Terriers eliminate Wildcats behind strong O’Connor performance--UPDATED

BU and Lowell meet for the Hockey East tournament championship tonight at 7 p.m. The game will air on NESN in New England and on NBC SN nationally.

● Game Notes,
● Terriers Sports Radio Network webcast 
● Boston Hockey Blog live in-game blog

● SB Nation preview  

►Join the Friends of BU Hockey today for a pre-game get-together at Boston Beer Works (112 Canal Street) at 5:00pm. Click here to register. For more information, please call Terrier Pride at 617.353.3008.

#3 Terriers return to the Hockey East championship game after scoring four unanswered goals to defeat New Hampshire, 4-1 at TD Garden. BU received goals from senior assistant captain Cason Hohmann, freshman Chase Phelps and freshman Jack Eichel, who scored twice—the second an empty netter. Junior Matt O’Connor was a wall in net, stopping 32 UNH shots for his 21^st win this season.

Photo Credit: Maya Devereaux

Saturday night, BU will face UMass Lowell (4-1 winner over Vermont) as it pursues the eighth Hockey East tournament title in program history. The Terriers will be playing in their 11^th conference championship game and, for the third time in seven years, they match up with the River Hawks in the final. In 2009, BU beat Lowell, 1-0, on a Brandon Yip goal. In 2013, after upsetting BC in the semifinal, the Terriers lost to Lowell by the same 1-0 score in the final game of Jack Parker’s 40-year coaching career.

UNH got the scoring going at 14:34 of the first on a d-zone turnover and Tyler Kelleher’s partially-fanned shot that fooled O’Connor. Minutes later, on a delayed penalty to the Wildcats, Hohmann converted a sharp angle shot after taking a pass from junior captain Matt Grzelcyk, with freshman John MacLeod also assisting.

Photo Credit: Steve Babineau 

BU took the lead halfway through the second period when Phelps backhanded home a rebound after sophomore Nick Roberto had carried the puck from behind the net to put a shot on goal. Mike Moran also had a helper.

After BU successfully killed three penalties—two in the second period and another early in the third, Eichel extended BU’s lead tapping home the puck after senior assistant captain Evan Rodrigues’s shot hit the right post. With three minutes remaining, UNH pulled goalie Danny Tirone, who had stymied numerous BU scoring attempts throughout the game, including two breakaways by freshman AJ Greer, an Eichel wrap-around and a goalmouth shot by junior Matt Lane. Rodrigues stole the puck in the BU end, worked his way past the red line and wristed a shot that hit the same right post of the empty net. Again, Eichel was there to cash in the loose change and close out the scoring.

With his two goals, Eichel has 63 points, just two behind BU’s all-time freshman record and the most by any NCAA freshman since 1998-99. During his current 11-game points streak, Eichel has 23 points (7G, 16A).

The win was BU’s 24^th of the season and when the smoke had cleared from the day’s playoff games, the Terriers were in the #3 spot in the Pairwise Rankings. BU is 12-2-2 in its last 16 games.

Eichel and Hohmann dominated in the face-off circles, combining to win 27 of 41 draws.

● GoTerriers.com recap and comprehensive box score

● Post-game comments: Quinn;  Hohmann & O’Connor

● NESN video highlights
● NBCSN video highlights

● Daily Free Press recap, Defense regroups

● Boston Hockey Blog: Pluses & Minuses

● HockeyEastOnline recap

● WEEI College Blog recap

● USCHO recap

● College Hockey News recap and Championship game preview   
● SB Nation recap and photo gallery

Looking ahead

2015 recruit Robert Carpenter scored his co-league-leading 30^th goal for Sioux City as the Musketeers doubled up Sioux Falls, 6-3. 2016 recruit Kieffer Bellows scored his 29^th goal for the Stampede.

2015 recruit Jordan Greenway and 2016 recruit Clayton Keller each scored a goal, while 2015 recruit Charlie McAvoy registered an assist and was +5 in the NTDP U18s’ 11-3 thumping of Lincoln.