The Boston College men’s hockey team took home two important early season wins over the past weekend, taking down 10th ranked St. Cloud State on the road by scores of 4-1 and 2-1 on Friday and Saturday night respectively. It has been an impressive start to the season for the Eagles, who are not 5-1 with four wins over top 15 programs already under their belt. As always, there’s plenty to discuss from this most recent slate of games, so let’s hit on some of what has stood out the most.
DEFENSIVE EFFORT ON FULL DISPLAY
The Eagles didn’t really look their sharpest in either of their two games against St. Cloud State over the weekend, but that’s not entirely surprising. Coming into the series, St. Cloud was one of the best defensive teams in the country and had a goalie in Isak Posch who was stopping just about everything that he saw. Even after BC’s six total goals over the two game series, the Huskies are still allowing just two goals per game on the season, so it’s not entirely surprising that the Eagles lacked some of the explosiveness that we’ve come to expect from them.
What was not lacking, however, was the team’s effort in their own end. The Eagles blocked 11 shots in Friday night’s 4-1 win and followed that up with 18 more in Saturday’s 2-1 victory. Their willingness to sacrifice the body went a long way into making Jacob Fowler’s life a lot easier, as he only ended up facing a total of 46 shot attempts over the two games. And Fowler had his usual excellent weekend, stopping 44 of the 46 attempts to pick up two more wins and raise his save percentage to .943.
All of this is to say that it’s nice to see that the Eagles seem to be able to win games in multiple ways, and perhaps as importantly, that they can win when they don’t have their A game. They weren’t particularly crisp for much of this series but when they did get a lead, they were able to defend it successfully in both games. It’s not as exciting as a last minute winner to complete a comeback against Western Michigan, but these were two massive early season road wins that came as a result of a real commitment to being strong in the defensive zone.
PENALTY KILL REMAINS ELITE
Not entirely unrelated to the strong defensive play from over the weekend would be the continued dominance of BC’s penalty kill. The Eagles were a perfect six for six while shorthanded against St. Cloud State, including a huge kill in the final minute of Saturday’s game after Drew Fortescue was called for a major penalty. And Teddy Stiga’s shorthanded goal on Friday night meant that BC actually came out ahead while down a man.
Boston College has been shorthanded 13 times so far through six games and they are yet to allow a goal. Greg Brown always likes to use several different players on the penalty kill and he’s made all the right choices so far this season, but the top unit in particular deserves some praise. Mike Posma and Brady Berard have been hugely important to the team’s success despite being listed as fourth liners. It says a lot about the amount of trust that Brown has in them when on a team littered with NHL draft picks, it is two undrafted players who are first over the boards for a big penalty kill.
Also deserving of praise have been two defensemen. Aram Minnetian and Aidan Hreschuk have been huge on the PK and just in general for the Eagles. The two blue liners are tied for the team lead with 12 blocked shots each and are getting huge minutes as part a defensive core that has allowed just eight goals in the first six games. They were also out on the ice at the end of Saturday’s game, killing off one more penalty to help ensure BC took home the win in regulation.
GABE PERREAULT, MAKING MAGIC
I mean, we couldn’t not talk about this
Ew Gabe. Take another look at Perreault’s game winner from last night!#SCTop10 pic.twitter.com/WfwR1FsVzP
— BC Men’s Hockey (@BC_MHockey) November 3, 2024
What a disgusting goal.
That was Perreault’s third and final goal of the weekend, giving him a total of five goals and 10 points through the first six games of the year. I said the same this about Ryan Leonard last week but it’s worth repeating for Perreault: this is a special, special player that we’re getting to watch every week, make sure to enjoy it while you have the chance.