BOSTON — Saturday night’s 7-6 overtime victory for Boston College over Maine in the Hockey East championship game at the TD Garden will not soon be forgotten.
If ever.
The scintillating affair, decided by checking-line specialist Matt Lombardi’s third goal of the game, saw the youthful Black Bears rally from three two-goal deficits to force overtime with the tying goal coming off the stick of freshman right wing Joey Diamond with 27.3 seconds in regulation and with goalie David Wilson on the bench in favor of the extra attacker.
Maine never led.
“No matter what they threw at us, we kept coming back. It was a testament to our team. We never gave up,” said Maine junior defenseman and assistant captain Jeff Dimmen.
If you compared it to a title bout, the Eagles dominated the early rounds and then appeared to have the Bears down for the count in the final round only to see the Bears pick themselves up off the canvas and unleash a flurry of punches that put the Eagles back on their heels.
“It’s disappointing not to advance,” said Maine coach Tim Whitehead. “I honestly believe if we had advanced, we would have had a great shot to win the national championship as well. But it didn’t happen.”
In the end, senior right winger Lombardi ended it with a quick move from the side of the net and a shot he jammed between Wilson’s skates 5:25 into the OT.
The goal was the 10th of Lombardi’s 141-game career and the hat trick was his first.
“It’s a timely hat trick. It just feels great to share this with the guys,” said Lombardi, who also had an assist.
“Ten goals in his career … three in the championship game. You never know what’s going to happen [in a championship game],” said BC coach Jerry York.
“Both teams were so resilient,” added York. “There was lots of intensity, lots of good plays. Maine played exceptionally well. They were dangerous all the time.”
Maine sophomore right wing Gustav Nyquist said Lombardi played “great” and added that he was “very proud” of his team.
“We showed everyone we have a great team,” said Nyquist, a Hobey Baker Award finalist who had a goal and an assist to finish with a nation-high 61 points (19 goals, 42 assists) in 39 games.
“I don’t think many people knew we were this good this year,” he added. “It’s too bad it has to end this way. But BC is a great team. They’re very skilled. They showed they have some offensive power. We matched up really good but, in the end, it wasn’t enough.”
Boston College, which won its league-high ninth championship, is 25-10-3 and the top seed for the NCAA Northeast Regional in Worcester, Mass. where the Eagles will face Alaska (Fairbanks) Saturday at 1:30 p.m. BC is now unbeaten in its last nine games (8-0-1).
The Black Bears, who had to win the game to get the automatic berth to the NCAA tourney, wound up 19-17-3 and had their three-game winning streak snapped.
The Bears weren’t ranked high enough in the PairWise Rankings to earn an at-large berth. The PairWise Rankings mimic the statistical data used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee to choose the 16 teams for the tourney.
The 13 goals tied a Hockey East championship game record dating back to Boston University’s 9-4 win over the Eagles in 1986. Lombardi’s hat trick is just the second in championship game history as Peter Marshall had one for BU in the 1986 title game.
The six goals were the most allowed by BC this season.
“You have to give Maine a lot of credit. They battled back really hard,” said tournament Most Valuable Player Lombardi who received a pass from Matt Price on his game-winner.
“The one thing our line tries to do is cycle the puck and get pucks to the net,” said Lombardi, who is on a line with Price and Barry Almeida. “Matt threw it down to me and I just tried to stuff it quickly. I think it trickled in underneath his pad.”
Wilson said, “He came out of the corner [to my right], wrapped it through my legs, kept pounding at it and it finally squirted through.”
Maine junior center and captain Tanner House said those types of goals win games.
“He did a good job taking it to the net and when you drive the net like that, good things happen,” he said.
It appeared as though the Eagles had finally delivered the knockout punch when Almeida made it 6-4 with 5:37 remaining off an attempted pass from Lombardi that popped in the air and landed on his stick. Almeida pulled it around Wilson and tucked it in on the backhand.
But Spencer Abbott scored directly off a Robby Dee faceoff win with a short side snap shot 36 seconds later to set the stage for Diamond’s tying goal.
There was a loose puck in the circle to the left of BC goalie John Muse following the faceoff.
“ My job is to go to the net and that’s what I did. It went between one of their defenseman’s skates, wound up on my stick and I put it in,” said Diamond who took a couple of strides to his left to create a better shooting angle and beat Muse high to the blocker [short] side for his second goal of the game.
He also had the game-opening goal in Maine’s 5-2 win over BU on Friday night.
Carl Sneep opened the scoring for BC with a one-timer from the right point on the power play 11:44 into the first period but Nyquist answered just 24 seconds later as he touched in a rolling puck off a House shot that bounced off Muse.
Lombardi scored his first goal at the 15:19 mark when his point-blank shot deflected off Wilson into the crease and was carried into the net by sliding Maine defenseman Mark Nemec.
But Diamond tied it 36 seconds later by deflecting Dimmen’s backhander past Muse.
Joe Whitney’s power-play goal, a wrist shot from the midpoint, gave BC a 3-2 lead in the second period and Lombardi extended the lead when Matt Price’s shot came off the back boards and he banked it in off the diving Wilson.
But House closed the gap on the power play with 4:56 remaining in the period when he one-timed a Nyquist pass from behind the net past the helpless Muse from the low slot.
BC’s Jimmy Hayes made it 5-3 5:16 into the third period when he did a 180-degree spin and had his angled wrister squeeze through Wilson’s pads but David deKastrozza scored 3:01 later to pull Maine within one when he one-timed an errant clear from Whitney over Muse’s glove on the power play.
Almeida re-established the two-goal cushion.
Muse made 26 saves, including 10 of the Grade-A [high-percentage] variety while Wilson finished with 27 including 19 Grade-A’s. He had 10 Grade-A saves in the first period as the speedy Eagles had a decided edge in play.
Diamond, Nyquist and Bear sophomore defenseman Will O’Neill were chosen to the all-tournament team along with BC’s Sneep and Muse.