The top two seeds in the country will play for an NCAA national title after the Minnesota and Quinnipiac University grabbed semifinal wins Thursday in Tampa Bay.
The championship game will kick off on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET.
A wild first period saw Minnesota take a 2-1 lead into the first intermission of the opening semifinal. Sam Stevens opened it up with 9:22 left in the opening frame, giving BU the surprising 1-0 lead. But goals just 50 seconds apart from Mike Koster and Rhett Pitlick made it a 2-1 game, a lead that lasted until the eighth minute of the second.
There, Jay O’Brien, a Philadelphia Flyers prospect, scored on the power play from a Domenick Fensore feed, scoring the lone marker of the second to make it a tied game. But unfortunately for the Terriers, that was the end of the excitement. Luke Mittelstadt scored a pair of goals two minutes apart to make it a 4-2 lead before the four-minute mark of the third.
BU had a few chances later on, but a pair of empty-netters from Logan Cooley made it a 6-2 final, sending the Golden Gophers to the championship game.
Quinnipiac scored first just over five minutes into the game in the second semifinal. Jacob Quillan scored his first of two goals after Jayden Lee’s shot was deflected into the air by Erik Portillo and over the net. Quillan then proceed to shoot the puck off of Portillo’s leg and in, making it 1-0.
A minute later, New Jersey Devils prospect Seamus Casey answered back after deking past four Quinnipiac players to beat Yaniv Perets, tying it up at one. Quillan scored his second goal five minutes after Sam Lipkin sent him down the ice on a breakaway chance to give his team the 2-1 advantage.
Adam Fantilli had the lone goal of the second. Just past the halfway point in the second, Luke Hughes outlasted two Quinnipiac attackers to find Fantilli all alone, who made no mistake on the one-timer to make it 2-2.
The tie lasted until the second minute of the third, when Lipkin scored off of his own bank shot from behind the goal line, making it a 3-2 game.
Zach Mesta’s goal with just over five minutes to go, plus one from Ethan De Jong, made it a 5-2 Quinnipiac lead, sending the team to the final, in search of the school’s first championship.
Of note, the end of Michigan’s season means the end of Luke Hughes’ NCAA career. Considered to be one of the top prospects in the game, Hughes is expected to sign with the New Jersey Devils in the coming days.
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