These are the three takeaways from BC’s dramatic win over BU.
1. It ain’t over till it’s over!
Holee smokes! I’ve seen many dramatic comebacks over the years, but I don’t think I’ve seen three extra skater goals in the last three minutes. So with three minutes left in a 3-0 game, I began to pack up. I was still watching the action, but I wanted to get the first elevator down from the press box.
When the Terriers scored at 17:36 to make it 3-1, I slowed my packing. When they scored again at 18:38 to narrow the margin to 3-2, I stopped packing altogether.
Could the Terriers pull it off? Could this be the most crushing loss ever for BC?
“We took a timeout and everyone just took a deep breath,” senior Ryan Fitzgerald said. “We knew what we had to do to get a win and we were able to execute.”
Yes, they did. But there were a lot of BC hearts a-thumpin’.
2. Beating a team a fourth straight time may be tough, but it’s not because of three previous wins.
I’ve never bought the “it’s tough to beat a team four times” contention. I figure if you’re the better team in three games, then what piece of logic says you’re suddenly no longer the better team in game four?
(It’s not as stupid as the utterly moronic phrase, “a two-goal lead is the toughest lead to protect in hockey.” If that were the case, then teams that reach that margin would deliberately score on their own goalie to drop their precarious two-goal lead to the allegedly easier-to-protect one-goal lead. In fact, every two-goal lead that has ever been lost, eventually became a one-goal lead that was lost. But not every two-goal lead gets lost. Q.E.D. But I digress…)
When asked, BU’s Doyle Somerby deflected the question about the impact of BU’s three wins in the regular season over BC .
“It’s extremely difficult to beat a team four times, but we try to throw out everything that has happened in the past,” he said. “We knew that they were going to come out firing with their season on the line. We tried to not look at the past games, and just looked forward.”
BU coach David Quinn, though, took the myth straight on.
“I don’t think those three wins had anything to do with tonight,” he said. “Every game takes on its own personality, its own identity.”
3. No team, no matter how talented, can keep digging holes for itself and count on being able to crawl out.
In their quarterfinal series with Northeastern, the Terriers fell behind 2-0 in both first periods, forcing themselves to creep back inch by inch, winning their games in overtime on one night and the final minute of regulation the other.
On this evening, BU stood even after a scoreless, evenly played first period, but resumed their hole-digging ways in the second, falling behind by the familiar deficit of 2-0. This time, however, the hole turned out to be their Hockey East grave as Boston College expanded the lead to 3-0 and then didn’t allow them to crawl all the way out. Close, but not quite.
“We did some crazy things there with the goalie pulled, [scoring] twice and had some chances to tie it,” Quinn said. “I’ve mentioned through the last few weeks about us playing with fire. We played with an inferno tonight.”
And got burned.
