By Jill Saftel, News Staff

A near comeback from a 4-1 deficit left the students who made up red and black sea in the upper level of TD Garden on the edge of their seats as the men’s hockey team battled Boston College for the Beanpot title Monday night. But the Huskies and their fans will have to wait until 2014 for another chance to be the best in Boston. The third-period efforts weren’t enough for Northeastern to unseat the three-time defending champion Eagles, who came away with a 6-3 win and their fourth straight year as tournament champs.

It marked the last chance for Northeastern’s seniors, aside from captain Vinny Saponari who won the tournament as a freshman at Boston University, to experience winning the Beanpot. While he said winning in 2010 was a tough memory to top, the captain cited his team’s late-game efforts as a memorable Beanpot moment in his career.

“Just the resolve that our team showed tonight, down 4-1 we gave up some tough goals right at the end of the second period, and to come out and make it a game like that, and we had our chances,” Saponari said after Monday’s game. “I’m so upset for my classmates who never got a chance to win it, it’s a tough one to swallow.”

One Husky was left on the ice after the Eagles had dog piled and put on their 2013 Beanpot Champion hats; freshman forward Kevin Roy, who was voted the tournament’s most valuable player.

To put a number on it, his value was set at five goals. Without him, the Huskies had just one goal, a deflection by junior forward Braden Pimm off a Saponari shot, in the two rounds of the Beanpot. Even if he had created most of the team’s offense himself, Roy said he was optimistic about the outlook headed into the third period down 4-1.

“We believed in our chances between the second and the third,” he said. “We wanted to go out and score an early goal to get some energy, and I think we did. We were really close to getting back. We had a lot of opportunities, but something happened every time, the puck bounced or it was a good save. I think we really came back hard in the third, it just didn’t happen. We couldn’t just tie it 4-4.”

Aside from Roy’s heroics, the tale of the Beanpot was the Huskies’ battle effort while down three goals, closing the gap to 4-3 with the tying goal just a shot away before the Eagles scored their fifth and pulled away.

Head coach Jim Madigan said among the disappointment of another year without the win was pride in the way his team fought in the third period with resolve and resiliency.

“For me, the story for our team was how we battled in the third period when that puck dropped,” Madigan said. “Our guys, they just went all out and we scored two quick goals, got back into it and had some chances.”

But that effort wasn’t enough to bring the Beanpot back to Huntington Avenue for the first time in 25 years, and a faltering Husky defense allowed the Eagles to capitalize. A mid-body injury in the first period to sophomore defenseman Josh Manson, the largest NU defenseman on the ice at 6’3” and 205 pounds, left the Huskies overworked in their own zone. Manson attempted a comeback in the third period, but was unable to continue after one shift.

“That took us out of our rhythm,” Madigan said regarding the loss of Manson. “Josh has been logging 28 to 30 minutes for us …  We use him a lot. We were running really just four defenseman and spotting two as a fifth and with him out of the lineup, I think we saw a little bit of our defensive lapses.”

He joins a slew of injured Huskies, including fellow defenseman senior Drew Ellement who is out four to six weeks with a lower body injury sustained at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell on Jan. 26 and sophomore forward Ludwig Karlsson, out indefinitely with an upper body injury.

Madigan said amid regret his seniors couldn’t experience winning a Beanpot championship were the words “We’ll be back,” a reminder that when it comes to the Beanpot, there’s always next year.

As for the rest of this year, the Huskies have nine games left in the regular season, four of them on home ice, with 18 Hockey East points on the line. They’ll face the University of Vermont Catamounts two nights in a row at Matthews Arena before heading to two road games, first at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst – a matchup postponed due to last weekend’s storm –  and a trip south to Providence College.

Northeastern sits in last place, but trails Vermont by three points for the eighth and final spot in the Hockey East playoffs. A place in the postseason allows the possibility for a trip back to the Garden for the conference finals.

“We’ve got a lot of hockey left and we can still get back to this building if we play like we did in the third period and show determination and resiliency,” Madigan said. “We’re fighting for a playoff spot.”