Boston College Men’s Hockey Plays BU to Scoreless Draw

As far as scoreless ties go, this was a fun one.

BC played BU to a standstill on Friday night, with the goalies stealing the show for both teams. The Eagles and Terriers had chances to score throughout, but neither were able to break through and both had to settle for just a single point.

Neither team was able to get on the board in the first two periods of play, though both had their chances during the 40 minutes of play. BC’s top line of Logan Hutsko, Julius Mattila, and David Cotton spent almost every shift in the offensive zone and had a number of good looks at the net. Oliver Wahlstrom, Christopher Brown, and Jack McBain turned in some of their best shifts since being put together on the second line, just missing on a few chances of their own. Both teams were forced to kill two penalties in the middle period and both special teams units were up to the task. Joe Woll and BU goalie Jake Oettinger were perfect through 40 minutes, with Oettinger stopping 30 shots while Woll turned away 15.

The third period saw back and forth play that again lead to several dangerous scoring chances. BC was forced to kill some late penalties after squandering a power play chance of their own, but still, neither team was able to break the scoreless deadlock. BU hit a post early in the period and Oettinger was once again very busy in net for the Terriers, but every shot was turned aside and the two teams remained tied at zero at the end of regulation.

Overtime proved to be more of the same, as both goalies were largely the reason for their team taking a point. Oettinger denied Cotton on a chance from right outside the crease and Woll was forced to make a difficult save in the dying seconds of the game to preserve the tie.

Woll played what may have been two of his best games as an Eagle over the weekend, letting just one power play goal up on Friday before turning in a perfect performance tonight. He made a number of difficult saves, particularly in the third period and overtime, and is a big reason that BC took three of a possible four points from the series. Woll has been pretty good for his entire time at BC, with his save percentage trending upward every season to this point, but this weekend, he was the no doubt MVP for the Eagles, who needed every save that he made tonight.

A three point weekend is far from the worst case scenario for BC, but they will certainly be upset that at least one of their chances didn’t find the back of the net. Now 4-6-2 on the season (4-1-2 in Hockey East), BC will look to get back to .500 when they play a Thursday/Friday home and home series against UConn before taking a few weeks off for the holiday break.