And Harvard Is Your 2017 Beanpot Champions
It’s been more than 20 years since a team not named Boston College or Boston University has won the Beanpot. Harvard beat BU 4-2 to win it in 1993 and then they beat BU again last night 6-3 for their first title since. Crazy to think they were able to take down the Terriers while their best powerplay threat, Riggs, was in New York blogging about national security threats instead of at the Garden putting away the garbage. But I guess that’s why Al Michaels asked us in 1980 if we believe in Miracles. Because the Harvard Crimson are YOUR 2017 Beanpot champions and that will never ever change. So let’s take a look at how those nerds accomplished the impossible.
Harvard got on the board first with freshman Nathan Krusko getting his first goal of the night on the powerplay.
Just chipping away on the 5v3 and if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past few years, it’s that BU goalies are always extra leaky when the stage gets bigger. Now Jake Oettinger definitely has reason to be upset here, definitely a dick move from the stripes to be so stingy on the whistle here.
But still. You need to find a way to hold on to that puck, especially while killing a 5-on-3. Krusko gets gritty, plays until he hears a whistle and it’s in the back of the net. 1-0 Hahvahd. Obviously 1 goals isn’t going to be nearly enough to hold off all the fire power that BU has and the Terriers responded with the big fella Kieffer Bellows tying things up in the 2nd period.
It’s a pretty terrible idea to take a penalty against Boston University given how ridiculously talented their lineup is offensively. It’s an even worse idea to just let Kieffer Bellows camp out in front of the net completely unattended. That’s a goal 10 times out of 10. Now we’re tied up at 1 a piece and BU finally gets a little taste of blood. And they like it. Which leads us to Clayton Keller getting the Terriers on the board again with one of the most perfect deflections you’ll ever see in your lifetime.
So smooth I can’t believe it’s not butter. Junior goalie Merrick Madsen can work out all the equations he wants to in the classroom. But there’s no chance he’d ever be able to come up with a solution to that one. Great placement from MacLeod to keep that puck on the ice and even better placement from Keller on the redirection. 2-1 Terriers. Looks like they’re finally feeling themselves and ready to take control of this thing. But wait.. oh my god.. is that Lee Corso’s music???? NOT SO FAST, MY FRIEND.
Because after Keller’s goal to take a 2-1 lead for BU, it was Luke Esposito one-upping him with an even prettier deflection goal. Let’s check another angle on this one just to appreciate how fucking beautiful it was.
Watch Clay Anderson find that perfect lane to find Esposito’s stick. That’s some next level shit. He knows he’s not going to be able to just blast one on net. He sees Greenway blocking his shooting lane, makes some quick probability calculations on the fly and decides working the puck toward Esposito is his best bet. And it was history from there. Unreal play from the Crimson here and now it’s 2-2 about halfway through the game. And right before the end of the 2nd period…
It was Nathan Krusko again. BU looking all sorts of out of order on that play and Krusko buries his 2nd of the game. 3-2 Crimson heading into the 3rd period and they weren’t done yet. They scored again to start to 3rd period to make it 4-2 and 3 unanswered goals. And then it was Ryan Donato going #DangleDays for Harvard’s 4th straight goal of the game to take a 5-2 lead.
Holy shit that was pretty. It’s even better when you watch it while singing the SportsCenter music to yourself in your head.
Bumps to the outside. Takes the express train back to the inside. Ryan Donato was just coming off of a 4-goal game against Union on Friday (2 of those goals were on an empty net but still), and then he gets his 5th goal of the week to put the dagger in the Terriers. Doesn’t get much prettier than that.
Clayton Keller scored again for BU to make it 5-3 but that’s as close as they would get, and after Harvard scored an empty netter to seal the deal at 6-3, it was party time.
Helluva moment for the boys. Is it a coincidence that Riggs and Cancer Francis start working for Barstool and all of a sudden Harvard wins their first Beanpot since 1993? I don’t know but I guess the Devil works in mysterious ways.
