Northeastern skates off with men’s Beanpot after first-of-its-kind shootout win over Harvard

Monday night's game was the first time in Beanpot history that the Huskies faced the Crimson in the final.

Harvard goalie Mitchell Gibson denies Northeastern's Justin Hryckowian during second-period action in the Beanpot title game Monday.

By Andrew Mahoney, The Boston Globe

February 14, 2023

3 minutes to read

The championship game of the 70th men’s Beanpot figured to be memorable, with Harvard and Northeastern meeting in the final for the first time. But the two teams made sure that this game would be remembered for more than just being a novelty, delivering a fiercely contested matchup at TD Garden that will be considered an instant classic, and the first title game to go to a shootout.

When it was over, Northeastern had claimed its fourth title in the last five Beanpots after goalie Devon Levi denied all three Harvard’s attempts, and senior Aidan McDonough was able to beat Harvard’s Mitchell Gibson (27 saves), delivering a 3-2 win for the Huskies.

Levi finished the night with 32 saves, and stopped 65 of 68 shots to take MVP honors. It was quite a turnaround from the last time he faced the Crimson, when they put eight goals past him in an 8-4 win Jan. 1.

“They put on a clinic against me and I wanted revenge,” said Levi. “The boys helped me get it tonight. So it felt really good.”

Trailing 2-1 after two periods, the Huskies (14-10-5) were able to send it to overtime when they evened it up 4:57 into the third thanks to the work of a pair of Rhode Island natives. Senior Jayden Struble fed Gunnarwolfe Fontaine for his second goal of the night, connecting on a nice pass to the cutting forward, who flipped it into the open net.

After neither team scored in the five-minute, 3-on-3 overtime, the game headed to a shootout.

Harvard (17-6-2) rolled out an impressive trio – leading scorer Sean Farrell (14-28—42), Matthew Coronato (the Crimson’s leading goal scorer with 18, including two already Monday), and Alex Laferriere (14-17—31). But Levi was up to the task, coming out of his net aggressively to cut off angles and make the stop each time.

“I try to play everyone the same,” said Levi. “I know guys have different tendencies and practices, but I just try to stay patient and just see what they’re giving me and try to read them. They’re good players. So I was I was excited to face them and see what they got.”

Previously, Beanpot overtimes would consist of 20-minute sudden-death periods, but the NCAA ruled last year that in-season tournaments would follow the regular-season format of the five-minute 3-on-3 OT session, followed by the shootout. The game officially goes down as a tie for NCAA purposes.

“I think both sides probably would agree that it’s a tough way to lose the Beanpot championship, but they deserve a lot of credit.” said Harvard coach Ted Donato.

“It’s one of those games where you really don’t want the game to end. You want it to end with somebody making a play.”

After a scoreless first period, Northeastern got the scoring started when Fontaine put back a rebound of a Sam Colangelo shot past Gibson 1:27 into the second period.

The lead would be short-lived though, as Harvard went on a power play after Northeastern senior Tyler Spott was whistled for cross-checking, the only penalty of the first two periods. The Crimson had the equalizer 39 seconds later when Coronato one-timed the puck from the left circle past Levi off a nice cross-ice feed from Farrell.

Farrell extended his team best point total to 42 (14 goals, 28 assists) on the play.

Coronato gave the Crimson the lead when he knocked in a rebound of a Ryan Siedem shot 8:55 into the second period. It was Coronato’s team-leading 18th goal of the season.

While there had been plenty of talk about how it was the first time the schools were meeting in the championship game, both teams were locked in on the present. Not only were they competing to take the trophy back to campus, but the game had postseason implications as well.

Harvard entered the game ranked 10th in the Pairwise, the system used to determine the 16-team NCAA Tournament field. Northeastern was 15th, having rocketed up from a season-worst 41st after a Jan. 1 loss to the Crimson by going 6-1-1 in its next eight games.

Harvard was glad to have defensemen Henry Thrun back in the lineup. The senior captain from Southborough took a hard hit a week earlier in the second period of the semifinal against Boston College and did not return. After missing Friday’s game 6-3 win at Dartmouth with an upper-body injury, Thrun was declared fit to return and was credited with an assist on Coronato’s second goal.

Earlier Monday, Boston University and Boston College met in the consolation for the first time, with the Eagles prevailing, 4-2.

With the win, BC snapped an eight-game winless streak to improve to 10-12-6 on the season. BU dropped to 20-8-0, losing two in a row for the first time all season.

BC got goals from Nikita Nestrenko, Eamon Powell, the tiebreaker from Andre Gasseau, and an empty-netter from Trevor Kuntar. Ryan Greene and Jay O’Brien scored for the Terriers.