Men's Hockey to Battle Boston University for Beanpot Crown

Devin Tringale has never played in a Beanpot championship game. But the local boy from Medford, Mass., has certainly dreamed of winning one.

“I think we’ve all pictured it 1,000 times,” the former Lawrence Academy star said. “It’s something that would be a true highlight of the season for us. It would be one of the highlights of our careers.”

Tonight, for both the first and final time, Tringale has an opportunity to convert that dream into reality. Having beaten Northeastern, 4-3, in the semifinals last Monday, the Harvard men’s hockey team (17-5-2, 12-4-2 ECAC) now stands 60 minutes from a Beanpot trophy for the first time in almost a decade.

But to actually end its championship drought—one that’s lasted since 1993—the Crimson will have to fend off a team that’s far more familiar with playing for hardware. A program that has reached 18 Beanpot title games and won 13 since the club from Cambridge last seized bragging rights over the Hub.

That opponent is Boston University, a 30-time Beanpot champion who narrowly edged out the Crimson at Agganis Arena back in November.

After that contest, Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 said he hoped to see the Terriers again. But of course, Donato’s ‘hopes’ have to be far different from his captain’s. There’s no doubting that Tringale wants a trophy in his hands, but the Crimson coach of 13 seasons probably wouldn’t have minded avoiding a rematch with BU, a popular preseason pick to win the national championship.

The youngest team in college hockey, the Terriers (19-8-2, 11-5-2 Hockey East) enter Monday ranked third in both the polls and the PairWise—just one spot ahead of Harvard. The Crimson—fresh off a resounding 6-2 victory Friday night against No. 6 Union—could stand to move ahead of BU in the new polls released this afternoon, but in reality, no one’s keeping track. Regardless of how you look at it, tonight’s championship game features the two best teams in the East.

The two rosters feature a total of 19 NHL draft picks, the most highly touted of which was absent when the teams met earlier this season at Agganis Arena. Terrier freshman Clayton Keller, the seventh overall pick a year ago, is now back from an injury and has logged at least a point in 18 of the 21 games he’s played for BU. A shorthanded goal in a 3-1 semifinal win over No. 7 Boston College was just the latest highlight of his 15-game point streak, which began on Nov. 4 and finally ended on Friday.

Another Terrier getting set to play Harvard for the first time tonight will be freshman goaltender Jake Oettinger, who owns the third-lowest goals against average (1.80) and the fourth-highest save percentage (.935) in the country.

“We have to get second and third looks at it with him; he’s so big and so strong,” Donato said. “They have so many talented guys that I think we’re better served really focusing on playing our own game and doing what we do as [well] as we can to maybe nullify some of their great teamwork and talent.”

Donato’s club has done well to hang with talented Terrier teams over the last few years, but since knocking off a top-ranked BU team at Agganis in 2014, the Crimson has come up short against the Terriers in three consecutive contests: a 4-3 double-overtime heartbreaker at the 2015 Beanpot, a 6-5 battle at the Bright where the Terriers stormed back from two-down late, and a 5-3 thriller earlier this season.

But in tonight’s TD Garden nightcap, the stakes are strikingly higher. And with a trophy on the line, especially one that’s been coveted for so long by so many, you might as well throw out the two sides’ recent history.

“Growing up as a kid, there were a couple of goals we would dream of—a Stanley Cup goal, a national championship goal. [O]ne of the big ones was a Beanpot goal,” sophomore Ryan Donato said. “Obviously playing for a championship and being able to put something back in one of the cases in here would be a great thing.”

The last time Harvard deposited a Beanpot trophy was 1993, when the Crimson topped a red-hot BU team that had won 16 of its last 18 games. Similarly, the Terriers head into this year’s final as winners of 11 of their previous 14.

But BU has stumbled a few times in recent weeks. The Terriers let a 2-1 lead slip away at No. 9 UMass-Lowell on Friday and were shockingly swept by Merrimack in a two-game set towards the end of January.

Meanwhile, Harvard, whom BU coach David Quinn labeled as a serious national title contender back in November, heads into the game of the year riding a seven-game unbeaten streak. Since suffering a week-long setback that included losses to Rensselaer and Dartmouth, the Crimson has righted the ship and gotten back to playing quality hockey.

For Harvard to win its 11th Beanpot in program history, however, that ship now needs to withstand its toughest test to date. But the Crimson knows what’s at stake. And despite coming up on two weeks of age, the words of Tringale remain relevant.

“Being here isn’t good enough, right? I mean, we want to win it.”

—Staff writer Jake Meagher can be reached at jake.meagher@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @MeagherTHC.