Eagles head in to their winter break with a win
The Boston College men’s hockey team knocked off Providence 5-4 in their final game of the first half of the season on Saturday. The Eagles used scored three times on the power play and twice in the final few minutes to take down a top 10 opponent and move to 13-3-1 on the season.
BC had a great chance to jump out to an early lead with a five minute power play after a Providence player was whistled for a major penalty, but the Eagles came up empty on the man advantage and actually gave up the two best looks over that stretch. The Eagles weren’t able to generate a whole lot of great chances over the opening 20 minutes, and they had a few shaky moments in their own end that Jacob Fowler had to clean up for them. Fowler was great in the opening period however, and he came up big a number of times to keep the game scoreless after one.
The second period opened with BC taking a major penalty of their own, with Aram Minnetian getting five minutes and a game misconduct for a taking a pretty nasty looking swing at a Providence player after a whistle behind the Friars’s net. The Eagles put together a strong kill however, and took advantage when Providence took a too-many men penalty with 42 seconds left in their advantage. The two teams played out the brief time at four-on-four before Will connected on a one-time to give BC a 1-0 lead thanks to their abbreviated power play. Gabe Perreault made it 2-0 a few minutes later with a power play goal of his own, scoring with a beautiful backhanded shot that went right under the crossbar off of a perfect pass from Eamon Powell sprung him on a breakaway. Providence got a goal back late in the period, scoring on a shot from the point that deflected past Fowler to make it a 2-1 game heading into the third period.
Providence tied things up just about four minutes into the third when Fowler was beaten through the five-hole on a shot from the top of the circles. They took the lead a few minutes later when BC’s penalty kill finally broke and Fowler was beaten on a one-timer with just under 12 minutes left in regulation, but Cutter Gauthier tied things back up just 30 seconds later with a lethal wrist shot of his own. The two teams played some back and forth hockey from there, but a late penalty drawn by some good work from Perreault gave the Eagles a power play chance with less than five minutes to go, and they made the most of their opportunity. After the first unit came up empty, Oskar Jellvik fired home a wrist shot from the top of the left circle for his eighth goal of the season to give BC a 4-3 lead. He scored his ninth of the season to ice things just a few shifts later after Andre Gasseau made a great play on the forecheck to win a puck battle on the corner before he found Jellvik by himself out front to make it a 5-3 game. Providence got one back with a shot through traffic with 9.6 seconds left, but they didn’t have enough time to get anything else going after that and BC took this one with a 5-4 final.
BC didn’t play great for much of this game, but they turned in a really stretch after they fell behind 3-2. They scored three straight goals down the stretch to take this one against another top 10 opponent in their last game before the winter break. With that win, the Eagles are off for over a month, as they won’t play any games until they take on this same Providence game in a home-and-home series that starts on January 12.