Flyers prospects Alex Bump and Devin Kaplan advance to the Frozen Four

1 day ago  /  Broad Street Hockey  /  Read Time: 2 minutes 3 seconds

The field in starting to come together for the final step towards college hockey’s highest honor, as the first two regional finals wrapped up yesterday, and saw two teams advance to the Frozen Four (and bring with them both Flyers prospects taking part in the tournament).



The Boston University Terriers (along with Flyers prospect Devin Kaplan) punched their ticket to their third Frozen Four appearance in as many years yesterday with a win over Cornell, and it certainly was a hard-fought one. Despite some early pressure by the Terriers, Colgate was able to get on the board first, and had them reeling for a bit there. And though BU was able to pull back to even by the first intermission and then ahead inside the first minute of the third period, they weren’t able to pull away in this one in the same way that they were against Ohio State, and Cornell made them pay for letting them hang around — tying things up in the second half of the period and forcing overtime. It was a dramatic turn, but again, ultimately, the skill of that BU team won out, and Quinn Hutson was able to break through with the game winner just over six minutes into the frame.









And then in the late game, the Western Michigan Broncos found themselves in a similarly close, hard-fought matchup with UMass. The Minutemen found the early momentum and got themselves on the board just before the midway point of the first period, and looked like they might just be able to pull away with this one, as they were leaving the Western Michigan offense well and truly stifled (though, once again, our pal Alex Bump was doing all he could to get that offense going). But the Broncos got a huge favor sent their way when Aydar Suniev was assessed a five-minute major and a game misconduct for a check from behind, giving the Broncos just under two minutes of power play time to work with to end the period, and over three of carryover time in the third period — something they didn’t waste, as they managed to tie the game before the intermission and then pull ahead at the end of the power play period to start the third. But still, it wasn’t an easy coast to the end of the game for Western Michigan — they were assessed their own major penalty in the third for an illegal check to the head and had to kill off a five-minute power play, but they did it, just like they weathered a six-forward extra skater situation as UMass threw everything at them in an attempt to pull things even again, but the Broncos managed to bend without breaking, and locked down well enough to secure the win.



The Broncos will play the winner of today’s game between Boston College and Denver in the Frozen Four Semifinal on April 10, while the Terriers will meet the winner of Penn State versus UConn, before the winners ultimately meet in the National Championship game on April 12. ...

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