The Boston College men’s hockey team dropped their first game back from winter break, falling to Merrimack 5-2. It was an ugly start to the second half of the season for the Eagles, who jumped out to an early lead and seemed to be in control of things for a while before things just completely fell apart. Eamon Powell, Will Skahan, and Lukas Gustafsson all returned from injury and five of the six Eagles who played for Team US in the World Juniors were in the lineup – Drew Fortescue did not play – but they played a game full of defensive miscues and to their credit, Merrimack made them pay for it.
The Eagles started out with an edge in the territorial play, but Merrimack had the two best chances early on. Jacob Fowler made two huge saves – one on a breakaway and another on a two-on-one chance – to keep things scoreless before BC was able to open the scoring. Oskar Jellvik fired home his third goal of the season with just under seven minutes remaining in the period, scoring on a shot that just managed to beat the Merrimack goalie off of a rebound from a shot from distance from Aram Minnetian. Minnetian made a great play to keep possession of the puck at the offensive blue line before taking a shot through traffic that deflected into space, allowing Jellvik to jump on it to give BC a 1-0 lead. Gabe Perreault had a chance to double their lead late in the period when a long stretch pass sprang him on a semi breakaway, but his wrist shot went off the crossbar and the Eagles had to settle for a one-goal advantage after 20 minutes of play.
Brady Berard did make it a 2-0 game just about eight minutes into the second period, scoring his first goal of the season and picking up his first point as an Eagle after transferring from Providence during the offseason. Berard scored with a wicked wrist shot on a shorthanded 2-on-1 bid to briefly give BC a two-goal lead. It looked like the Eagles were in good shape after Berard’s tally, but Merrimack battled right back. The Warriors scored on the same power play opportunity and then added two more goals in quick succession, taking advantage of some uncharacteristic breakdowns by the BC defense to flip the game from 2-0 to 3-2 in just over four minutes of game time. The Eagles found their footing a bit after allowing the third goal, but still went into the third period of play chasing a goal.
Merrimack scored again to make it a 4-2 game just under three minutes into the third period, making it four unanswered goals for the Warriors. BC had a number of chances in the shifts immediately following the goal and looked like they were taking over, but they were unable to cut into the lead and Merrimack eventually made them pay once again, scoring on a great shot from in close to make it a 5-2 game with just over eight minutes to play. That was pretty much the game right there, as BC never really looked like they were going to get back into this one and Merrimack was more than happy to sit on their three-goal lead the rest of the way.
This was an ugly way to come back from the winter break, no doubt about it. For a team that did such a good job at limiting the opponent’s opportunities throughout the first half of the season, the Eagles just seemed like they were bleeding chances all night. Hopefully this is just a one game blip and we look back on this as nothing more than a strange game at the end of the season. BC will have a chance to right the ship tomorrow night when they travel to Merrimack to finish off their weekend series.