Boston College Men’s Hockey Falls to Providence

It is early in the season, but it’s starting to look like more of the same for the Boston College men’s hockey team. Much like last year, this squad has a lot of talent on the roster, but defensive breakdowns and an unacceptable number of penalties have the Eagles struggling.

Tonight, BC fell to the Providence Friars by a score of 6-2 in a chippy game that included a major penalty and game misconduct assessed to Ron Greco and 7 BC penalties in total.

The Friars scored the first goal of the game late in the first period, and stayed in the lead the rest of the night with 3 goals in the second period and a pair in the final 20 minutes. Both BC goals, scored by Graham McPhee and Logan Hutsko, were beauties, but the Eagles were unable to get anything else past Providence’s goalie and in general struggled to get the puck out of their own zone.

This team is certainly young, and Spencer Knight is still adjusting to being a starting goalie in the NCAA, so things could certainly go up from here, particularly since all 3 of BC’s losses have been against strong teams (Denver and Providence), but at some point the Eagles are going to need to figure out how to stay out of the penalty box and how to shore up their defense. These have been recurring problems season after season, and it is concerning that the coaching staff hasn’t figured out a way to start seeing improvement.