Boston University beats Penn State in Frozen Four to advance to NCAA hockey championship
Jack Hughes and Cole Eiserman scored second-period goals and Boston University beat Penn State 3-1 on Thursday night to advance to its first Frozen Four final in 10 years.
Freshman Mikhail Yegorov stopped 32 shots and Jack Harvey scored an empty-netter with a minute left for BU (24-12-2), which lost in the semifinals in each of the past two years. The Terriers are five-time champions, who lost to Providence in the 2015 finals and are seeking their first title since beating Miami (Ohio) in 2009.
Boston University will face Frozen Four first-timers, top-seeded Western Michigan on Saturday night. The Broncos have won nine straight and advanced with a 3-2 double-overtime victory over defending champion Denver in the first semifinal.
"We all came here for a reason to win a national championship, so just thinking about having the opportunity to do that in a couple of days is exciting," Hughes said. "So it's a little bit of a relief for now, and then we're going to get back to work and hopefully win it all."
Nicholas DeGraves scored 2:15 into the third for Penn State (22-14-4). The Nittany Lions - another Frozen Four first-timer - were making just their fourth NCAA tournament appearance since being established in 2011-12. Arsenii Sergeev made 31 saves in a showdown of two Russian-born goalies.
Hughes opened the scoring 1:35 by sweeping in a loose puck after Sergeev was unable to find it sitting in the crease after he stopped Matt Copponi's initial shot.
Eiserman scored nine minutes later by converting a 2-on-1 break. Cole Hutson drove deep down the left side and swung around to feed a pass back through the crease to Eiserman, who one-timed it into the open side.
Yegorov, preserved the win with several key stops. He got his blocker up to turn aside Dane Dowlak's shot off a breakaway with seven minutes left in the second period. And the 19-year-old briefly peeked behind him after smothering Jarod Crespo's hard shot from the right circle with 4:19 left in the third.
Yegorov improved to 11-5-1 since joining BU in January after opening the season in the USHL. He was selected by New Jersey in the second round of the NHL draft in June.
The Nittany Lions still accomplished plenty in a season in which they opened 0-8-1 in Big Ten play before finishing 9-11-4 and closing with a 4-3 OT loss to Ohio State in the conference tournament.
"It's always tough when the season ends. But I honestly just can't help but feel so grateful and positive about this year and this team," coach Guy Gadowsky said. "We were left for dead not long ago and for these guys to come back and play in St. Louis is remarkable, and better than that is how they did it."
Terriers coach and two-time Stanley Cup winner Jay Pandolfo has reached the Frozen Four a combined seven times, four as a player and in each of his three seasons behind the BU bench. He was a member of the 1995 championship team coached by U.S. Hockey Hall of Famer Jack Parker.
"I was fortunate to play on really good teams when I was a player at BU, and we only won one time, so I have a pretty good understanding of how hard it is to win," Pandolfo said.
"Certainly came up short the last two years, and I think it's helped our team to have an understanding of you have to play a certain way if you want to get to that final game," he added. "Yeah, it feels good to get there, but we certainly hope the job's not done yet."
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