BOSTON — Though it had been eight years since Northeastern last played in the consolation round of the Beanpot, head coach Jerry Keefe felt good about his group’s intensity headed into Monday.
After falling 8-2 to Boston College in last week’s semifinal, Keefe noted he was happy with the team’s week of practice and mindset despite the disappointment of falling short of playing for a title. The energy translated early, when junior Jack Williams struck off a rebound just 5:38 into the first period — Northeastern’s first score in the opening 10 minutes of a game in over two months.
But from there, the game unfolded in an all-too-familiar fashion for the Huskies.
Behind four power-play goals in the first two periods, Harvard fended off Northeastern 4-3 in front of a sparse crowd at TD Garden. The defeat handed the Huskies a last-place Beanpot finish for the first time since 2012, which was Jim Madigan’s first season as Northeastern’s head coach and Keefe’s first as an assistant.
The loss was the Huskies fourth in a row, dropping the team’s record to 9-14-3 with just eight regular season Hockey East games remaining.
“Just undisciplined, dumb penalties, and then we can’t kill a penalty,” Keefe said. “I thought five-on-five we played pretty good hockey … everything was just self-inflicted tonight.”
Northeastern had a giant hole to fill in the lineup on Monday with the absence of junior defenseman Vinny Borgesi, who leads the NCAA in minutes per game and is central to Northeastern’s identity and plan of attack all three zones. But despite Borgesi’s injury, the Huskies came out strong defensively in the opening minutes of the game — the Huskies racked up 15 total shot attempts over the game’s first 11 minutes, compared to just two for the Crimson.
But once Jack Henry was whistled for Northeastern’s first penalty of the night with under five minutes remaining in the first period, everything started to go downhill.
The Huskies dominated the opening minute of the kill, before Harvard freshman Mack Thompson got loose on the rush and banked a rebound off the backside of Northeastern goalie Cameron Whitehead. It was only Harvard’s fourth shot on net of the night, but enough to even the score at 1-1.
“I was surprised,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato of Thompson’s goal. “The beginning of that power play was quite possibly the worst power play in the history of hockey, and to bank that off the back of the goalie [was big] … Once we were able to find a power play goal there, I think that kind of changed momentum a little bit for us.”
Harvard went on to earn three more power plays in the second period, and they scored on all of them. The Crimson power play had scored just nine goals all season entering Monday, and was ranked in bottom 10 nationally in conversation rate. And yet, Harvard posted four scores on the advantage in less than 20 consecutive minutes of game time, finishing the night with 13 shots on goal in 11:44 of extra-skater time.
Though the sequence which led to Thompson’s power-play goal was one Whitehead likely would want back, he was not exclusively to blame for either of Harvard’s first two power play goals which came early in the second period. On both sequences, Northeastern failed to clear the puck and traffic built in front of the crease, before the Crimson executed hard shots towards the netfront which ultimately beat Whitehead high.
After Harvard junior Casey Severo’s deflection goal to make it 3-1 just six minutes into the second period, Keefe pulled Whitehead in favor of freshman backup Quinton Sigurdson.
All told, Whitehead gave up three goals on seven shots, and did not save either of the two shots on his net in the second period. It was Whitehead’s third time getting pulled this season, and his season save percentage now sits at just .905 — a disappointing statline after he entered his sophomore campaign with hopes of stacking up among the nation’s elite goaltenders.
“Obviously I didn’t like the first goal [Whitehead let up], but our team needed a shake-up there,” Keefe said of the decision. “Just trying to get something going a little bit. I thought [Sigurdson] went in and did a really good job for us.”
Both times Harvard extended their lead to two goals in the second period, Northeastern responded in quick succession with an even-strength score. Just two minutes after the Crimson took the 3-1 lead, senior Christophe Tellier buried a loose rebound in the slot. Then, after Harvard notched another power play goal to go up 4-2 with six minutes remaining in the frame, Williams responded four minutes later with his second score of the night on a two-on-one with freshman Joe Connor.
But despite remaining within striking distance, the equalizing goal simply never materialized for Northeastern in the third period.
The Huskies ended the contest with a 23-19 advantage in shots on goal, including an eye-popping 19-6 advantage at even strength. But despite that, they never got too many high-danger looks and were largely kept to the perimeter as a result of poor synchronization on their passes and failure to crash in on rebounds in the slot.
And as has often been the case this season, Northeastern’s power play failed to score in any of its three opportunities — the unit now sits at 9.5% on the season, which is second-worst nationally. The Huskies had two opportunities on the advantage in the third period with the score within one, and failed to get a single Grade-A opportunity on either.
Instead of the Beanpot providing Northeastern with a jolt of energy late in the season, the disappointment on the season’s biggest stage will instead serve as a major challenge to regroup from.
Seven of the Huskies’ remaining eight regular season games are against Hockey East opponents currently in position to make the NCAA tournament as an at-large bid, and that gauntlet schedule begins with a home-and-home series against No. 13 UMass Lowell this weekend.
“There’s a lot of season left,” Keefe said. “So I think between now and then, you digest this one, you have to watch it and learn from it, and then get ready for Lowell….This week was a long week for us, to have to sit around, especially after a bad loss. So I think our guys are going to be excited to get right back at it again, and hopefully we can learn our lesson from being more disciplined.”
Northeastern returns to action on Friday against UMass Lowell, with puck drop set for 7:00 p.m. from Matthews Arena. Amelia Ballingall, Zeno Minotti, and Matty Wasserman will have the call on WRBB 104.9FM.