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From underdogs to top dogs: Northeastern beats No. 3 BU in thrilling Beanpot title game
"We kept receipts at the beginning of the year and we heard all the noise."
The first few months of the 2023-24 season were not kind to Justin Hryckowian and the Northeastern men’s hockey team.
Through the final week of November, the Huskies were mired near the bottom of Hockey East with a 2-7-1 record.
Meanwhile, their longtime foes and familiar Beanpot adversaries in Boston College and Boston University found themselves perched atop national rankings for most of the year.
The Eagles and Terriers held court at No. 1 and No. 3, respectively, entering Monday’s final round of the 71st men’s Beanpot tournament.
Northeastern hasn’t been handed the same amount of praise this winter — nor have the results presented themselves with the same regularity as their crosstown rivals.
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But on Monday night, the Huskies once again stood alone on the TD Garden ice — anointed as Boston’s best hockey club in the second week of February.
Behind an OT dagger from senior forward Gunnarwolfe Fontaine with 28.6 seconds left to go, the Huskies bested the No. 3 Terriers, 4-3, on Monday night en route to their fifth Beanpot title in the last six tournaments.
“I give a lot of credit to those teams — BC, BU. I mean, they’re at their ranking for a reason.” Hryckowian said. “They’ve been great since the beginning of the year. Obviously, things are a little tougher on our end at the start of the year.
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“But we kept receipts at the beginning of the year and we heard all the noise and stuck together through it and we’re a resilient group now and we’re kind of gelling at the right time.”
Monday’s triumph served as a microcosm of NU’s season, with a slow start eventually remedied by a roster that’s developed a knack for keeping itself off the ropes.
NU (13-12-2) rallied back from three separate one-goal deficits on Monday against the Terriers (19-8-1) — with Fontaine’s blistering shot in the extra frame standing as the Huskies’ first (and only) lead of the night.
Fontaine, who took home MVP honors in this latest iteration of the storied tournament, has crafted a reputation for stuffing the stat sheet in February.
The East Greenwich, R.I. native recorded three total points (one goal, two assists) in Monday’s win over BU, and also scored the OT winner last week in his team’s 3-2 win over Harvard in the Beanpot semifinal round.
He scored two goals during last year’s Beanpot title game against Harvard, which the Huskies won in a shootout.
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“I don’t look too much into it,” Fontaine said of his clutch play. “It’s just another game, but obviously those were just two great plays from Justin on those back-to-back overtime goals, so I owe a lot to him.”
The Terriers controlled Monday’s game for significant stretches, ending the night with a 37-16 edge in shots on goal and a 78-38 advantage in attempts.
BU landed six shots against NU goalie Cameron Whitehead (33 saves) in overtime. Northeastern only fired in one — which sailed past BU netminder Mathieu Caron (13 saves) for the game-winner.
“Clearly disappointed with the end result,” BU head coach Jay Pandolfo said postgame. “Taking nothing away from them, they kept fighting. But I thought we were the better team for the majority of the game. Thought we controlled possession, thought we had better scoring chances. But, hey — we ended up on the wrong side of it. We lost. Tough way to go down.”
Whenever BU built a lead, the Huskies snuffed out any chance of the Terriers building some breathing room.
A miscue by Northeastern’s Pito Walton led to a 2-on-1 Terrier bid that ended with BU freshman Macklin Celebrini snapping the puck past Whitehead for a 1-0 lead 14:41 into the game.
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Northeastern answered in the middle frame, with a 3-on-1 rush by the Huskies capped by Matt Demelis tucking home a loose puck for the equalizer.
BU took the lead again at 9:11 in the second after a cross-slot feed from Devin Kaplan ricocheted off Hunter McDonald’s stick and past Whitehead, but Hryckowian tied things up again 29 seconds later with a five-hole strike off another rebound.
The Terriers’ final goal of the evening came with just 7.2 seconds left in the second period, as sophomore blueliner Lane Hutson fired home a feed from teammate Jeremy Wilmer while lurking in the slot.
BU’s lone penalty of the night came back to bite them in the third — with NU’s Jack Williams uncorking a one-timer blast on the power play at 9:51 in the frame to force overtime.
Fontaine’s shot put an end to another memorable Beanpot tournament — and secured Northeastern’s sixth-straight victory.
“We didn’t come in here — we don’t feel like we’re the underdog,” Northeastern head coach Jerry Keefe said. “I think our program is at a spot now that when we go out and we feel like we play our game, we should win.
“It’s important for our guys to feel that way when they’re walking off the bus. You’re not hoping to win. Knowing that if you go out and play your game, you should win a game. … I feel like we’re playing our best hockey of the year.”
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Before the Terriers and Huskies battled out on the ice Monday night, the No. 1 Boston College Eagles and Harvard Crimson opened the final round of the tournament with a consolation-game bout.
The Eagles defeated the Crimson, 5-0.
Boston College (21-5-1) received a shutout performance from Jan Korec in his first career start for the Eagles, turning aside all 19 shots that came his way.
As has been the case all season long, the Eagles’ star freshmen grouping of Amherst’s Ryan Leonard (one goal, two assists), Lexington’s Will Smith (one goal) and Gabe Perreault (one goal, one assist) carved up another defense on Monday — while Bruins 2021 fifth-round pick Oskar Jellvik also lit the lamp for BC.
Derek Mullahy earned the nod in net for Harvard (5-14-4), stopping 27 shots over two periods of work before the Crimson turned to Aku Koskenvuo in the final 20 minutes of play.
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