BU 8, BC 4
Monday night, BU survived an early assault by BC and took advantage of
key Eagle defensive lapses to win its 16th Beanpot in 39 tries, 8-4.
The game was a sellout (14,448) at the Boston Garden, as it has been
since 1979. Tony Amonte set a Beanpot record with a hat trick in 5:24
of the second period to help stake BU to a commanding 7-4 lead and
was named MVP. Northeastern defeated Harvard, 5-0, in the consolation
game; Huskie goalie Tom Cole won the Eberly Award as top goaltender in
the tournament. Cole stopped 51 of 56 shots against BC last week, and
his 35 saves against Harvard gave him a .945 save percentage for the
two games.
Just 54 seconds into the championship game, BC captain David Emma scored
his 30th goal of the year to send the Eagle fans into a frenzy and give
BC a 1-0 lead. But only 1:03 later, BU captain Mark Krys answered back
with a shot from the top of the left circle that beat Scott LaGrand. It
was the senior defenseman's first collegiate goal - a span of 125 games.
Steve Heinze, playing his first game since an injury had him sidelined
for a couple of weeks, scored a remarkable goal at 6:08 when he beat
what seemed like the whole BU team on his way to his 19th goal. I don't
know how he was able to get the puck in the net with several players
hanging off of him, but he did. Yet, only 1:36 later, Petteri Koskimaki
answered right back as he took a pass in front from Peter Ahola and beat
LaGrand. Quite a few BU goals were to come from that mysteriously
unprotected area in front of Mr LaGrand. It was 2-2 already, only 7:44
into the game, and the national cable tv audience must have been
enjoying it as much as we were in the balcony. Shots were 14-7 BC, and
that's a pretty good indicator of how the play went.
There were no other goals scored in the first period, but one incident of
note: Amonte was brutally sandwiched by Joe Cleary and Ron Pascucci and
lay on the ice for a while. This touched off several fights in the stands
between Terrier and Eagle fans. Suddenly, Amonte leaped to his feet,
winked to the tv cameras (so I am told), and skated away. BC probably
wishes he had stayed down.
There was no more scoring until Cleary put BC up 3-2 at 9:25 of the second,
but then it was time for the Amonte show. The sophomore scored two goals
in 45 seconds (record is 18) at 12:18 and 13:03, and just like that BU
was ahead 4-3. Both goals came off rebounds that were left sitting out in
front. David Franzosa tied it for BC 18 seconds later, but BU got three
goals in 2:17 at the end of the period to blow it wide open. Amonte got
his hat trick at 17:42, #18, when he knocked in another McEachern rebound,
and the Eagle defense continued to fall apart. Doug Friedman made it
6-4 at 18:28, and just as Mark Bavis was allowed to get to yet another
loose puck and push it by LaGrand, I looked up at the clock: 0:01. The
onslaught was over and for all intents and purposes, so was the game. It
took until 14:43 of the third for the fans to start heading out, when Chris
McCann stole the puck, walked in and beat LaGrand to make it 8-4. The BU
faithful chanted, "It's all over," and "We got the Beanpot", and when it
quieted down, I heard someone yell, "Next year send the varsity!"
As Doug pointed out, this was definitely the most goals LaGrand has
allowed, but I don't see much the guy could have done; he stopped most of
the initial shots, and his defense just didn't make it to the game. John
Bradley got off to a rough start in the BU net but ended up making 34 saves
as BC outshot the Terriers, 38-33. The GEM line was noticably silent after
Emma's goal as it finished with a combined 1-2--3, while BU's Red Line of
Amonte-McEachern-Tkachuk combined for 3-3--6. It also didn't help that
with BC on a power play and down 7-4 halfway through the third, McInnis
was slapped with a misconduct, hurting his team's chances. Guerin was
also awarded one at 17:31, putting 2/3 of the GEM line in the box for the
remainder of the game. This was just not a top 5 team that showed up to
play for a Beanpot Championship. It was only BC's second championship
game in five years. Since 1966, BC has won only two Beanpots, in 1976
and 1983.
CONSOLATION
Harvard sat seven regulars - first liners Vukonich-Donato-Ciavaglia,
plus Ted Drury, Kevin Sneddon, Craig Miskovich and Michel Breistroff -
and played third-string goalie Michael Francis along with three players
who had never seen varsity action before. So it wasn't really that
surprising that they were humiliated by Northeastern, 5-0. Head coach
Ronn Tomassoni was quoted, "We've had six games in 10 days and I wanted
to rest some people. It's not that we didn't want to win, but this game
didn't really mean anything to us. We're in a dogfight for fourth place
and we want to concentrate on that."
Northeastern coach Don McKenney took this opportunity to move offensive
defenseman Rob Cowie up to first line left wing. Cowie, Peter Schure,
and Derek Edgerly all scored in the first period. Paul Sacco and Brian
Sullivan scored in the second and third to close it out. Tom Cole
finished with 35 saves; he needed 40 to tie the Beanpot record for
most tourney saves by a goalie (91). Cowie's goal was his 15th, which
would have been an NU record for defensemen, but it looks like Cowie
will have to wait to get the record since he was at left wing.
Harvard lost all four games it played this season to Hockey East teams
by a combined score of 19-3. It was the first time the Crimson had
ever been blanked in the Beanpot, a span of 77 shutout-less games.
Next year, NU meets BU in the first round, while Harvard plays BC.
- mike
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