With the Boston University men’s hockey team trailing at the first intermission on Saturday night, Gavin McCarthy spoke to the Agganis Arena reporter at the rink outside the BU locker room. His assessment of a frustrating first period would be broadcast on the jumbotron and heard before a packed house of 7,033 people.
The top-ranked Terriers were once again dominated by No. 3 Michigan State, a night after a miserable 4-2 loss on national television. What did BU have to do to turn the tide?
“We could win some more puck battles,” said McCarthy, the Terriers’ captain.
That’s what this non-conference series is, with a combined 34 The NHL Draft picks ultimately came down to. Not the flash, the individual talent or the beautiful goals, even though four different first round players scored across both games. No. This was about physicality. It was about which team could play a simple, direct game. And yes, cliché or not, it was about getting pucks deep and winning battles along the boards.
The Spartans arrived in Agganis prepared to do just that, and so made light work of an immature BU team in Friday’s series opener. The first period on Saturday was largely the same.
“We want to put pucks behind them [defenseman] and just wears them out,” said MSU freshman forward Porter Martone, the sixth overall pick in 2025.
Through the first four periods of this series, BU tried to be flashy, but it was simply torn apart. In the final two, the Terriers found a way to match MSU’s physicality, ultimately scoring three goals. That’s the lesson for top-ranked BU after being defeated by the Spartans, capped by a thrilling 4-3 overtime loss on Saturday. The Terriers have all the talent in the world, and being unable – or unwilling – to play a pragmatic game will get them nowhere.
“We won more battles on the back burner,” BU head coach Jay Pandolfo said of Saturday’s game. “Yesterday in the offensive zone I could honestly count on one hand how many legitimate battles we won on the back burner. Tonight was a lot better.”
McCarthy scored the Terriers’ opening goal early in the third period on Saturday, and it came at the end of a sustained stretch of offensive zone time in which forwards Brandon Svoboda and Ben Merrill each won multiple battles behind MSU’s goal. That same line scored the tying goal late in the third, and there was nothing sexy about it: BU entered the zone by dumping a puck deep, Merrill and linemate Conrad Fondrk won the puck in the corner and kicked it at the point to defenseman Sascha Boumedienne, then fired a wrister that Fondrk tipped past star goalie Trey Augustine.
Pandolfo mentioned both Svoboda and Merrill when asked about a player he was particularly impressed with on Saturday, citing the pair’s physicality and ability to win battles.
“You’ll need that against Michigan State,” he said. “They’re big. They’re heavy.”
The Spartans boast 15 draft picks, including three first-rounders who arrived from the CHL this offseason (Martone is one of them). They are the fourth-youngest team in the country and one of the most hyped programs in college hockey. And yet their game isn’t about flash, and Pandolfo knew it.
“We want to be fast, we want to be direct and, honestly, keep it simple,” Martone said. “If you look at the Florida Panthers, the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions, and the philosophy for them is to wear teams down… that’s something we model our game after.”
Not the free-flowing, highlight-reel style you’d expect from a team with a boatload of future NHLers, and that’s the point. The Terriers and their 19 draft picks tried to get cute on Friday night and all they did was commit brutal turnovers and annoy their head coach.
“We want to cut back and turn around and that is just a problem,” an exasperated Pandolfo said after the match on Friday. “Against a team like that you are to have moving pucks north, and we didn’t want that.”
BU was not immune to these types of mistakes on Saturday. Immediately after McCarthy’s goal, freshman Jack Murtagh played a pass across his own defensive zone and it was easily intercepted by Martone, who ran in a 2-on-1 and calmly assisted the Spartans’ third goal. Murtagh had enough space in front of him to advance the puck, but only considered crossing. He and the Terriers paid the price, playing a much more direct style the rest of the way and reaping the rewards.
“They’re a very skilled team,” Martone said of BU’s postgame on Saturday. But: “I think they kept it simpler today.”
Of course, BU didn’t win. But the Terriers got it That were close to completing their comeback in overtime, and they forced the extra frame because they played smart, mature hockey in the final two periods. Pandolfo has built perhaps the youngest and most talented team in the country, but if the group’s first big test was a reminder, the Terriers are at their best when they’re willing to do the dirty work.
“Moving forward,” Pandolfo said, “we know how to play to be successful.”
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