Heading into Friday's Hockey East game with Northeastern and hearing that Huskies coach Greg Cronin would be suspended indefinitely by the school for possible recruiting violations, I figured the Huskies would do one of two things: either come out flat in their regular season series finale with the Eagles, or play inspired hockey.
The Huskies did the latter on Friday night, opening the scoring flood gates and netting seven goals on the Eagles in a wild, 7-7 tie. If not for a Bill Arnold goal with 38.5 seconds left, skating with the extra attacker, BC would have come up empty on the weekend.
BC jumped out to a 3-1 lead, before Northeastern scored three unanswered to take a 4-3 lead. From the 8:17 mark of the second period on, the two teams would trade goals before Arnold's goal made it 7-7.
Much like in the Beanpot Championship game, the Eagles' strong special teams unit again struggled mightily against the Huskies. BC allowed the Huskies to go 4-10 on the man advantage, and allowed a short-handed goal at 14:22 of the third. The Eagles were 3-7 on the power play, and netted two of their own short-handed goals at 4:13 (Cam Atkinson) and 10:46 (Brian Gibbons) in the third.
Last night, Northeastern protected home ice, knocking off the Eagles 2-1 in front of a sellout crowd at Matthews Arena. Northeastern's Brodie Reid and Braden Primm scored goals for the Huskies, and BC's lone goal came from Cam Atkinson with just 2:11 left in regulation.
With New Hampshire tallying three points on the weekend against Vermont (6-1 win, 2-2 tie) and Merrimack taking four points from Massachusetts (4-3 OT win, 2-1 win), the Eagles are now tied with the Warriors for second place in the Hockey East standings (33 points) with four games to play. The good news, if there is any, is that next weekend Merrimack has to travel to Orono to wrap up its regular season series with the Black Bears, and UNH has to face a resurgent, head coach-less Northeastern Huskies squad. Meanwhile, BC wraps up its series with a UMass team that is winless in its last 8 games (0-6-2) and is clinging to one of the final Hockey East playoff spots.