Northeastern survives late Merrimack push
Warriors still in control for home ice, but the Huskies remain alive
NORTH ANDOVER — Northeastern survived a late push from Merrimack and kept its hopes for home ice in the first round of the Hockey East playoffs alive after the Huskies defeated the Warriors 2-1 on Thursday night at Lawler Arena.
With the regulation win, the Huskies are two points behind Merrimack for the final home-ice spot with one game to go in the regular season. Merrimack travels to Boston College on Saturday (1 p.m.) and the Huskies will host Providence (7 p.m.). Merrimack will clinch home ice with at least one point against BC, or if the Huskies don’t beat the Friars in regulation.
Northeastern scored two power-play goals on Thursday night. Cam Lund gave the Huskies a 1-0 lead in the first period and Dylan Hryckowian scored midway through the second period to make it 2-0.
“It was a really sloppy start to the game,” Merrimack coach Scott Borek said. “They had a little more in their game than we did. At the beginning of the second period, we had to kill some penalties, but they were able to get a little momentum. But after that I thought we played really well. We just couldn’t get a second-chance goal. We got one, but we should have had more. We have to get to the net front. We did a better job of that later in the game, but we needed to play like that from the drop of the puck.”
The Warriors scored an extra-attacker goal with 3:22 left in regulation. Josef Mysak was at the fron tof hte net and was able to backhand a puck past Cameron Whitehead after the initial point shot from Antonio Venuto was blocked in front.
“We needed to start that game more desperate,” Borek said. “We did later in the game, but we needed to start the game more desperate.”
Freshman line reunited
After starting the game on separate lines, Merrimack’s freshman trio of Ryan O’Connell, Caelan Fitzpatrick, and Caden Cranston were reunited. That was part of a shakeup of all Merrimack’s lines.
“All of those guys are drivers so we tried to separate them to give ourselves more depth,” Borek said. “I just didn’t like the way we started the game, so we put them back together. And again, I liked the end of our second period and our third period. We played with more pursuit and we had better breakouts with the second group of lines we put out there.”
Cranston led all Merrimack forwards with almost 23 minutes of ice time.
Lundgren eats up second chances
Max Lundgren (21 saves) made his eighth straight start and gave the Warriors a chance to win, not allowing many second-chance shots for the Huskies by eating up rebounds.
“He gave us a chance to win,” Borek said. “That’s his job. He gave us that chance. He had to really battle in the first period. Pucks were around him and he wasn’t really tracking it well, there were some scary moments, but he fought through it and ultimately most of them stayed out of the net. He’s been very good for us.”
Merrimack outshot Northeastern 29-23 and out-attempted the Huskies 62-47.
Up Next: No. 1 BC
The Warriors travel to Conte Forum on Saturday where they beat No. 1 BC earlier this season. The Eagles are 13-2-1 since the Warriors beat them on Jan. 10.
The Eagles did not play mid-week, so they have a full week of rest before hosting Merrimack on Saturday.
“I said to the guys that this is the playoffs now,” Borek said. “We lost tonight, and that’s disappointing, but we need to go home, get some rest, and get ready to attack tomorrow because we have a game on Saturday. We just need to keep our season moving forward as long as we can.”
Northeastern (12-18-3): 1-0-1--2
Merrimack (13-19-1): 0-0-1--1
First Period: 1. NU Cam Lund 16 (Joaquim Lemay, Joe Connor), pp, 7:27.
Second Period: 2. NU Dylan Hryckowian 14 (Joaquim Lemay, Cam Lund), pp, 11:51.
Third Period: 3. MC Josef Mysak 2 (Antonio Venuto, Michael Emerson), EA, 16:38.
Shots: MC 5-14-10--29; NU 9-8-6--23
Saves: MC Lundgren (55:44) 21/23; NU Whitehead (59:32) 28/29
Power Play: MC 0 for 3; NU 2 for 4
Pen-PIM: MC 6-12; NU 5-10
Attendance: 1,877