Boston College Men’s Hockey Falls to UConn 6-4

The Boston College men’s hockey team dropped an ugly one of Friday night, losing 6-4 to UConn in a game that felt like even more of a blowout than the final score said it was. BC had a few nice moments in the first period, but things spiraled out of control pretty quickly in the second and the Eagles weren’t able to make this a competitive game.

UConn got on the board first, just 1:21 into the game, scoring after a bit of a breakdown in the neutral zone lead to a 2-on-1 that Eric Dop had no chance of stopping. BC fought back quickly though, stringing together a few nice shifts right after conceding before tying the game back up a few minutes later. Jack Dempsey made a great play on a forecheck in the offensive zone to take control of the puck before finding Casey Carreau with a perfect cross ice pass. Carreau slid the puck into the back of the net for his fourth goal of the season and things were knotted up at one. UConn took the lead back about halfway through the period, however, after some sloppy breakout attempts eventually lead to a turnover and a wide open UConn forward in front of Dop’s net.

The Eagles didn’t let that lead stand for long either, scoring less than two minutes later to tie things up yet again. Marshall Warren made a great rush aup almost the entire length of the ice to create a scoring chance, but decided to go behind the net with the puck instead. Doing so took UConn’s goalie completely out of the play, and his centering pass was rammed home by Liam Izyk for Izyk’s first goal of the season. UConn struck back almost immediately yet again, though, scoring with a perfect wrist shot that beat Dop up high to retake a 3-2 lead just a few shifts after BC had tied it up. UConn made it 4-2 on a goal right off of an offensive zone faceoff a few minutes later, as Dop continued to struggle. It was the fourth goal that he allowed on the first seven shots he faced on the night and it looked like BC would head into the break down two goals as a result, but Liam Izyk got his second goal of the night with just 39 seconds left in the period on another tap in to make it a 4-3 game at intermission.

Things calmed down a bit in the second period, but UConn regained their two-goal lead about seven minutes in after a terrible turnover by defenseman Aidan Hreschuk gave a UConn forward a breakaway and an easy goal to make it 5-3. They added another one a few minutes later to make it 6-3 for the final goal of the second period to essentially put the game out of reach. Carreau did get his second goal of the night late in the third period to make things a little bit more interesting, but that was as close as the Eagles would get, as they dropped this one 6-4.

It’s hard to say much about this team that hasn’t already been said over the past few weeks. They down a few key players and they’re not a particularly impressive team even on their best night, and they haven’t had their best night for a couple months now. This makes eleven straight losses for the Eagles, who still have not won a game in 2022. They’ll get their next chance in Monday’s Beanpot consolation game, where they’ll take on a Harvard team that beat them pretty handily a few weeks back.