Boston College Men’s Hockey Defeated 5-2 by Merrimack

The Boston College men’s hockey team dropped their third straight game, losing 5-2 to Merrimack. The Eagles dropped both of their two games against Merrimack in this home-and-home series, falling to 2-4-1 on the season and 2-3-0 in conference play. This was easily the worst BC has looked all season, as it never really looked like this was a game they had any chance of winning.

BC came out looking sluggish for the first few minutes, and Merrimack made them pay early on, scoring on a wraparound attempt after a long shift where BC’s first line was pinned in their defensive end. The Eagles continued to look lifeless for a bit longer, until their fourth line was able to put together a decent forecheck and forced Merrimack into taking a tripping penalty. It didn’t look like the power play had much going early on, but Cutter Gauthier found himself with some space near the top of the circle and fired a laser of a shot for his third goal of the season to tie things up at one. Things didn’t stay tied for long, however, as Aidan Hreschuk was whistled for interference a few minutes later and Merrimack scored on the ensuing power play to take a 2-1 lead into the first intermission.

The Eagles looked a little bit better for stretches of the second period, but still struggled to string together any kind of sustained offensive pressure. They had a few chances, with both Connor Joyce and Gauthier firing some shots that required strong glove saves, but it remained a 2-1 game late in the period. With about 3 minutes left, BC found themselves with an extended 5-on-3 powerplay after Merrimack was called for a too many men penalty while already shorthanded. The Eagles controlled the puck for a while and got a few halfway decent looks, but Merrimack kept them off the board and delivered a real gut punch after both penalties had expired, scoring the only goal of the period with 39 seconds left to take a two-goal lead into the third period.

Merrimack pretty much put things away with another power play goal with 12:28 left in regulation, taking a three-goal lead against a team that is just really struggling to score right now. They added another one a few minutes later, resulting in Mitch Benson being pulled in favor of Henry Wilder. Wilder looked pretty solid in his action, and Andre Gasseau scored on a late power play for the first goal of his career, but it was too little too late as Merrimack came away from this one with a 5-2 win.

This was an ugly one pretty much from start to finish for BC. It’s been a disappointing stretch for the Eagles after they started the season with a couple decent games. There’s a lot that they need to fix and fix quickly if they don’t want the season to get away from them quickly. They’ll have a chance to start fixing things next weekend when they have another home-and-home series, this time against Northeastern.