This is the fourth of four previews for teams playing in the 2025 NCAA Men’s Frozen Four this week in St. Louis. Click here for all of USCHO’s Frozen Four coverage.
Boston University Terriers
Season record: 23-13-2
How they got to St. Louis: Won the Toledo Regional, beating Ohio State 8-3 and Cornell 3-2 (OT)
Top players: D Cole Hutson (14-32-46), F Quinn Hutson (23-27-50), F Ryan Greene (13-27-37), F Cole Eiserman (23-11-34)
Top goalie: Mikhail Yegorov (10-5-1, 2.04 goals-against average, .931 save percentage).
Why they’ll win the national championship: Of the participants in St. Louis, BU is the only club playing in its third straight Frozen Four. That experience should help the Terriers. The Hutson brothers have proven time and again that they can score, and mid-season acquisition Mikhail Yegorov in net has provided a reliable backstop that gives BU a chance every time he takes the ice.
Why they won’t win the national championship: Penn State may be playing in its first Frozen Four in only its fourth NCAA tournament appearance in program history, but the Nittany Lions are no also-ran. In Penn State, the Terriers will face a team on a roll, including a dominant finish to the regular season and four impressive postseason victories, including a pair of NCAA tournament wins over Hockey East teams. Should Denver await in the championship game, the Pioneers will be salivating at the chance to dispatch another Hockey East opponent (which they’ve done five times already in the last two tournaments) on the way to an 11th national championship.
All season long, Boston University has proven its resilience. It will have to do it one more time to win its first NCAA tournament in 16 years.
The Terriers didn’t exactly get to their third straight Frozen Four by the skin of their teeth, but they did have to overcome a lukewarm February (4-3-1, no winning streaks) and a 5-2 loss to Connecticut in the Hockey East semifinals, a clunker that had coach Jay Pandolfo publicly criticizing his team in the aftermath.
“We’re not going to be able to get away with playing like that,” Pandolfo said about the loss to UConn. “(The) effort that night, for whatever reason, wasn’t there. But it wasn’t the first time our team had an effort like that over the course of the season. I think we’ve had a lot of lessons, as a team, on how we need to play. There’s no more lessons. That was really the lesson to our group.”
BU didn’t exactly set the world on fire in the first period of its NCAA Toledo Regional opener, when it fell behind 1-0 to Ohio State in the first period, then struggled until finally pouring it on with five unanswered goals in the third to eventually win 8-3. Two nights later, the Terriers needed overtime to dispatch Cornell 3-2.
“It’s pretty simple — it’s win or go home from that point on,” said BU sophomore forward Shane Lachance. “That was our last chance to learn a lesson that, you can’t come out and play like this or else your season is going to be done earlier than you want to. I think we did a good job in Toledo — obviously, that start to the Ohio State game wasn’t great, but we found our way and I think good teams find a way.”
BU will be looking for its sixth NCAA championship and first since 2009, but to even have a shot at it, the Terriers will first have to get through to the championship game, which they failed to do in their previous two trips to the Frozen Four.
Lying in wait is Penn State, which is 14-5-4 since January and is playing in its first Frozen Four since becoming a Division I program in 2012.
“They got a lot of speed,” Pandolfo said. “Their top two lines are really dangerous. They’re going to be a handful, for sure. (They’re) believing in themselves right now too. They’ve got a lot of confidence. They’ve come from a long way back to get where they are. It’s going to be a really tough matchup for us.”
BU junior forward Ryan Greene, one of the players making his third trip to the Frozen Four, said the Terriers can’t get too caught up ruminating about past Frozen Fours that ended sooner than they would have liked.
“You can’t think about it too much,” Greene said. “You win two games you get a national championship, but, you know, you try to erase that from your mind a little bit and just kind of focus on yourself and the team and what you guys have to do as a collective to win. That’s where we’re at right now. We’re just focused on Thursday and excited to hop on the plane here and get going.”
The Terriers enter the national semifinals with considerable weapons, including the Hutson brothers — junior forward Quinn and freshman defenseman Cole — who have combined for 37 goals this season. Throw in freshman goalie Mikhail Yegorov, a midseason acquisition who has posted a .931 save percentage since joining the team in January, and the Terriers should be a tough out.
“The standard here is to win national championships,” Lachance said. “It’s a great accomplishment to get to the Frozen Four, but if you come out empty handed, it’s no different than losing last week in Toledo. (If) you come home empty handed, it’s a disappointment.”
