BOSTON, Mass. - The No. 15 Boston University men's ice hockey team suffered its first loss of the season on Friday evening as No. 17 Rensselaer used two early goals to come away with a 3-1 win at Agganis Arena.
Freshman Kevin Duane scored his first collegiate goal for the Terriers, who moved to 2-1-0 on the season. The Engineers, who got a pair of goals from Ryan Haggerty, now stand at 2-1-0 on the year as well.
RPI opened the scoring just 3:25 into the game before adding a power-play goal less than two minutes later to jump out to a 2-0 lead.
Duane scored in the final minute of the second period to get BU on the board and cut the deficit to 2-1.
Haggerty reestablished a two-goal cushion for the visitors with a tally just 48 seconds into the third and the RPI defense kept the Terriers off the board the rest of the way.
The visitors struck first with two goals only a minute and a half apart. Matt Tinordi poked the puck in off a rebound following a wrap-around attempt by Brock Higgs just over three minutes after the opening faceoff.
The Engineers quickly drew a penalty and then doubled their lead at 4:57 of the first when Haggerty one-timed a shot from just inside the Terrier blue line past BU netminder Sean Maguire on the power play. Jacob Laliberte set up the shot from the bottom of the left circle after taking a pass from Matt Neal.
The Terriers regrouped in the second and set up several good looks before finally scoring with one minute remaining in the period. Sophomore Ahti Oksanen intercepted a puck in the BU zone and found Duane up the right side with a long pass. The freshman elevated a shot that bounced off Engineer netminder Scott Diebold and into the net. Oksanen has now assisted on five of BU's seven goals this season.
The Engineers scored their third and final goal of the evening early in the third off a faceoff when Haggerty put a puck between Maguire's legs from the top of the right circle. Laliberte won the faceoff to pick up his second assist of the game.
Maguire made 26 saves for the Terriers and Diebold made 31 saves on the opposite end of the ice for RPI to pick up the win.
The Terriers killed three out of the Engineers' four power-play opportunities but only had two chances with the man advantage and came up empty on both. BU held a slim 32-29 shot advantage for the game.
The Terriers will be back in action Saturday evening when they host No. 2 Wisconsin. The puck is set to drop at 7 p.m.