By Jason Mastrodonato, News Staff
It’s been a long time since Northeastern has defeated conference rival Boston University in the Hockey East playoffs.
Ever since coach Greg Cronin’s arrival on Huntington Avenue in 2005, Northeastern has gone 4-16-5 in games with BU.
That is until Sunday night, when the sixth-seeded Huskies survived a wild finish at Agganis Arena, knocking the third-seeded Terriers out of the playoffs for the first time since 1987 and matching the earliest ending to a Boston University season in 22 years.
“That’s a great win for our program,” Cronin said after the 5-4 victory. “I have a lot of belief in this group.”
Northeastern held a 2-1 lead entering the third period when senior forward Steve Silva tipped in a shot from freshman forward Brodie Reid.
BU responded with a rebound goal from leading-scorer Alex Chiasson two minutes later, but Reid fired a one-timer past BU goaltender Kieran Millan to give the Huskies a two-goal lead late in the final frame.
“You could tell the guys were kind of nervous on the bench to start the third, just waiting for [BU] to score,” Reid said. “As the game went on, we got better and better.”
With three minutes to go, and NU up 4-2, BU coach Jack Parker elected to pull Millan in favor of an extra attacker.
Senior forward Wade MacLeod scored an empty-netter to give the Huskies a three-goal lead, but the Terriers scored twice in the final two minutes which Cronin called, “the most stressful last few minutes I’ve had coaching.”
“I told [my assistant coaches] I hate this part of the game,” Cronin said.
Sophomore goaltender Chris Rawlings made 31 saves in the series finale, just one game after being pulled midway through the first period on Friday. Freshman Clay Witt stopped 41 shots in Rawlings’ relief, but Cronin over-ruled his goalie coach, John Carratu, and decided to give the starting nod to Rawlings.
“We kicked it around for a while,” Cronin said. “Clay played well enough to deserve a start. But Chris has played poorly four times in his career, and every time he’s bounced back to play well.”
Northeastern returns to the Hockey East semifinals for the third time since 1994 (the last coming in a 2009 overtime loss to University of Massachusetts Lowell) and will face top-seeded Boston College at TD Garden on Friday. Student tickets are $10 and will go on sale Monday at noon on the MyNeu portal.
“Beating BU is big for us,” Reid said. “I think we’re going to go in with a lot of confidence against BC on Friday.”
NOTE:
After the game, there was some confusion when the officiating crew directed the Northeastern players into the locker room before shaking hands with the BU players, who were waiting at center-ice.
This all according to Cronin: His team was told to leave the ice immediately following the final whistle. While Cronin was sorting it out with the officials, BU’s Adam Clendening skated over and told him to “shut-up.” Cronin grabbed Clendening’s arm (which Parker wasn’t happy about after the game) and explained to Clendening that it wasn’t his decision to leave the ice without shaking hands.
“It’s too bad [it ended like that] because both teams fought hard,” Parker said. “That was a great series.”
