Special Teams, Will Smith Lift Eagles Past Terriers For Hockey East Title

BOSTON — The BC Eagles clinched their 12th Hockey East Championship in program history, defeating the BU Terriers 6-2 at TD Garden on Saturday night.

Special teams were the key for the Eagles. They went 4-for-5 on the man advantage and allowed just one goal in five shorthanded situations.

“That’s a heck of a hockey game,” BC head coach Greg Brown told reporters. “Special teams were obviously a big part of it. Both our power play and penalty kill were very good tonight. (…) The penalty kill did a great job to only limit them to one (power play) goal. All in all, it was a very solid effort by our guys. They beat a very good team.”

The Terriers outshot the Eagles 36-29 in the contest and had the stronger five-on-five game but had a hard time shutting down the Freshman line of Gabe Perreault, Will Smith and Ryan Leonard.

“You can’t give those guys an edge,” BU head coach Jay Pandolfo said after the loss. “They’re talented players, and we didn’t get the job done. I thought overall, five-on-five against that line for most of the night, we did a pretty good job, but most of the night is not enough.”

The Eagles and Terriers met for the third time in the Hockey East title game, with BU coming out on top in the two previous meetings. It was the fourth time the two schools faced each other this year. The Eagles’ only loss to the Terriers this season was the 4-3 defeat in the Beanpot.

Along with special teams, Jacob Fowler was outstanding in net for the Eagles. The freshman goaltender stopped 34 Terriers shots to earn his 29th win of the season.

“Anytime you play BC-BU, the games, it doesn’t get much better than that,” Fowler told reporters. “I think as a team we felt like we didn’t do our best in the Beanpot. I think tonight we just kind of get some revenge and play the right way for 60 minutes and hopefully you get the result you want at the end of the night.”

The Eagles extended their winning streak to 12 games and captured their first Hockey East championship since 2012. It is the 12th title in program history.

More notes from Saturday’s Eagles-Terriers Hockey East title game:

— Smith earned MVP honors for the tournament. He had a goal and three assists in BC’s blowout win over the Minutemen in the semifinal matchup and four goals and one assist in the title game against BU. He is the first rookie to have a hat trick in the championship game in Hockey East history.

“That’s cool,” Smith said of the record he set. “But I think just the win, there was a 12-year drought so I feel a little bit better.”

— The Freshman line of Smith, Perreault and Leonard scored 11 points in the semifinal against the Minutemen and 10 points in the championship tilt.

“It’s pretty easy to play with those two,” Smith said of his linemates. “Every night we tried to go out there and have an impact on the game. (…) It’s just been perfect and like I said, it’s pretty easy. So, I couldn’t ask for a better two linemates.”

— The Terriers may have lost the Hockey East title game to the Eagles, but as the No. 2 team in the nation, their season is not over.

“We’re still playing. It’s not the end of our season,” Pandolfo said. “So that’s the positive. It’s gonna hurt tonight, but we’ll get past it and we’ll be ready to get going in the NCAA Tournament.

“That’s all you can do. You can’t dwell on it. You can’t feel sorry for yourself. Our guys are pretty good at responding. So this will hurt for a bit but we got a good group and they’re a mature group and they’ll respond.”

— This was the highest-attended Hockey East championship weekend ever, with sellout crowds of 17,850 on both nights. It is the first time both nights were sold out since 2005 when the NHL was on lockout.

— The Eagles are riding a 12-game-winning streak heading into the NCAA Tournament. It is the longest streak since the Minutemen rattled off 14 straight to win the National title in the 2020-21 season.

— BC, BU and Massachusetts earned bids to the 2024 Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Championship tournament. The bracket will be announced on Sunday, March 24 at 6:30 p.m. ET.