BOSTON — Like Moses parting the Red Sea or Paul Bunyan carving the Grand Canyon, Merrimack’s Ottoville Leppänen can now also lay claim to creating a legendary chasm.
Leppänen’s work with the puck pulled UMass-Lowell goalie Gustavs David Grigals out of position to create the opening Matt Copponi needed to flick Leppänen’s centering pass into a wide-open net at 8:20 of double overtime to lift the Warriors to a 2-1 win before a feisty crowd Friday night at TD Garden.
“It was a great play from Leppänen — he took (the goalie) all the way across the post and all the way across the crease,” Copponi said. “I just had to put it in the bread basket.”
Copponi’s 14th goal of the season put No. 2 Merrimack (23-12-1, 13-10-3 Hockey East) in the league championship game for only the second time in program history and first since 2011. The Warriors will face top-seed Boston University (26-10-0, 20-6-0 Hockey East) in Saturday night’s final. BU was a 2-1 overtime winner over No. 7 Providence (16-14-7, 11-10-6 Hockey East) in Friday’s early semifinal.
“Obviously it was a longer game than we wanted it to be,” Merrimack coach Scott Borek said. “I thought it was a great hockey game. We’ve played Lowell three times and every game is like that — just a grind. Just love the way our players stuck to it.”
No. 5 Lowell’s season is over at 18-15-3 (12-11-3 Hockey East).
“I thought the fans were treated to a pretty good hockey game tonight,” Lowell coach Norm Bazin said. “There were several chances by both teams. There weren’t a ton of goals, obviously, but that’s been the story of our season a little bit.”
The winner of Saturday’s game will receive Hockey East’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. With a PairWise ranking of 13th entering the night, Merrimack has a good chance of getting in regardless of how it does against Boston University. The Terriers, ranked No. 5 in the USCHO.com men’s D-I poll and in the PairWise, will play in the NCAA tourney regardless of Saturday’s result.
After trailing the River Hawks in shots 28-8 at one point in the early third period, Merrimack had nothing to show for a final 42-36 shot advantage until Jordan Seyfert broke the scoreless deadlock at 9:34 of the final frame. Seyfert scooped the puck out of the air near the red line and skated in hard with Lowell’s Ben Meehan closing in. Seyfert powered past Meehan and flicked the puck past Grigals for the 1-0 lead and his seventh goal of the year.
The Warriors were on the verge of grinding out the victory when the teams called back-to-back timeouts and Lowell pulled Grigals with 50.8 seconds remaining. But Lowell had other plans. Off a faceoff, Lowell’s Owen Fowler carried the puck behind the Merrimack net and sent a backhand pass right in front to teammate Scout Truman, who one-timed it past two Warrior defenders and goalie Zachary Borgiel to make it 1-1 with 31.1 seconds to go. It was Truman’s eighth tally of the season.
Borgiel finished with 35 saves, Grigals with 40.
