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Overtime has not been kind to Boston College Men’s Hockey this season. The Eagles suffered a 5-4 loss to Boston University in the first round of the Beanpot on Monday. The loss marks their fourth overtime loss of the season, and third in the last four games.
The Eagles looked energized coming into a raucous TD Garden, scoring fast and frequently in the first period. It took less than three minutes for the Eagles to net their first goal of the game.
Marc McLaughlin batted the backhand pass from behind the net to Patrick Giles. BU goalie Ashton Abel was still focused on McLaughlin behind the net, leaving a wide gap for Giles to secure the early lead.
Only five minutes later, Alex Newhook would receive a pass by the boards on the goal line. Newhook dashed up the goal line uncontested before flipping the puck over Abel’s blocker side for the early 2-0 lead.
Continuing the early scoring barrage, BU scored their first goal with 10 minutes remaining in the first. Running a 2-on-1 break against Spencer Knight, Logan Cockerill skated just a foot from the net before dishing it out to Patrick Curry, who sent it home to bring BU within one.
After combining for three goals in the first ten minutes, the scoreboard remained unchanged for nearly 30 minutes after the Curry goal. However, the silence on the scoreboard was broken with under three minutes remaining in the second period.
Credited as a goal by David Cotton on the stat sheet, the goal would more accurately be attributed to BU’s Alex Vlasic. Cotton’s shot from the slot was deflected by Abel before being redirected back at the net by Vlasic, giving the Eagles a 3-1 lead going into the final frame.
Through the second period, BC appeared even more dominant than the scoreboard would indicate. Offensively, they were consistently finding the open passing lanes and refusing to settle for low-quality pop shots. Defensively, they had the BU offense looking discombobulated every time they skated down the ice. It took the Terriers nearly 30 minutes to fire off 10 shots on goal.
The momentum slowly started to shift throughout the third period, culminating with a Luke McInnis interference minor. BU had almost finished killing a hooking penalty when McInnis was called for the minor, resulting on a brief 4-on-4 opportunity.
With two seconds remaining in the 4-on-4, Patrick Harper lost the puck while attempting to curl his stick around Spencer Knight. David Farrance recovered the puck and shot it over Knight’s blocker-side leg. It was a one-goal game with under eight minutes to play.
Since the goal was scored while each team had four men on the ice, BU still got to play out the remainder of their powerplay 5-on-4. Continuing their magic on the powerplay, Farrance passed it back to Harper in the face-off circle. Harper slapped the puck off the crossbar and in to tie the game at 3-all late in the third.
BC’s defensive meltdown in the third didn’t end there. Trevor Zegras threaded the needle between three BC defenders to find Robert Mastrosimone at the top of the crease. Mastrosimone one-timed the feed past Knight’s glove-side leg, giving BU a 4-3 lead with under two minutes in regulation.
Shortly after the goal, Patrick Curry was called for hooking, giving BC a powerplay with 1:34 remaining. The Eagles peppered the BU goalie with shots throughout the powerplay until David Cotton was finally able to angle one of the rebounds just under the crossbar to send the game to overtime.
The first overtime period was only five minutes and produced no scoring, resulting in another 20-minute period. Standard regular-season games cannot go past 1OT, so the 4-4 tie is recorded on both teams’ records rather than the final score.
Both offenses looked sharp and energetic in the overtime periods but struggled to find the back of the net. It wasn’t until over seven minutes into the second overtime that a deflected shot from BU’s Alex Vlasic was recovered by Wilmer Skoog. Skoog fired the shot past Spencer Knight’s glove to complete the comeback and send BC fans home disappointed.
Leaving TD Garden with one point and a share of the lead in the Hockey East standings is far from a bad thing, but it still seems as if BC should have come away with more.
The Eagles will look to regain momentum against Harvard in the consolation game next Monday, while BU will take on Northeastern in the championship game.
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