Uncommon Opponents, Yet Familiarity in Styles
by Mike McMahon/Staff Writer (@mikemcmahon)
ST. LOUIS Pat Ferschweiler knows what to expect from Boston University in tomorrow night’s national championship game.
The Broncos have only faced the Terriers once since 1994 — a 5-1 BU win in the 2023 regionals — but Ferschweiler and Pandolfo were divisional rivals in the NHL from 2015-19 when Ferschweiler was an assistant coach with the Detroit Red Wings and Pandolfo was an assistant coach with the Boston Bruins.
“I prescouted BU for years,” Ferschweiler said. “They were called the Boston Bruins. [BU’s] style of play is exactly what Boston did. Coach Pandolfo has brought that style down. It’s somewhat unique to college. It’s pretty popular in the NHL. But there’s a lot of similarities there. We’ll put points of emphasis on what we try to do every day without trying to change our style of play at all.”
Western Michigan’s focus isn’t going to change in Saturday’s matchup. The Broncos want to get pucks behind BU’s defensemen and funnel pucks to the net in an attempt to create chaos in front of 6-foot-5 BU goalie Mikhail Yegorov.
On Thursday night in the national semifinal, Denver only played five defensemen — Zeev Buium played 51 minutes — and Western Michigan was able to expose some fatigue.
BU only rotated four primary defensemen in its win over Penn State. Gavin McCarthy, Cole Hutson, Tom Willander, and Sascha Boumedienne all played 24 minutes or more. Jack Page and Aiden Celebrini were both under 10 minutes.
“Playing to the best of our ability would be us just playing north,” Western Michigan forward Grant Slukynsky said. “We preach that. That means getting the puck to the opponent’s end as quickly as possible, and not spending a ton of time around our zone. Defending quickly. Being hard on their top players.
“They have a big goalie, so getting pucks and bodies and traffic to the net. In these tight playoff games, sometimes the goals aren’t the prettiest.”
BU sounds ready for the challenge. Western has some of the same characteristics as Cornell, a team BU beat in the regional final two weeks ago.
Pandolfo sees a lot of similarities between the Broncos and UMass.
“Western plays a pro-style game,” Pandolfo said. “They’re a heavy team. They play with structure. They want to get pucks…
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