St. Louis Blues (National Championship Recap)
BU falls to Western Michigan 2-6 in the National Championship Game
The Terriers fall to the Broncos to finish as the National Runner-Up for the 7th time in program history.
Men’s
Western Michigan (2-6 L)
The dream second half for the Terriers finally came to an end in St. Louis, with the Terriers falling to Western Michigan. The Broncos opened the scoring 1:38 into the first period. Less than 6 minutes later, Cole Eiserman scored his 25th goal of the season and 4th of the NCAA Tournament to tie things up. WMU retook the lead just over 15 mins into the period.
In the 2nd, Western extended their lead to 2 at 5:18 in the period. Co-captain Shane Lachance scored his first goal since the Hockey East quarterfinal vs. UMass-Amherst on the power play—his 7th of the season—to bring the Terriers back within one. Cole Hutson’s assist on the goal set a new program record for most assists by a freshman defenseman with 34 and tied him with brother Lane for the most points by a freshman defenseman with 48.
The Scarlet and White were unable to find the back of the net in the third, with the Broncos extending their lead on 3 separate occasions to clinch their first title in program history.
BU has yet to win a National Championship outside the northeast, losing in the National Championship game in Colorado Springs, twice in St. Paul, Milwaukee, and now St. Louis.
Other Notes
Cole (48) and Quinn Hutson (50) tie the program record for most points by a pair of brothers, matching Rick (53) and Terry (45) Meagher's record of 98, set 50 years ago in 1974-75
Advanced Stats
The National Championship game was the first loss for the Terriers when having OZone Possession under 10 minutes, they were previously 4-0-1. Per Instat, the 31 hits are the most for the Terriers since they recorded 32 in the 2022 Beanpot Final vs. Northeastern.
Per Period xG: 1st (0.80-0.96, WMU), 2nd (0.79-1.31, WMU), 3rd (1.20-1.17, BU)
Brandon Svoboda was the Terriers’ top performer in terms of Game Score for the first time since October 18th vs. UConn. Nick Roukounakis had his 3rd best performance, behind only January 31st vs. UNH (1.5696) and the Beanpot Semifinal vs. Harvard (1.4166)—the only 3 games he recorded a game score over 1. Gavin McCarthy, Matt Copponi, and Devin Kaplan all recorded a team-high 5 hits.
Western Michigan recorded 7 high danger shots (1.77 xG)—3 of which resulted in goals—compared to BU’s 4 (1.08 xG) which includes both of their goals.
The xG differential stayed relatively close the entire game, staying with .72 until the final 4 minutes of the game.
Ryan Greene was the only Terrier with 15+ minutes of ice time with xG% over 60. He joins Quinn Hutson and Shane Lachance as the only Terriers with 15+ with xG% over 50.
Thank You
As this is the last recap of the season, I just wanted to thank everyone for reading. I’m happy that I got to write these all the way through to the last college hockey game of the season. We have some exciting things planned for the offseason. If you have any suggestions or requests for what you want to see more of in these recaps next season, feel free to contact me.