Northeastern’s Jerry Keefe knows how it feels to win the men’s Beanpot. Yet he finds it difficult to explain the meaning of the most prestigious in-season tournament in college hockey.

“There are no words,” says Keefe, who is seeking his first Beanpot title as head coach after winning three in a row (2018-20) as assistant to Jim Madigan, who today serves as athletic director at Northeastern. 

“As a coach, you know how much it means to the players and the effort they put into a season,” Keefe says. “When you see them being able to celebrate something like that, it’s special.”

The 16th-ranked Huskies (14-10-3) will have their chance at the ultimate celebration against No. 10 Harvard (16-6-1) in the championship game at 7:30 p.m. Monday at TD Garden. The matchup is unprecedented in the 70-year history of the Beanpot—a first meeting of Northeastern and Harvard in the final. 

Their 3-1 semifinal upset of No. 3 Boston University advanced the Huskies to the Beanpot final for a fifth straight time. A victory will give them four Beanpot titles in that span—and eighth overall.

Keefe finds himself recalling the emotions of the 2020 Beanpot, which ended abruptly on a long, heavily screened shot in overtime by Northeastern Jordan Harris, who is now an NHL defenseman with the Montreal Canadiens. 

“It’s the excitement for every one of your players,” Keefe says of the Huskies’ thrilling 5-4 win that followed a Boston University goal with 1.2 seconds left in regulation. “As a coach there’s nothing more that you want than to see your players being rewarded. It just means everything.”

If the Huskies prevail, their reward will come at the expense of a harrowing six-week period that threatened to doom their season. The preseason pick to defend their Hockey East regular season title found themselves in a 1-6 swoon that was influenced in part by injuries to senior defensemen Tyler Spott, Jayden Struble and Jeremie Bucheler.

That long spell culminated in an 8-4 clobbering at Harvard on New Year’s Day—a loss that Keefe insists will have little influence on Monday. His Huskies responded by winning six of their next seven, beginning with a 4-1 Fenway Park victory over Connecticut that turned their season around. 

“There were things in that game that I thought we did really well,” Keefe says of the Harvard loss. “Obviously we had some breakdowns, and against a team like Harvard, you know they were able to make us pay. But I think we were a different team back then too. We were fragile at that time.

“Right now we have confidence knowing that if we play the game that we need to play against them, we’ll give ourselves a chance to win.”

Bucheler, who was a freshman on Northeastern’s last Beanpot championship team, isn’t willing to let bygones be bygones.

“We’ve got a sour taste in our mouths,” says Bucheler, who has returned to the lineup with Spott and Struble. “With the loss, it’s making us that much more hungry for this game. It’s the Beanpot final, which is already making us hungry, but since they beat us 8-4 there’s some payback that needs to be done. So the boys are getting really fired up for this game.”

Harvard has been resilient too, winning its Beanpot semifinal in overtime after surrendering a two-goal lead to Boston College in the final four minutes of regulation. Mark Hejduk scored the latter of his two goals with 1.5 seconds left in overtime of the Crimson’s dramatic 4-3 win.

The Crimson are driven by their No. 1 line of Sean Farrell (12 goals, 36 points), Matthew Coronato (16 goals, 27 points) and Joe Miller (11 goals, 19 points), while Alex Laferriere has added 13 goals and 29 points. Their woeful third period against BC was an outlier: Overall this season, Harvard outscored opponents 31-16 in the final period. Eight of their wins have come while tied or trailing in the third.

Harvard is seeking its first Beanpot title since 2017 and its 12th overall. 

The surging Huskies are led by senior captain Aidan McDonough, their top scorer with 18 goals (No. 3 nationally), who scored the crucial opening goal in the first period of the semifinal. Complementing him in the back is junior Devon Levi, who last year won the Mike Richter Award as the nation’s top goaltender. Levi made 33 saves against BU, including 15 in the frantic final period.

The Huskies’ midseason troubles may yield two benefits for the final. One is the ascension of freshman defenseman Hunter McDonald, who seized the opportunity when the seniors went down and now leads the Huskies with 70 blocked shots, including a half-dozen in the semifinal.

Additionally, the unexpected losses in November and December have forced the Huskies into must-win mode. Every game since the loss at Harvard has been crucial to their pursuit of an NCAA tournament bid next month. That competitive edge may help them in the pressure-ridden environment of the Beanpot final.

“Without a doubt,” Keefe says. “Going through that adversity has really helped our mindset. We know that every game is a playoff game.”

Ian Thomsen is a Northeastern Global News reporter. Email him at i.thomsen@northeastern.edu. Follow him on Twitter @IanatNU.