Boston College Men’s Hockey Falls 3-2 to Maine In Overtime Again

For the second time in as many nights, the Boston College men’s hockey team lacked their best effort and fell to Maine in overtime, this time by a 3-2 score. Saturday night’s game was a hard one to watch, with so many penalties disrupting any kind of flow from the game, and the ending being marred by a controversial goal.

For the second night in a row, it was a slow start for both teams, with scoring chances at a premium for the majority of the first period. The two teams traded late power play goals, however, with Julius Mattila opening scoring for the Eagles. Mattila fired home a shot on a one timer off a great pass from Logan Hutsko. Hutsko found Mattila with a cross ice pass that was available thanks to the net front presence of David Cotton and Aapeli Rasanen. It was a short lived lead however, as the Black Bears converted on a power play of their own shortly thereafter, scoring on a point shot after Spencer Knight lost his stick. BC had a few seconds of a late power play chance, but weren’t able to make anything of it and the two teams remained tied at one after 20 minutes of play.

Special teams were the story of the second period, with BC getting off to a slow start on the rest of their carryover power play and things only getting worse from there. BC was shutout on two more power play chances before Maine got on of their own, which they promptly scored on to go ahead 2-1. The Eagles managed to get another power play chance shortly after falling behind, but failed to convert on that one too and went into the third period chasing a goal.

The two teams traded empty power play chances to start the third period before BC got themselves back in the game. Matt Boldy forced a turnover in the neutral zone, gaine the zone, and slid a nice pass over to Graham McPhee, who let go a laser of a one-timer to tie the game at two with 10:46 left in the period. The two teams traded some decent chances for the rest of regulation and BC had another chance on the power play, but neither was able to find the game winner and for the second straight night, we had overtime.

Maine got the winner in overtime on a controversial play that had the BC players arguing with the referee even after the hand shake line. A Maine forward slashed the stick out a defenseman’s hand, recovered the loose puck, and the puck was in the net just seconds later. The goal was stood though, since that can’t be reviewed, and Maine took the win 3-2.

Even without the questionable game winning goal, this was a tough weekend for BC. They just didn’t look good for long stretches over both nights and now see themselves on a bit of losing streak. They fall to 15-7 on the season and will look to bounce back next week when they play UMass Amherst in their last game before the Beanpot.