Boston College Men’s Hockey Falls to Merrimack 4-3

The Boston College men’s hockey team dropped a Saturday afternoon matchup with Merrimack, falling 4-3 as they attempted to complete a weekend sweep of their Hockey East foe. The Eagles started this one slowly and although they were eventually able to work themselves back into the game, they couldn’t quite finish the job as their record fell to 5-4-1 on the season.

After a 4-1 win last night, BC came out a bit flat in the first period, with Merrimack controlling much of the play in the early goings. BC was forced to kill off an early penalty, but Merrimack took a 1-0 lead when they got another chance at the man advantage a few minutes later. The goal seemed to seemed to get BC’s legs going a bit, however, as they spent more time with the puck over the next few shifts. The nice response culminated with a goal from Marc McLaughlin, who took a nice pass from Mitch Andres right in front of the net and managed to use his reach to get around the Merrimack goalie and put home his sixth goal of the season. Merrimack got the lead back before the end of the period, though, scoring on a nice passing play with 3:40 to play to head into the intermission with a 2-1 lead. The goal came after what looked like a missed tripping call that took away a scoring chance from Marshall Warren, but it went uncalled and Merrimack took advantage at the other end of the ice.

Merrimack extended their lead to 3-1 just over four minutes into the second period, scoring a goal that went completely against the flow of play after BC came out of the intermission with some of their best shifts of the game. That’s how the game stayed for a while, with BC unable to get much going offensively until Merrimack took their first penalty of the game about halfway through the period. The Eagles made the most of their opportunity, with McLaughlin getting his second goal of the game when he jammed home a rebound from just in front of the net to make it a 3-2 game. Trevor Kuntar tied things up just a few minutes after that, firing a wrist shot under the Merrimack goalie’s glove for his third goal of the season just a few seconds after Colby Ambrosio had hit the post with a shot of his own. Kuntar’s goal tied the score at 3-3, which is where we stayed through the end of the second period despite some decent looks for BC and a power play chance for Merrimack.

The third period was mostly some back and forth play between the two teams, but Merrimack got the go ahead goal and the game winner late in the period. They scored on a one-timer that beat Eric Dop up high with 3:57 to play and although BC put on some pressure and pulled Dop, they weren’t able to tie things up and they had to settle for a weekend split.

Just like last weekend, this felt like a situation where BC could have walked away with four points and instead settled for fewer. They did some good work to get back in the game after falling behind 3-1, but a slow start ended up costing them and they couldn’t get the job done. They’ll try and bounce back on Friday night when they take on UConn.