and, thanks to stellar goaltending from Keni Gibson down the stretch, Northeastern emerged with a 3-1 victory in front of a lifeless crowd at the FleetCenter.
In the tournament final, Boston College peppered Boston University goalie Sean Fields with 52 shots, but needed an overtime goal from Ryan Murphy to give the Eagles their second Beanpot crown in four years.
NU (8-13-5) earned revenge for last year’s Beanpot consolation loss with the win.
“I think it was a real nice character win for our guys,” said NU coach Bruce Crowder. “It’s one of those games that I don’t think anyone wants to play, but I think they came to play and played hard. They continue to play well; coach is pleased.”
“It’s a consolation game and some people might say it’s harder to get up for, but there’s great competition in the Beanpot,” Gibson said. “There’s a lot of pride, you don’t want to finish last. You want to have a good taste in your mouth, I think last year left a bit of a sour taste in our mouth. It’s good to walk away, even though its not a win for the tournament, it’s better than that fourth place.”
Harvard was fresh off an impressive come-from-behind 7-5 win over Yale that weekend, and hoped for an increased intensity from its players.
“It’s been just a very challenging season,” said Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni. “I tried everything in my trick bag. We talked about it with our captains and older kids. We just haven’t shown the ability yet to put it together back-to-back. I, as much as anyone, thought that tonight would’ve been the night, coming off the big win over Yale. Some people may say that a consolation game is meaningless; we did not approach it that way. This was a game that we wanted to win. We put our best lineup out to win. We wanted to create some momentum going into the last six games of our regular season and we came up short on it. There’s no excuses for that.”
After a sluggish first period in which the teams combined for 11 shots, Northeastern put 13 second-period shots on Harvard netminder Dov Grumet-Morris.
“I didn’t think we played with a lot of rhythm the whole night,” Mazzoleni said. “It was kind of a feeling out process for both teams in the first period, there wasn’t a lot of flow to the game. I think in the second period they were more tenacious on the puck than we were.”
Jason Guerriero opened scoring in the third period when he ripped a wrist shot past Grummet-Morris on a 2-on-1 with sophomore Mike Morris 56 seconds into the third.
Harvard nearly tied the game three minutes later when Gibson chased a puck out of the crease that was picked up by the Crimson’s Tim Pettit with Gibson near the right boards. However, as Pettit placed his shot on net, NU defenseman Jon Awe made a sliding save with his shin pads to protect the lead.
After Tom Cavanagh tied the game on the powerplay for Harvard at the 6:51 mark of the final period, Morris buried his seventh goal of the year to put the Huskies ahead for good.
Morris took a pass from freshman Brian Deeth at the blueline and skated in on the Crimson net. After deking to his backhand and back to his forehand, Morris sliced a pinpoint wrist shot above Grummet-Morris’ left arm and under the crossbar.
“They popped the first one and I thought we got some life when we got the second one,” Mazzoleni said. “It’s something you talk about throughout the season with your team, you’ve got to make good decisions. We didn’t make a very good decision on their second goal.
“Morris is a very, very good player,” Mazzoleni added. “He’s a finisher. He went upstairs and that was ballgame.”
Gibson (31 saves) put on a show in the final half of the third period, highlighted by a breakaway save on Harvard’s Kevin Du — the second unsuccessful breakaway of the game for Du.
Du cut in from the left wing and uncorked a shot to Gibson’s gloveside. The Husky junior nipped the puck with his glove before kicking it into the corner while rolling over to keep NU ahead.
“I thought he was outstanding,” Mazzoleni said of Du’s play. “The first breakaway he had, he opened the five-hole and Gibson made an outstanding save closing it. On the last one, he went upstairs and glove side and he stacked and got it with his top pad. It was a big-time save. You’ve got to give credit to the goaltender, because we did have some very, very good chances in the third period and he stopped them. You’ve got to give credit to him.”
Freshman Ray Ortiz iced the victory with an empty-net goal, his sixth tally of the season.
On Friday, NU picked up a much-needed point when they tied UMass-Lowell at Matthews Arena, 1-1 in front of a crowd 1,674 people.
River Hawk goalie Chris Davidson made 46 saves in the game, including 22 in the second period — in which NU outshot Lowell 23-3.
“I would say that’s a well earned point by our team, i.e. our goaltender,” said Lowell coach Blaise MacDonald. “Our second period was mistake-ridden. I give Northeastern credit for causing turnovers, and we also added to that with many, many unforced turnovers.”
Rene Gauthier scored in the first period for Lowell on the powerplay.
Northeastern sophomore Brian Swiniarski potted the tying goal with 1:32 left in the second period when he smoked a one-timer that trickled through Davidson’s pads.
Northeastern is now two points behind BU for eighth place in Hockey East, and four points behind both Merrimack College and Lowell with eight regular season games remaining.
