Eagles start off their weekend with a win
The Boston College men’s hockey took down UMass Amherst 5-1 on Friday night, picking up a win on the road in the first game of a home-and-home weekend series. The Eagles didn’t look their best for much of this game, but some of the big names stepped up when it counted and BC was able to improve to 22-5-1 on the season and continue their string of positive results ever since dropping their Beanpot opener to BU.
The Eagles came out a bit slow in the first period, with UMass carrying the majority of the play early on. The Minutemen wrang the post a few times, but BC eventually got the first goal of the night against the run of play. Cutter Gauthier scored his 24th goal of the season, getting a fortunate bounce when an attempted pass was deflected past the UMass goalie in the slot to give BC a 1-0 lead that they would take into the first intermission.
UMass tied things up at one at the very end of a powerplay chance after BC had come up empty on a man advantage of their own to start the second period. The Eagles got their lead back just a few shifts later, however, when Gauthier again scored on a fortunate bounce, this time on a shot from distance. BC was fortunate to dodge a few penalties in the leadup to their goal, as they appeared to get away with both a crosscheck and a too many men penalty just a few seconds before Gauthier made it 2-1. UMass continued to pressure BC as they looked for another equalizer, but the Eagles held them off and managed to double their lead late in the period, when Ryan Leonard fired home a laser of a shot on the powerplay to give BC a two-goal lead after two periods of play.
The Eagles played about as well of a third period as they possible could have while protecting a two-goal lead. UMass came up empty on an early power play chance and then BC more or less shut them down for the remainder of the game. BC kept the Minutemen to the outside and didn’t give up many scoring chances at all and the pucks that did get on net were easily saved by Jacob Fowler. Ryan Leonard made it a 4-1 game late when he finished off a mini 2-on-0 chance for his second goal of the night and Andre Gasseau added an empty netter and BC made it three wins in a row as they started their weekend on the right foot.
This wasn’t the prettiest game of all time for the Eagles, but it’s hard to be too upset about coming away with a road win against a strong opponent. With BU’s shootout loss to Providence, BC is now alone at the top of the Hockey East standings as we get into the last few weekends of the season. They’ll have a chance at three more points on Sunday afternoon when they host the Minutemen to finish off this weekend series.