By Jared Shafran, News Staff

After taking a two-goal lead in the second period of their Hockey East tournament semifinal game with UMass Lowell, the men’s hockey team gave up a late goal in the third and eventually fell in overtime, 3-2.
‘I think the team that won the game deserved to win,’ said head coach Greg Cronin. ‘Lowell just kept coming, they stuck with their game plan and they deserved the win.’
The game started promisingly for the Huskies, who had a couple of good chances to score early in the game. They controlled the play during a scoreless first period.
At the end of the first, Lowell had outshot NU 16-11 but’ junior goalie Brad Thiessen was strong as he turned away every chance from the River’ Hawks.
Several minutes into the second period, Lowell went on a power play and once again Thiessen came up with a few key stops.
Later in the period, a penalty was called on Lowell forward Scott Campbell for cross checking, giving the Huskies a power play opportunity of their own.
The power play unit was largely ineffective during the stretch with a man advantage, but with just a few seconds left on the penalty, junior forward Kyle Kraemer stole the puck and found himself alone coming in on Lowell goalie Carter Hutton. He made a strong move, and shot the puck high into the top right corner for the goal to give NU a 1-0 lead.
For Kraemer, it was his second goal of the season. Assists went to sophomore forward Wade MacLeod and’ junior defenseman David Strathman.
‘ Twenty-five seconds later, NU crashed the Lowell net and the puck was loose in front. Senior forward Rob Rassey got a stick on it and roofed it up high for the score, extending the Northeastern lead to 2-0.
It was Rassey’s eighth goal of the season and this time senior forward Dennis McCauley and sophomore forward Tyler McNeely were credited with assists.
NU controlled play until the Huskies surrendered a goal to Lowell, which made the game 2-1 with just over one minute left to play in the period.
Lowell set up in the NU zone and worked the puck around well, and Campbell fed a pass across to defenseman Ryan Blair, who was able to beat Thiessen stick side.
During the third period, the Huskies were unable to capitalize on any chances to give their lead a cushion and get some insurance, but still played well enough in their defensive zone to hold the River Hawks at bay.
In a pivotal moment, with 1:05 left to play in the game, the Huskies were penalized for having too many men on the ice.
‘Our defenseman [Louis] Liotti went to pass the puck and it bounced in the air,’ Cronin said. ‘The right defenseman [J.P.] Maley had come over anticipating, and the puck came right back at him. It was a bad break, a bad turn of luck.’
Lowell then called a timeout and pulled Hutton for an extra attacker to give them a two-man advantage.
After NU killed the 6-on-4 for the first 40 seconds, Campbell scored the tying goal for Lowell on a rebound with just 19.9 seconds remaining and forced overtime.
This was the second game in a row in which the Huskies gave up a tying goal with less than a minute to go to force overtime. Last weekend against Massachusetts, the Huskies found themselves in the same situation but were able to score the winning goal in overtime and move on.
This time Northeastern would not be so fortunate.
Forward Chris Auger scored three minutes into the overtime period to win the game for the River Hawks (20-16-2, 14-11-2 Hockey East) and the Huskies were sent home with a tough loss.
‘We just were flat. We’ve got to find a way to reenergize ourselves,’ Cronin said. ‘The loss obviously creates a little more of a sting to it.’
Thiessen finished the game with 41 saves.
Boston University, after defeating Boston College in its semifinal game, defeated Lowell 1-0 on Saturday night to win the Hockey East Championship.
With a 25-10-4 record, the Huskies have tied their all-time high for wins in a single season.
Despite the exit from the Hockey East tournament, Northeastern will still make its first trip to the NCAA tournament since 1994. They have been placed in the Midwest Region of the tournament as a No. 2 seed and will face the Cornell Big Red in the first round. The game will be Saturday at 4 p.m. and will be televised on ESPNU.