Boston College Men’s Hockey Takes Down Mercyhurst 4-2

The Boston College men’s hockey team returned to action after a few weeks off with a 4-2 win over Mercyhurst in the opening round of the Ledyard classic. The Eagles fell behind early on, but outplayed Mercyhurst for the majority of the game and came away with a pretty comfortable win to start the second half of their season.

Mercyhurst got on the board first with a powerplay goal about eight minutes into the game. Henry Wilder got the start in net for BC and made a save on the initial shot, but a few Mercyhurst players were in tight and managed to put home a rebound to take a 1-0 lead. Jack McBain tied things up a few minutes later, however, scoring a shorthanded goal for his tenth of the season. McBain created a breakaway in close for himself after catching a difficult pass from Nikita Nesterenko and getting around the last defenseman for Mercyhurst. He managed to get around the Mercyhurst goalie and slide the puck into the net to reach double digit goals for the first time in his Boston College career. BC looked like the better team for the majority of the period, but had to settle for a 1-1 tie after the first 20 minutes of play.

Matt Argentina gave BC a 2-1 lead about halfway through the second period, scoring on a rebound after some hectic play in front of Mercyhurst’s net. Argentina’s second goal of the season came after a pretty slow start to the period from the Eagles, but it seemed to give them a bit of a boost. BC drew a penalty on the shift after Argentina’s goal and McBain put home his second of the night on the ensuing power play to open up a two-goal lead after some nice puck movement. McBain’s eleventh goal of the season came off of a nice redirection in close thanks to a great pass from Brandon Kruse. The Eagles continued their good play with a strong penalty kill and had a few good looks on another late power play chance of their own before heading into intermission with a 3-1 lead.

Aidan Hreschuk scored with a great shot for the first goal of his career early in the third period to essentially put the game out of reach. Hreschuk fired a wrist shot just under the crossbar while the two teams were skating at four-on-four to give the Eagles a three-goal lead. Wilder made a few nice stops in net to prevent Mercyhurst from getting back into the game before they put in a goal late in the period and BC wrapped things up for a solid 4-2 win.

It was a nice return to action for BC who improves to 9-5-2 on the season. All four lines looked pretty good and they were able to control play for long stretches in all three periods. They’ll be right back in action tomorrow when they’ll face off with the winner of tonight’s game between Dartmouth and New Hampshire in the championship game of this brief tournament.