We could have arranged this title bout a couple of weeks ago and saved everybody the airfare. Providence, which finished second to Boston University during the regular season, could have demanded a challenge match after the Terriers dethroned UMass-Lowell in the Hockey East tournament.
That’s what we’ll have Saturday night at the Garden after PC bounced Nebraska-Omaha, 4-1, in Thursday’s first Frozen Four semifinal, and BU frantically held off North Dakota, 5-3, in the nightcap.
It’ll be the fourth NCAA final involving Hockey East teams and the third involving BU, which beat Boston College in 1978, back when disco ruled, and Maine in 1995. And the matchup, the first ever for the title between the Terriers and Friars, guarantees an Eastern champion for a record fourth straight year and the seventh time in the last eight.
Not that it was an easy daily double. BU blew the better part of three-goal lead in the final eight minutes, giving up a shorthander and a power-play before Jack Eichel wristed an empty-netter from his own blue line.
And PC got a bit of divine providence along the way. The Friars needed Minnesota to come from behind to beat Michigan for the Big Ten title, and were fortunate the selectors let them stay home for the regional instead of shipping them to Fargo and a date with North Dakota. “We’re very happy to be here,” said goalie Jon Gillies, “and very fortunate to be moving on to Saturday.”
So are the Terriers, who were a bounce away from having to go to overtime. “We got it done,” concluded BU coach David Quinn. “This time of the season you just have to find ways to win. There are all sorts of ways to win. We won one tonight in a way that we hadn’t had to win one all year, and it’s a great sign.”
More years than not BU’s meeting with UND would have been for the championship. North Dakota had won seven titles and finished second five times. BU had won five crowns and been runner-up as often. What each of them yearned for, though, was new hardware for the trophy shelf.
The craving was particularly acute for UND, which hadn’t won it all since 2000 when it beat Boston College in Providence. Since then the Team Formerly Known as the Fighting Sioux not only had lost two title matches, it also had lost its nickname and its signature Indian head logo. The NCAA, which had declared war on “hostile and abusive nicknames,” threatened to ban the university from hosting postseason tournaments and its athletes from wearing the S-word or the emblem.
Not that it stopped the hundreds of North Dakota fans who came East from chanting “Let’s go, Sioux!” as their varsity took the ice, from wearing the old-style jerseys or from shouting “Sioux” at the end of the national anthem.
However its skaters were garbed or mascoted, UND was a formidable foe for a BU squad that had struggled mightily to get back to the Garden. Its Manchester regional, which included two recent champions, was the toughest of the four. The Terriers had to go to overtime to subdue Yale and needed a power-play goal in the final 2½ minutes to get past Minnesota-Duluth.
But once they returned to Causeway Street, where so many BU editions before them had collected shiny keepsakes, they were cool and comfortable. The Garden was where the Terriers already had won the Beanpot and Hockey East titles this season, where captain Matt Grzelcyk’s father works on the bull gang and where they could find the dressing rooms without a GPS.
What BU knew, though, was that it couldn’t afford one of its customary snooze-button starts, not against an opponent that was 16-0-1 when it led after the first period. So the Terriers came out at full scamper and popped in a pair of power-play goals before the Zamboni came out.
Both scores had shock value. The first, not five minutes in, came from the magic wand of Eichel, who flip-zipped a no-look backhand from the left circle to the upper far corner that caught Bruins draftee (and fellow Hobey Baker finalist) Zane McIntyre napping. Then, as the final minute was ticking down, defenseman Brandon Hickey one-timed a vicious slapper from the left point that went past McIntyre at hyperspeed.
Quick-draw clearly was the only way to go, and after UND got one back on the power play in the first minute of the second period, BU let fly with a couple more from most unlikely sources. A.J. Greer, who hadn’t scored in more than three months, hammered one in from outside the right circle. And defenseman Doyle Somerby, who hadn’t scored at all, found a ray of daylight between McIntyre and the near post from the left corner and it was 4-1.
But with his mates on the power play, BU goalie Matt O’Connor misplayed the puck from behind the cage and watched in horror as it bounced off the wall and through his legs to defenseman Troy Stecher, who tapped it into the void. Then a bench penalty gave UND the man-advantage that Connor Gaarder cashed.
“Your goalie lets in a goal that he hasn’t let in all year,” mused Quinn. “We got a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty that we haven’t gotten all year, and all of a sudden it’s 4-3 and we’re hanging on for dear life.”
But the Terriers weathered the storm until they could clear the zone and get the puck to Eichel, who could have found the net from Beacon Hill. So continues the Terriers’ remarkable turnaround from a 10-victory season that all of them wanted to forget as soon as it was over. Now they’re one night away from one to remember forever. “We know how fortunate we are to live another day,” said Quinn. “But we also think we deserve to live another day.”
John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com.