NEW YORK, N.Y. — Cole Eiserman celebrated dramatically, dropping down on one knee and raising his arms in the air as he gave BU the 2-1 lead at 14:36 of the third period.
Freshman goaltender Alexis Cournoyer hadn’t even realized the puck went in.
Eiserman — a prolific offensive talent bound for the NHL in a couple years’ time, if not sooner — saw his shot eke through the five-hole of Cournoyer, who had shown few growing pains in his first seven collegiate games.
“[Cournoyer] has played eight games — that's the first one I bet he wants back. I'll be perfectly honest with you,” said head coach Casey Jones ’90. “I'm sure he wants that second [goal] back. That's the game.”
On Saturday, the lights were bright. Maybe the brightest that Cournoyer — and the rest of his 12-member freshman class — had played under to date.
Eiserman — a New York Islanders draft pick who will likely play in Madison Square Garden dozens of times more in his career — noted this as a stage he thrives on. As a top NHL prospect pick, that is expected of him.
“I love these big games. Love the big lights,” Eiserman said. “When you're in these big games, the sticks get tight, and I kind of want to loosen the other guys’ sticks up for them.”
On the other hand, freshman forward Reegan Hiscock was adamant about the nerves he felt heading into a game at ‘the World’s Most Famous Arena.’
“Obviously, this is an incredible atmosphere to play, and something I'm not really used to,” Hiscock said. “The first bit was definitely jitters and stuff, but I found I settled in pretty well.”
No. 17 men’s hockey (6-3-0, 5-1-0 ECAC) played well in its 2-1 loss to No. 19 Boston University (8-7-1, 4-4-0 Hockey East) on Saturday. The Red outshot BU 29-17. After surrendering an early power-play goal, the penalty kill largely kept the Terriers at bay.
But an all-time, 28-save game from Terrier goaltender Mikhail Yegorov and reliable defending from BU — something it had not done much of all year — suffocated the Red in front of its largest Red Hot Hockey crowd since 2013.
And much like 2013, the outcome would be a Cornell loss.
“[It was] a little bit of a lack of composure,” said junior forward Ryan Walsh. “We had the opportunities and came up short in a game where we lost the special teams battle, which is never good, and it would have been nice for the power play to find the back of the net to tie the game.”
The game was unlike any other BU had won all season — recent ups and downs have tossed the Terriers around in the national polls, at one point ranking atop the nation at No. 1 per USCHO.com. But the No. 19 Terriers, struggling to beat ranked squads (BU was 2-7 against USCHO ranked opponents entering Saturday’s game), produced perhaps its most stingy defensive performance to date.
“When you get good players, you just want to make them defend,” Jones said. “With a skilled team like that, I think they’re averaging 31, 32 shots a game, if I'm not mistaken. We gave them 17.”
Both teams are young — BU has the youngest team on average in the country at 19.9 years, with Cornell trailing it at 21.2. But the Terriers, loaded with starpower and NHL talent (19 drafted players in all), held on for a mature win.
BU got on the board on a power-play goal in the first period. Aided by a five-man group of NHL-drafted players, a passing play beginning with third-rounder Gavin McCarthy, then over to first-rounder Eiserman resulted in the puck perfectly deflecting off of second-rounder Kamil Bednarik’s stick past Cournoyer to open the scoring.
Hiscock’s goal in the second period was one of the few bright spots of Saturday’s game. It was an example of making the extra pass, being patient and seeing results — a culmination of silky passes landed the puck on Walsh’s stick.
Instead of shooting the puck, Walsh made the extra pass to Hiscock — and he made no mistakes, burying it on the open net after Yegorov came far out of his crease to defend Walsh.
Cornell’s gameplan wasn’t to shut down BU’s top players with big brooding hits or skillful poke checks — it was to make sure they didn’t have the puck in the first place.
BU’s top line of Ryder Ritchie, Brandon Svoboda and Eiserman combined for four shots on goal. All were by Eiserman. BU’s other game-changing player, defenseman Cole Hutson (a second-round NHL draft pick), had five.
In all, Eiserman and Hutson combined for nine shots on net. All the other BU skaters combined for eight.
“When you get a really skilled team like that, sometimes their players don't always like to play without the puck,” Jones said. “And that was our game plan.”
Another aspect of Cornell’s gameplan that was not executed came at a costly time — early in the third period, BU forced a turnover and created a chance in transition, an area it identified BU flourishing in. Eiserman collected the puck and simply threw it on net — but Cournoyer was fooled, and the puck trickled through his legs.
BU came out with fire in the third period. Eiserman’s goal was a big-game moment from a big-game player.
“You have to be comfortable playing in games like that. You have to be — because later on, in more important games, you have to be able to be comfortable in the third period, tie game in a hostile environment,” said BU head coach Jay Pandolfo. “I think it was close to 18,000 people there tonight. So just knowing that you can play that way in a game like this is going to help our team.”
Cornell had its chances — plenty of them. It got three power plays in the third period, including a six-on-four chance in the waning minutes.
But on that two-man advantage, passes weren’t connecting. Pucks weren’t kept in the zone. Junior defenseman Hoyt Stanley rang the iron in the opening moments, but Cornell could not muster up anything more than that.
“We could have settled that down. We could have just settled it down, and got over, not rushed. We seemed rushed at the time. We had plenty of time to take advantage of that,” Jones said.
Three strong clears by BU, and a Cornell icing to cap it off, allowed the Terriers to claim its first Kelley-Harkness Cup in over 10 years.
“And I give [BU] credit. They pressured, they didn't give us too much time to set up,” Jones said. “But for me … I wanted a little bit more composure to just settle it down, take an extra second. Let's get set. And we didn't have to rush. Didn't have to rush anything there.”
For BU and its 19 NHL draft picks, it found a way to win a tight game. For Cornell, it lamented at not burying the chances it got.
“[We] probably need a little bit more poise down the stretch to make that one extra play, show a little bit of composure and all that, and we were pressed a little bit,” Jones said. “But I thought they got a couple breaks in their goals, and it ends up being a 2-1 loss.”
Jane McNally is a senior editor on the 143rd editorial board and was the sports editor on the 142nd editorial board. She is a member of the Class of 2026 in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. You can follow her on X @JaneMcNally_ and reach her at jmcnally@cornellsun.com.
