Cutter Gauthier is a Scoring Machine – Boston College Men’s Hockey Weekend Thoughts

CUTTER GAUTHIER FROM HIS OFFICE

Cutter Gauthier lead the Eagles with 16 goals in 32 games last year and looked pretty amazing doing it. Well he’s already halfway to matching that total in his sophomore season with eight goals in eight games which is good enough for the team lead and tied for second in the country. Five of those goals have come on the power play (he scored seven on the man-advantage last season) and a few of them have looked pretty similar.

Four of Gauthier’s five power play goals have come off of one-timers from the right wing circle and it’s clear that he’s the guy that BC wants the power play to run through. This was the case last year as well, and it worked for the most part as the power play looked good for much of the season. But everything is just moving a little bit quicker now and the looks that Gauthier is getting from his ‘office’ are allowing him to regularly beat goalies cleanly from distance.

Coming into college, Gauthier’s wrist shot was billed as his biggest strength and while that is absolutely still the case (he might have the quickest release of anyone I’ve ever seen at BC), his one-timer has become a massive weapon for the Eagles. He probably won’t keep scoring at this rate on the power play (he has five of the team’s nine goals), but it certainly looks like he’s going to blow past the numbers that he put up last year. It says a lot about Gauthier that he can be the go-to guy on a power play that includes three other first round picks, but at least so far in the season, that has absolutely been the case.

ARAM MINNETIAN MAKING A STATEMENT

So I straight up did not think Aram Minnetian had this in him:

I’ve liked a lot of what I’ve seen from Minnetian so far this season and I think he’s had a nice start to his BC career but to make a play like that for your first collegiate goal? Never saw it coming.

Minnetian has been part of a defensive group that has impressed early on. Despite having a whole bunch of new faces the Eagles are only allowing an average of 2.1 goals per game and are holding opponents to an average of just 27.5 shots. They block a bunch of shots and they’ve frequently come up big on a penalty kill that is currently operating at almost 92 percent. Minnetian and his classmate Drew Fortescue have hit the ground running, and their ability to step in and play big minutes right away has gone a long way in stabilizing what looked like it could have been a shaky defensive grouping, especially in the first handful of games. And it’s always great to see someone’s strong play rewarded with a goal, especially when it’s a game winning beauty like we saw from Minnetian

FIVE-ON-THREE BULLYING OPPONENTS

BC’s power play as a whole has been very good over the past several games, but on the rare chances that they get a two-man advantage, it’s going to be almost impossible for teams to stop them. Just take a look at the puck movement on display from their goal in Saturday’s game against Lowell.

That poor #4 from Lowell changes direction about four times in just a few seconds and still doesn’t come close to making a play. Putting out four first round picks and letting them set up with that much space has to be terrifying for an opponent to watch. In this case, it lead to an easy goal for Will Smith off of a great pass from Gabe Perreault, but everyone on the ice there is a legitimate threat to score. It’s fun to watch these guys when they take the ice for a normal power play, watching them at five-on-three seems more than a bit unfair.