By Jenna Ciccotelli, deputy sports editor
Revenge probably tastes pretty sweet — but since the Northeastern men’s ice hockey team had a say in it, Boston University wouldn’t know.
The Huskies reaffirmed last weekend’s road defeat of the Terriers, dominating their crosstown rivals Friday in front of a soldout Matthews Arena, including a Doghouse fan section that packed both sides of the balcony. The win came in spite of a starting lineup lacking injury-plagued seniors Dylan Sikura and Garret Cockerill. Junior forwards Adam Gaudette and Lincoln Griffin each had two goals in the 6-1 effort.
“The building was rocking,” said Jim Madigan, Fernie Flaman men’s ice hockey head coach. “I don’t think there’s a better building when it’s full the way it was there tonight. It was just loud, it was full of energy. Our players fed off that energy early in the game and it continued throughout the whole night.”
In similar fashion to Saturday’s 4-1 domination at Agganis Arena, Northeastern flew out to a 2-0 lead in the first period. Captain Nolan Stevens picked up right where he left off, scoring his fifth goal in two games to put the Huskies on the board first at exactly three minutes in. Freshman forward Zach Solow picked up a lonely puck just past the blue line and carried it into the right circle, where he passed it back to a hungry Stevens, who snuck it past BU’s sophomore goalkeeper Jake Oettinger on his weak side.
Gaudette matched Stevens’ efforts three short minutes later as he joined an ensuing scramble in front of the Boston University net. The Braintree, Massachusetts native got a stick on the loose puck and sent it past Oettinger to give the home team a two-goal advantage with his first point of the night.
“I just play my game,” Gaudette said. “I just stick to how I play, find the areas around the net and … slam it home. I think the biggest thing is focusing on my game, my 200-foot game.”
Northeastern got off to a rough start in the second period as Boston University sophomore forward Patrick Harper scored 42 seconds in, sliding a puck in past freshman goalkeeper Cayden Primeau after a set of matching minors sent Stevens and sophomore forward Matt Filipe to the penalty box alongside BU’s Dante Fabbro and Jordan Greenway.Despite a challenge on the goal by Northeastern, the Terriers joined the Huskies on the scoreboard. Sophomore forward Jeremy Davies joined his teammates in the box at the time of the goal on a roughing call, but the Terriers failed to score on the power play advantage.
As Boston University junior forward John MacLeod was marched to the penalty box in the 14th minute of the period for interference after a hard hit on Huskies freshman forward Eetu Selanne, Gaudette capitalized on the Huskies’ second power play opportunity of the night. Solow sent the puck into the boards and Gaudette slipped the rebound in past Oettinger’s stick side to allow his team to regain a two-goal lead.
The goal, Gaudette’s second of the night, was the team’s first on the power play since Oct. 27. In an effort to make up for lost time, junior forward Lincoln Griffin redirected Solow’s shot during a five-on-four advantage when BU’s Greenway was sent to the box for boarding, putting the Huskies up 4-1 just under seven minutes into the third period.
A relentless Northeastern squad scored twice more in the final minutes of the game to increase their lead to five. Griffin broke away with the puck with 13 minutes remaining in regulation, causing Oettinger to pull away from the net in a sliding attempt to stop the forward in his tracks that resulted in the Terrier sending his own teammate flipping across the ice. Griffin beat his opponent with enough time to calmly align his shot and send it into the far corner of the net. With six seconds to play, freshman forward Bobby Hampton drove the win home with his third goal in as many games.
“I think everybody in that locker room has bought in,” Gaudette said. “Losing [Sikura and Cockerill], guys have stepped up. We had a lot of secondary scoring out there and that’s helped tremendously. I think everybody just has that same common goal out there in the game and we’re all following that and executing it well.”
Looking to continue their sweep of Hockey East, Northeastern will travel north tomorrow to face the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, who they outscored 8-5 in a road-home series in the last weekend of October.
“This sport can humble you pretty quickly if you don’t take care of your business each and every day,” Madigan said. “All we’re going to do is try to get better for tomorrow night, then we’ll come back to work on Monday.”
