Grzelcyk's OT winner snaps BU's long Beanpot drought
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Boston, MA (SportsNetwork.com) - Matt Grzelcyk's second goal of the contest, coming at the 51-second mark of overtime, gave Boston University a long awaited city crown with a 4-3 victory over Northeastern in the 63rd annual Beanpot championship from TD Garden.
Only nine seconds into the extra session, Northeastern's Matt Benning was sent off for hooking and their foes capitalized.
"They had been playing well all game and not getting the fortunate bounces. But Jack [Eichel] made the great playing off the opening draw and Danny [O'Regan] drew the penalty," said Grzelcyk of the top line's work to gain the advantage.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In a scrum along the right-wing boards, Ahti Oksanen dug the puck loose and fed back to Evan Rodrigues. His pass across was taken by Grzelcyk -- voted the tournament MVP -- who beat Clay Witt cleanly with a hard shot from the area below and between the circles.
Mike Moran and Robbie Baillargeon also scored for the Terriers, who took home their 30th Beanpot and first since winning the national championship in 2009 when legendary head coach Jack Parker was at the helm.
"It was exciting. I couldn't be happier for our players. I just love that passion and result tonight," noted Terriers head coach David Quinn. "We really could have gotten down after giving up those two goals in the third. We've shown that we're a pretty resilient group. We did a pretty good job of weathering the storm. This was incredibly difficult."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Oksanen and Nikolas Olsson added two assists each and Matt O'Connor made 30 saves.
John Stevens, Kevin Roy and Dustin Darou tallied for the Huskies, the runners up for the third season in a row and fourth time in five years who haven't won the title since 1988.
Witt also ended up stopping 30 shots.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Moran scored on a rush up the right wing just 2:19 into the contest, but after hitting the post on the next shift, Stevens followed up and evened things only 28 seconds later.
Baillargeon cleaned up a Cason Hohmann rebound from the right side and BU was up 2-1 with 5 1/2 minutes gone in the second and Grzelcyk mamaged to slip a long shot past Witt from below the left circle with 5:42 left to make it a two-goal contest.
Roy made a slick cross-over from the right side in between the circles then beat O'Connor on a solid wrister at 9:18 of the third that pulled the Huskies within a goal.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}It was a 3-3 deadlock only 1:35 later when Darou's second whack at a loose puck from a scrum inside O'Connor's crease hit the back of the net.
"I felt like we showed a lot of character in the third period coming back to tie that game," lamented Huskies captain Dax Lauwers.
Earlier in the evening, Ryan Fitzgerald scored the winner at 1:16 of overtime to lift Boston College over Harvard by a 3-2 count in the Beanpot consolation game.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Alex Tuch and Matthew Gaudreau also tallied for the Eagles, who had won five straight titles before losing to Northeastern in a Feb. 3 semifinal.
Ian McCoshen added two assists to back a 33-save effort from Thatcher Demko.
Alex Kerfoot and Sean Malone lit the lamp for the Crimson, whose run of four consecutive third-place finishes came to an end.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Steve Michalek stopped 24 pucks in defeat. Harvard hadn't ended up fourth since 2010. The senior ended up winning the Eberly Award for top goaltender in the tourney, largely on the back of a record-setting 63-save performance in a semifinal OT loss against BU.
Monday's games were the latest end for the yearly gathering since the Blizzard of '78 forced the final two contests to be played on March 1.