It’s for moments like Monday night that Northeastern senior captain Aidan McDonough decided not to turn pro with the Vancouver Canucks last summer.
Not long after he scored the deciding goal in the shootout in the Beanpot championship, McDonough (Milton, Mass.) was the first to hoist the trophy as he led the raucous celebration on the TD Garden ice.
That’s an experience he wouldn’t have had if he’d left school.
It’s that time of year when top players, both drafted and undrafted, are weighing their options for next season. Early departures are a fact of life in the college game – for better and for worse.
Players who are absolutely convinced they are ready for the pro game can receive a rude awakening when they find themselves grinding it out in the minors. When the reality sinks in that they would have benefitted from more time in college, it’s too late.
“It’s a tale as old as time,” is how UMass coach Greg Carvel put it recently.
McDonough, drafted in the seventh round by the Canucks in 2019, wisely returned for his senior year.
Hand in hand with the opportunity to continue to grow his game was the life experience component – the chance to accomplish team goals alongside some of his closest friends and to leave a lasting legacy at Northeastern.
“One hundred percent,” said McDonough on Tuesday afternoon, the cheers of the Garden crowd still echoing from the previous night.
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“The way it ended last year” – with heartbreaking losses to Boston University, 1-0, in the Beanpot championship game and to Western Michigan in overtime in the NCAA East Regional in Worcester — left a sour taste.
“Myself and I’m sure Devon Levi felt the same way. And a lot of the guys felt like we left stuff on the table. We had a chance to accomplish something that could keep us together forever and we didn’t.”
Monday night helped to ease the sting, McDonough said, but there’s still a long way to go.
While he didn’t have his best game in the win over Harvard, as he was held to two shots, he provided plenty of leadership. With the game tied in the third period, McDonough flattened a Harvard player with a textbook open-ice check.
“It’s funny. All my friends have been texting me, like, ‘Dude, I’ve never seen you hit anybody before and you crushed that guy.’ I was getting hit pretty good (in the game) and I think I was a little bit frustrated.
“I remember just coming back and trying to get a good angle on the guy. He tried to cut to the middle and I don’t know really what got into me. I just decided to try to go right through him. It was awesome to hear the crowd explode and for the bench to get fired up,” he said.
McDonough also was vocal in the dressing room.
“I told the guys before the game, in the Beanpot it doesn’t matter who is on what team, it comes down to who wants it more. It’s got to mean more to us than it does to them. I think if you looked around the building (Monday night), it looked like it meant more to us.”
And when his team needed a goal in the shootout, the captain delivered.
“I want to be that guy for our team. When the game gets big I want the puck on my stick,” said McDonough, who is tied for third in the country with 19 goals.
“He was going to do whatever it took to win, whether it was finding a way to score a huge goal, which he did in the shootout, defend, whatever you had to do,” said coach Jerry Keefe.
The Huskies are riding a 6-1-2 streak and are currently in second place in Hockey East, one point behind Boston University.
They’ve been able to flush a brutal 2-7 slump from mid-November to Jan. 1.
https://twitter.com/GoNUmhockey/status/1625334508030513152?s=20
“Going through that stretch when, jeez, it felt like we couldn’t beat anybody, I think we got really super close during that time. Bonding together because of that and then winning one at Fenway (on Jan. 7) just gave us so much confidence. We want to work for each other,” McDonough said.
“Ever since then, we’ve found a way. It hasn’t been pretty at times – like against Providence (a come-from-behind 3-3 tie on Feb. 10) it wasn’t pretty and Monday night it wasn’t pretty, but we just love playing for each other. We have an awesome group and we have a ton of fun every day.”
During the slump, “we had plenty of meetings, plenty of video, individual meetings, class meetings. It wasn’t easy. But the overriding message was that we’ve got to be positive and we’ve got to stick to it and we’ve got to get out of this.
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“It’s a huge credit to Coach Keefe and the rest of the coaching staff for constantly being positive, despite dropping games to some teams that we felt like we should be beating. They were positive throughout the whole time because at the end of the day, they were all 2-1, 3-2 games. We had to turn those in our favor and so far we have.”
With the Beanpot in hand and the postseason a few weeks away, McDonough and the Huskies will set their sights on bigger achievements.
“Our goals at the beginning of the year were to win the Beanpot, win Hockey East, win a national championship. We got one of them done, now the other two are right there,” he said.
To be sure, the Huskies are a bubble team in terms of the NCAA Tournament, but if they do get in, all things are possible with Levi in goal.
“He’s the most humble kid I’ve ever met. He works so hard. His routine and everything he does – he’s meticulous. There’s a reason he’s as good as he is. We’re super blessed to have him back there. We know it’s a shame if we don’t give it our all every night for him,” McDonough said.
“We really want to be the Northeastern team that has a deep run. Northeastern hasn’t had that yet. We’ve won the Beanpot before. Now we want to do something that no one at Northeastern has done.”
