Terriers tie Cornell, win Kelly Harkness in Shootout

The BU Terriers tied the Cornell Big Red in regulation and one period of OT at the 5th edition of Red Hot Hockey at Madison Square Garden. The Terriers started off a little rough as Coach Quinn alluded to in his postgame press conference but Cornell still held a 2-0 lead after two due to a nice tip in front and a bad play from Connor LaCouvee/ BU's defensemen in clearing a loose puck around the net. Despite the two goal deficit, BU had a few quality chances at the end of the second and anyone watching could see the momentum changing at that point.

I feel bad for @CornellWAFT for what's about to happen

— BayState RoadSports (@bsrs_blog) November 29, 2015

BU came out with that same urgency in the third to come back from two separate leads in the period. Bobo Carpenter scored his second goal of the year on a great feed from AJ Greer who had his best game of the year by far. Greer would tie the game himself later in the period on a nice shot top shelf shortside. Cornell would jump ahead again on another tipped goal that snuck 5 hole on LaCouvee. The Terriers would not be denied the Kelly-Harkness cup as Jordan Greenway scored his first collegiate goal to tie the game and send it to OT. The Terriers would have all the chances in OT including a PP goal but could not score so the game goes down officially as a tie. They did go to a shootout to determine the winner of the trophy. BU got goals from O'Regan, Ahti, and Matt Lane to take the shootout with some very nice saves from Connor LaCouvee who had an even better celly after the clinching save. If you are a BU fan and don't love this celly, then you should go root for BC because this was AWESOME

Oh don't forget this Greer celly either. Both were A+ stuff

The Terriers now sit at 7-4-3 on the year with four games remaining in the first half of the season. You have to like how the team is playing as they have continued to stand up to the competition even as they play a schedule full of the best teams throughout the country. They get back to two conference games this weekend as they host UVM for two games in what are big tests of how focused the team can stay when facing a lesser opponent. UVM has struggled this year thus far including being shutout this past weekend by Penn State in their annual peasant version of Red Hot Hockey in Philly. These are two games that BU needs to take care of and dominate similar to how they beat Bentley last Tuesday. They can't afford to drop a game to UVM with a road trip to Yale and Quinnipiac on the horizon next weekend.

The Terriers have a real opportunity to finish the first half on a hot streak with a lot of momentum with those four above mentioned games. They may have more losses than BC(who has only played tomato cans) and Lowell  (who haven't played anyone but almost lost to Northeastern) as well as PC(who they tied twice) but they are a very young team that is getting better with each game. BU has also proven more than any other team in the conference thus far because besides those three above mentioned teams(who haven't played anyone), the rest of the conference is not great besides maybe Merrimack who is okay so far and currently a borderline NCAA team. The most encouraging part of this past game was where the goals came from. The third line had two with Greer and Carpenter as well as Greenway getting his first goal. Three goals from underclassmen off the top line. That secondary scoring is what all championship teams need and this team should have plenty of it if the second and third line continues to play like they have been for the last few weeks.

Also Quinn was at it again on the recruiting trail while other coaches were spending time whining about how they are bad at their job.

01 F Robert Mastrosimone (BU) is slippery through traffic, finds ways to impact every game. Quick feet/wrists & gritty: top tier player.

— Mark Bilotta (@mbilotta) November 29, 2015