Gilroy Glad to Extend Hockey Career Through Coaching

Author of brilliant pass that paved way to '09 title

"He Didn't Just Blast It"

 

It was probably the greatest pass in the long history of Boston University Hockey. Surely, there was never a pass from one Terrier to another with so much on the line – a dream season, a national championship slipping away, just seconds remaining for someone to somehow conjure up some kind of a miracle.

 

The puck comes to Matt Gilroy, the captain of the 2008-09 Terriers, named that year’s Hobey Baker winner just days before. The University of Miami leads 3-2. Gilroy is in the left faceoff circle. He raises his stick, seemingly in preparation to do what most players would do in that situation: fire it at the net.

Instead, as a Miami player slides to block his shot, the right-hand shot Gilroy pulls to puck to his backhand, then slides it back across the slot. To the other faceoff circle. Where Nick Bonino is waiting. And Bonino has his stick cocked, ready to fire the puck himself. Except that Bonino, unlike Gilroy, is looking at a wide open net.

“Score! Unbelievable!” announcer Gary Thorne screamed on the broadcast. “Boston University has scored two goals in the last minute and has tied this game!”

It was left to color man Barry Melrose to pinpoint the brilliance of Gilroy’s play. “BU’s talent showed right there. They didn’t panic with the puck. They made great decisions. They didn’t just shoot it. Great back door play right there. Most players in the slot right there – Gilroy got it – most guys would have just blasted it. But Matt Gilroy makes a beautiful pass over to Bonino. That’s what talent gives you, man. Great, great goal.”

 

You know the rest of the story. Overtime, Colby Cohen, one of the most exciting Frozen Four finals ever, BU’s fifth national championship.

For Gilroy, a Long Island native, what followed that game was his childhood dream. Signing a pro contract with the Rangers. A solid five-season career in the NHL, and five more in Europe, four of those in the KHL, and a final crowning achievement serving as an alternate captain with the 2018 US Olympic team.

“It was great playing in the NHL, and in my hometown New York. Getting to see the world, travel the world, seeing different countries, cultures. And then, at the end, when I made the Olympic team and get to be captain, that was pretty special. That was a great way to end my career,” he said.

These days you can find Gilroy in Plymouth, Mich., helping develop future American talent (and some future Terriers, too) as an assistant coach with the USA National Team Development Program. He had retired in 2019 and had been looking to get into coaching, but had been tied to Los Angeles, where his wife, Jenny Taft – also a BU grad – was starring as a sideline reporter and studio host for Fox Sports.

                          

When her role at Fox changed, and she was no longer tied to LA, they were free to look for a location where she could continue at Fox and Gilroy could coach. Then a call came from USA Hockey and before long the Terrier couple moved to Michigan. 

“It’s great coming to the rink every day,” Gilroy said, fresh off an afternoon practice. “It’s a special group of kids, kids you want to work with and help them get better.”

 This year he’s working with the U18 team that includes three players slated to suit up in Scarlet and White next fall – sniper Cole Eiserman, center Kamil Bednarik, and Cole Hutson, a D-man who’s almost a carbon copy of his older brother, Lane, now in his second year wreaking havoc on BU opponents from the blue line.

Like Lane, Cole Hutson, Gilroy said, sees the game and is able to make plays and passes that a lot of players just don’t see or envision.

Eiserman is laser focused (much like his one-timer). “I’ve never really seen a kid so obsessed with scoring goals like him,” Gilroy laughed. “He’s shooting pucks all day. He’s always in the shooting room. Scoring goals is on his mind all day.”

Bednarik, he added, is a 200-foot player. To hear Gilroy describe Bednarik, it sounds like his talking about the guy the kid will play for at BU – Jay Pandolfo. “Takes face off, plays on the power-play, the penalty kill. You can play them up and down the lineup. One of the hardest workers I’ve been around for sure.”

All three players stood out back in October when the U18s made a visit to Agganis, and embarrassed their hosts in an 8-2 shellacking. Eiserman piled up a hat trick and two assists. Cole Hutson scored two. Bednarik collected three helpers.

For Gilroy, it was a welcome return to the site of his glory days at BU, just his third visit to the place since he graduated in 2009.

“I was happy to get the win, for sure,” Gilroy said. “Our kids perform well. I think the BU boys who were going there next year showed their talent and what they can do in the coming years.”

As an NTDP coach, Gilroy is not exactly a recruiting asset for BU. It’s not his role to steer kids toward or away from any school. “Kids commit so early these days and a lot of them have agents or advisers before they get here,” he said. “But if they have questions, I answer.”

But does he talk to Joe Pereira?

“Joe calls me about four times a day,” Gilroy replied.

Serious?

“Dead serious,” Gilroy deadpanned. “Joe calls to talk to me about anything and everything. We’re good friends, so it’s a little bit about hockey, a little bit about life. But we talk pretty often.”

Gilroy said he's glad to get the latest on how the Terriers are doing from his old teammate. "I'm super excited for where BU is going. Jack Parker ran it forever. Now Jay has that chance. He's been through it. He's from Boston. He knows what it means to play at BU and to play in the NHL. BU is in really good hands. I know all the alums are excited."

It’s no exaggeration to say Gilroy wouldn’t be where he is today, and wouldn’t have had the hockey journey he had, without BU and the man he played for, Jack Parker.

Gilroy was a forward in junior hockey, but drew little interest from the big-name programs. He driving back from a visit to Maine and lost cell service while leaving Orono. When he got on I-95 closer to civilization, he had a message from Mike Bavis, then Parker’s assistant.

“He said they had an opening for a practice defenseman. ‘Maybe if you do well you can be a forward next year.’ So I took it.” He didn’t actually meet Parker in person until the first day of school, when he dropped by the hockey office to introduce himself.

And then Gilroy did what Parker wanted from all of his players – he worked hard, accepted his role, did his job as best he could, kept a good attitude. “Jack Parker didn’t care who you were, what scholarship you had, what NHL team drafted you.” One day just before Christmas in that freshman season, Parker walked up to Gilroy in the locker room and said, 'I’m really glad you came to BU'.”

Gilroy stuck on D and by his junior year had developed into a genuine NHL prospect – so much so that Parker thought Gilroy was going to sign and used up all his scholarships on other players.

“My parents were big on education, so they worked it out and I came back for my senior year,” Gilroy said.

It wasn’t just education that lured him back. He knew BU was loaded and a title run was a possibility, and his younger brother Kevin was going to be a freshman forward. Gilroy put up a dominant season, recording 8 goals and 29 assists, with a +22, in 48 games. When he was awarded the Hobey – the second Terrier to win it, after Chris Drury – it was no surprise.

He led BU to the 2009 Beanpot and the Hockey East title. Then his career all came down to the 59^th minute of the NCAA final in Washington at the Verizon Center (now Capital One Arena). With BU trailing by two goals, Jack Parker pulled goalie Kieran Millan with 3:32 to play, and the scramble began. Zach Cohen lifted a backhander past the Miami goaltender with 59 second to play to cut it to a one-goal lead. The Terriers got the puck deep, fired two shots wide, had one blocked, and fire wide again. Chris Higgins gathered the puck in the left corner, and slid the puck up to his captain in the left circle, where Gilroy didn’t just blast it.

“I haven’t really thought about that pass in a long time,” Gilroy mused from his office at USA Hockey Arena. “Higgins makes a great pass to me – I don’t know if I had any thought or just a reaction, but Bonino was wide open back door. That moment, it’s pretty special. Just finishing college hockey with a win, with a national championship. A lot goes into four years and I think kids are in a rush to get out of school so quickly. I kept going back to school because I loved it so much. I don’t know if it changed my life but it’s definitely a memory I’ll have forever. It’s special. Even today kids see it on YouTube and bring it up. It all just kind of worked out.”

It sure did, Matt. It sure did.

● 2009 National Championship Game--Final 3 Minutes of Regulation