Matt Gilroy has one regret concerning his career at Boston University during which the Terriers won last year’s NCAA title while he captured the Hobey Baker Award as the country’s best collegiate player.
“I’m ticked that we didn’t get to play at Fenway Park like this year’s team is,” the Rangers’ freshman defenseman told The Post following yesterday’s morning skate, hours before the Rangers’ 3-2 Garden victory over the Bruins. “But at least I’ll be there to see it.”
Gilroy and the Rangers, including another one-time BU athlete named Chris Drury, will fly into Boston immediately following Thursday night’s game in Atlanta. They are scheduled to practice at BU Friday afternoon before facing the Bruins on Saturday afternoon.
On Friday night, after Northeastern and UNH open a Big East doubleheader with the first outdoor women’s game in NCAA history, BU will meet BC at Fenway Park on the rink first used at the New Year’s Day Winter Classic between the Bruins and Flyers.
Citing the 1 p.m. Saturday start and his own individual preparation routine, Drury said he didn’t think he’d make it to the outdoor college game, but that he thought a few Rangers would head to the old ballpark. Gilroy will be one of them.
“It should be great,” Gilroy said. “I just wish we could have played at Fenway when I was there.”
When Marc Savard escaped unpenalized after either cracking Henrik Lundqvist across the mask with his stick or forearm following a save at the 6:49 mark of the second, the goaltender skated to the scrum that had formed in the left corner so he could at least verbally confront the Boston center.
And then when Lundqvist returned to his net, he had a brief conversation with referee Tim Peel.
“He said he would look after me,” The King related. “But obviously he didn’t that time.”
The sequence on which Eric Christensen drove to the net from the right wing to beat Tuukka Rask at 7:34 of the second for a 2-0 lead after taking Brandon Dubinsky‘s touch-relay off an initial long feed up from the middle from Michael Del Zotto, was a designed play executed magnificently.
“We have two guys going with speed, and I have to time it correctly on my pass so I hit the man in the middle on his stick while the winger is breaking,” said Del Zotto, who appears to have regained the crispness he consistently displayed the first six weeks. “It worked perfectly . . . it was a big goal for us.”
“It’s a set play, where we have the guys on the outside going with speed,” said Dubinsky. “If I hadn’t been able to chip it onto [Christensen’s] stick, I’d have chipped it into the corner to get us going on the forecheck.”
When the Rangers were assessed a too-many-men penalty at 17:30 of the first, it marked the fourth time in the last 15 games and seventh time overall they’d been called for that infraction . . . Bruins lost Patrice Bergeron during the second with a possible fractured hand he sustained while hit by a shot from teammate Dennis Wideman . . . Dallas at the Garden tomorrow night to face former teammate Sean Avery.