Boston College Men’s Hockey Defeats Lowell 3-2

The Boston College men’s hockey team wrapped up the first half of their season with a win on Monday night, defeating Lowell 3-2. Despite being down three of their normal top six defensemen, BC played a fantastic defensive game and got enough offense from their biggest names to bounce back from Friday night’s loss against the RiverHawks.

The Eagles jumped out to an early lead thanks to a much needed power play tally from the team’s second unit. Oskar Jellvik made a great pass from below the goal line to Will Vote, who fired it home for his fifth goal of the season to give BC a 1-0 lead. That was all the scoring in the opening 20 minutes, as BC killed a penalty and played a clean period defensively in front of Jacob Fowler, but were unable to convert on any of the handful of chances they created in the offensive zone and had to settle for a one-goal lead after the first period.

The second period started in a similar manner, with neither team able to generate much offense for long stretches of time. Lowell finally did mange to tie things up just about halfway through the period, however, scoring on the power play on a perfect shot from a tight angle to make it a 1-1 game. It was the first power play goal that BC had allowed all season after they had successfully killed 39 chances to start the season. They were able to kill of the next penalty they took, however, and doing so lead directly to a goal. Just a few seconds after the power play expired, Aram Minnetian managed to clear the puck out of their defensive zone and spring Ryan Leonard on an odd man rush with Gabe Perreault. Leonard made it count, firing a quick shot into the net to give BC a 2-1 lead. James Hagens made it 3-1 with a power play goal shortly thereafter, finishing a gorgeous passing play that Leonard and Perreault started.

Lowell responded with a late goal of their own to cut the lead in half and make it a 3-2 game after two periods of play.

BC defended their third period lead about as well as they possibly could have, spending most of their time in the offensive zone and not allowing Lowell to get anything going offensively. The Eagles had a number of chances to extend their lead over the course of the period, including a late empty net chance when Jacob Fowler decided that he wanted to take a shot from just outside his crease. They weren’t able to convert on any of their chances, but they took home a solid 3-2 win to end the first half of their season on a good note.

This was a really strong defensive effort from BC, especially considering the fact that Eamon Powell, Lukas Gustafsson, and Will Skahan were all out of the lineup. The Eagles barely let Lowell get anything dangerous on net and spent the vast majority of the game in the attacking end, even if the score ended up being pretty close. That’s a wrap on the first half of the season for BC, as they’ll now head into the winter break with a record of 12-3-1 and 6-2-1 in Hockey East play. It hasn’t always been pretty this season, but that’s a darn good first half of the season and assuming they start getting some of their players back from injury, the Eagles should be in great shape once things pick back up in January.