Boston College Men’s Hockey Defeats Lowell 3-2

The Boston College men’s hockey team used goals from three different players and a strong outing in net by Mitch Benson to knock off #14 UMass Lowell on Tuesday night, picking up their second win in a row. The win moves BC back to 4-4-2 on the season, and back-to-back strong performances can hopefully give them some momentum as their season continues on.

After a slow opening five minutes, Cutter Gauthier got BC on the board first, firing a wicked wrist shot on the rush for his sixth goal of the season. Gauthier’s shot was billed as a major strength of his game coming into this season, and that was on full display on his opening goal, as it was past Lowell goalie Henry Welsch’[s glove hand before he could make a play. That’s how things remained until late in the period, with Lowell controlling a bit more of the play, but Mitch Benson playing as good a period as he’s played all season to keep BC in front. With about three minutes left in the period, Connor Joyce jumped on a loose rebound a slammed home his first goal as an Eagle to make it 2-0. That was the score headed into the locker room as well, as BC used a strong first 20 minutes to take a two-goal lead into the second.

Lowell got back into the game just more than a minute into the second period, scoring on a tap in goal off of a nice passing play that came immediately after the Eagles failed on three consecutive breakout attempts. BC struggled to get much going offensively after that, and shortly after a solid PK looked like it might get them back on their feet, Lowell tied things up on a fantastic shot that was more open than it had to be after two BC defenders tried to cover the same Lowell forward while defending a 2-on-2. That score held up through the remainder of the period, including a full two minutes of four-on-four play after the teams took matching penalties, and for the second game in a row, BC headed into a decisive third period with a 2-2 score.

The score remained tied until BC got their first power play attempt of the night about five minutes into the third period. The man advantage started as ugly as possible, with Mitch Benson needing to bail the first unit out with a big save on a breakaway. Oskar Jellvik turned things around basically all by himself, however, when the second unit came on to the ice. Jellvik took a loose puck off of an errant pass just inside the offensive blue line, spun the shake off a defender, and moved into the space he had towards the slot. He fired a perfect wrist shot just under the bar for his first goal as an Eagle to give BC a 3-2 lead. Lowell made a real push over the rest of regulation and pulled their goalie with 80 seconds left, but the Eagles managed to hold on for their second win in a row.

Outside of a few bad defensive breakdowns, this was a mostly solid effort from the Eagles. For the second consecutive game, they played host to a very solid conference opponent and did enough to come away with a win. Mitch Benson in particular looked about as solid as he had all season, stopping everything he had a chance to stop en route to the win. The Eagles have a bit of a well earned break after the win, as they are off until they host Notre Dame in an afternoon game on Friday the 25th.