Teddy Stiga Heats up and Ryan Leonard Scores a Beauty: Boston College Men’s Hockey Weekend Thoughts

The Boston College men’s hockey team is on a real hot streak right now, having knocked off their rivals from Boston University twice over this past weekend to take over the top spot in Hockey East and push their winning streak to six games. It was an impressive weekend for the Eagles, who won a tight 2-0 game on Saturday night after blowing out the Terriers by a 6-2 score on Friday. Lots of good things to talk about from these two games, so let’s get into some of what stood out the most.

TEDDY STIGA MAKING AN IMPACT

Hey so it looks like scoring the game winning goal in overtime of the World Juniors gold medal game might have given Teddy Stiga some confidence.

Stiga had a nice first half of the season for the Eagles and certainly earned his spot as a top six forward, but he’s been on a different level ever since coming back. He has nine points in seven games since play resumed and he’s been doing it while skating with Gabe Perreault and James Hagens, not a small ask for the freshman forward.

Stiga had himself a big weekend against BU, scoring a massive goal in each of the two games. On Saturday night, he scored the eventual game winner just 24 seconds into regulation, jamming home a rebound off of a shot from Ryan Leonard and sending a packed Conte Forum into an early uproar. And on Friday night, with the Eagles trailing 2-1 in the second period and the next goal feeling crucial, Stiga showed off some brilliant hand-eye coordination on a lofted pass from Perreault.

Stiga’s hot start to the second half has him all the way up to fourth on the team in scoring with 20 points in 23 games. It’s hard to imagine that he’ll stay at his pace of over a point per game that he has been at to start the second half of the season, but he’s playing some excellent hockey and has turned himself into a very important part of this year’s team.

TEAM DEFENSE ON FULL DISPLAY

BC dropped their second half opener to Merrimack back on January 10 by a score of 5-2 in what is quickly starting to look like it might be the strangest result of the season. Since then, the Eagles have allowed just five goals total across their six game winning streak, none of which have been scored at even strength. And while the slight dip in the success of the penalty kill is at least worth mentioning, going six games without allowing a goal at even strength is a ridiculous accomplishment that deserves to take center stage.

The Eagles’ team defense has been a strength all season, but I think it was on full display in the third periods of both games over the weekend. On Friday night, BC entered the third with a 4-2 lead and while the stats might say that BU heavily outshot them over the final 20 minutes, the reality was that Jacob Fowler had an easy go of it in net, turning aside some shots from distance as BU was never able to get the puck to the dangerous scoring areas.

On Saturday night with just a 1-0 lead, BC possessed the puck a bit more in the third and didn’t even give the Terriers those less dangerous chances. BU had just six shots on goal as they attempted to make their comeback, and none of them stood out as particularly threatening to Fowler.

BC’s scoring numbers this year are down a good amount from last season, having dropped from an absurd 4.5 goals per game in 2023-2024 to a good but not fantastic 3.3 this season, but their defensive numbers are much better. They’re allowing just 1.7 goals per game this year, half a goal down from an already impressive 2.2 last year and it makes sense why. They’re taking fewer penalties and holding their opponents to fewer shots than last season and when they are allowing shots, Jacob Fowler has clearly leveled up his game in goal. It’s easy to try and compare this year’s team to last year’s because of how good both have been, but they’ve been good in very different ways. This year’s team might not be going out and scoring 12 goals in a weekend, but they’ve established an identity and it has clearly been working for them all season.

RYAN LEONARD LIVES FOR THE MOMENT

This was an unbelievable goal to see in person

The defenseman that Leonard skates around like he’s a minor annoyance is Cole Hutson, one of BU’s Hobey Baker nominees. The other defenseman who ends up facing the completely wrong direction because of Leonard’s quick skating ability is Tom Willander, the #11 pick in the 2023 draft. And it doesn’t matter who was in net because there’s never been a goalie on this planet who was stopping that shot.

Four goals and an assist in the biggest weekend of the season from Leonard. He just always seems to come through when the team needs him most.