BOSTON -- Even in the 70-year history of the Beanpot Tournament, there is a first time for everything.
Harvard and Northeastern will meet for the championship for the first time ever after the teams won their respective semifinal games on Monday night at TD Garden.
Harvard needed overtime to outlast Boston College 4-3 in the opener, while Northeastern beat Boston University 3-1 in a rematch of last season’s title game and will now play for the title for the fifth consecutive tournament.
Come next Monday, Harvard will be in search of its 12th-ever Beanpot, while Northeastern its eighth and fourth in the last five tournaments.
Subsequently, the two Commonwealth Avenue rivals fell into the consolation game for the first time ever and will play in the early game to kick off the second Monday of February.
Here’s our look back at the two semifinal games.
Harvard 4, Boston College 3 (OT)
Unsung Harvard hero steps up
Boston College pushed with all its might late against Harvard, holding a 22-2 total shot advantage during a third period that saw junior Nikita Nesterenko and freshman Cutter Gauthier score within the final four minutes to force overtime. Gauthier’s goal came with 1:31 left of regulation.
In the extra session, it took until the waning second for the Crimson to clinch their championship spot for the first time since 2017, as freshman Marek Hejduk buried junior Alex Laferriere’s perfect pass on an odd-man rush for the final goal and his second of the game.
https://twitter.com/HarvardMHockey/status/1622761045960937473?s=20&t=Bzs3dR7CmmVww6yoGhK0bA
Harvard coach Ted Donato estimated that Hejduk didn’t take a single 3-on-3 shift during any of the team’s first seven overtime games this season, and the freshman delivered in the big moment. Hejduk’s second and deciding goal secured his first career multi-point effort and snapped a nine-game point drought.
“We had some guys tired and banged up, but I thought he was going and deserved the opportunity,” Donato said. “I can’t say we coach (3-on-3) all that much. We spend some more time on it at the beginning of the season, but I think there are a lot of coaches that would like to be able to select from the menu of players that I get to. There are some gifted offensive guys.”
Harvard needed the extra time to continue its outstanding late-game trends, having lost just one game all season when leading at any point and now boasting a perfect 8-0-0 record when scoring first.
The MVP during Harvard’s last title-winning journey was Nathan Krusko, then a freshman from Alpharetta, Ga. Hejduk’s rise on the big stage was similar.
RANKINGS: Maine joins the latest New England college top 10
“You see guys that step up, whether it’s a first-year or someone that maybe everybody wasn’t talking about coming in, but I thought Marek was excellent all game,” Donato said. “A lot of times the top players cancel themselves out, so the guys a little bit lower down the lineup can really determine whether you have victory or defeat.”
Powerful power play
The Harvard power play may not be clicking at as high a rate as it was a few years ago with now-New York Rangers star Adam Fox quarterbacking at the point, checking into Monday at 21.3 percent.
However, the unit had a huge impact on the outcome of the game as Matthew Coronato scored the two goals that didn’t belong to Hejduk, both one-time shots from the circle. Junior linemate Sean Farrell (Hopkinton, Mass.) delivered the primary feed on both tallies.
“Playing together for four years now, we’ve developed some chemistry,” said Farrell, the former St. Mark’s star who has logged 24 assists among his team-leading 36 points. “He’s a really good goal scorer and I try to find him in any spot where he’s ready to shoot.”
https://twitter.com/HarvardMHockey/status/1622739967381278729?s=20&t=Bzs3dR7CmmVww6yoGhK0bA
Five of Coronato’s 16 goals this season have come on the power play. He has now logged three goals and five points in three career Beanpot games.
Donato’s menu of offensive talents includes nine players who have netted power-play goals. In the end, the Crimson needed Hejduk’s heroics and a 45-save effort by senior netminder Mitchell Gibson to hold off BC’s late run and emerge victorious.
“We definitely let an opportunity slip by,” BC coach Greg Brown said. “We talked about being consistent and not giving up chances for free. We did a better job as the game went on, but we’ve got to be tight down the stretch if we want to close out games, and we didn’t do that.”
Northeastern 3, Boston University 1
Commitment to defense
In the nightcap, junior goaltender Devon Levi and Northeastern were less than two minutes away from shutting out BU’s potent attack (4.23 goals per game) for the second time this season. The Huskies wound up coming out with a 3-1 win that snapped their rivals’ seven-game win streak.
Levi stood tall and finished with 33 saves in what was his first taste of the Beanpot, as he missed last season’s tournament while competing for Team Canada at the Olympics in Beijing, China. His Terrier counterpart Drew Commesso (Norwell, Mass.) was in the same boat, representing the United States.
“I say it all the time, he’s the best goalie in the country,” Northeastern coach Jerry Keefe said. “You can see our guys want to play in front of him too, and that’s why I think we sell out to block shots. He’s always there and has our back.”
Levi’s highlight save of the game may have come on BU senior Wilmer Skoog’s one-timer from the slot early in the third period, a response to Commesso snaring a Riley Hughes (Westwood, Mass.) 3-on-1 chance later in the middle frame.
Northeastern senior captain Aidan McDonough (Milton, Mass.) scored his Hockey East-leading 18th goal of the season with six minutes left in the first period, and Jakov Novak doubled the lead 1:48 into the second.
But it was a commitment at the other end of the ice that allowed the Huskies to get the job done.
The “simple game” that BU coach Jay Pandolfo described was not there enough. Dangerous pucks rarely got to Levi’s net as the Huskies were credited with 21 blocks, their third-highest total of the season and just three off the mark in the Nov. 18 win at BU.
“When you get hemmed in your own zone for a period of time you’ve got to find a way to get out of it,” McDonough said. “The biggest thing we talked about before is just doing it for each other. … I think the guys really bought into blocking shots. Dev’s going to stop any puck that he sees, so we try to make it easy for him.”
After some midseason struggles, Northeastern has gone seven games without a regulation loss dating back to the 8-4 loss at Harvard on New Year’s Day.
A new chapter of Beanpot history
The Northeastern program and Beanpot history were not exactly synonymous until the Huskies’ recent run. After three straight titles from 2018-20, Northeastern was denied its first-ever four-peat as BU won 1-0 last February.
Before Harvard emerged in 2017, the ‘Pot had remained on either end of Commonwealth Avenue since the Crimson raised the trophy in 1993.
The Harvard-Northeastern final that was once a pipe dream to local college hockey observers is now a reality.
DIFFERENT FACES: Why the Beanpot looked a bit different this year
“It is unique. I’d like to think our program over the last seven or eight years has taken a big step, and Harvard has too,” Keefe said. “They’ve got a heck of a team, they’re a top-10 team in the country. In the Beanpot whoever plays the best can win. All four teams are dangerous teams.”
As a local, McDonough knows about that history and how much times have changed.
“When I was growing up, it seemed like everyone in the city was either a BC or BU fan,” the Northeastern captain said. “I think if you go to our home games or look around the Garden, there’s a lot more Huskies sweatshirts and jerseys, and that’s the way we like it. … The program’s not really on the come up anymore. We’re here.”
