Boston College Men’s Hockey Defeats Northeastern 4-1

The Boston College Men’s hockey team ended a long losing streak on Friday night, knocking off Northeastern 4-1 to pick up their first win since December. BC welcomed back Marc McLaughlin and Drew Helleson back after playing for the US in the Olympics and the two players clearly gave a boost to the team.

The Eagles got off to a perfect start, scoring just 16 seconds after puck drop. Colby Ambrosio scored his ninth of the season on a breakaway that he created with an impressive burst of speed and a nice power move to get around a defenseman. Trevor Kuntar doubled the lead just a few shifts after that, putting home a rebound after a nice rush by Nikita Nesterenko. Nesterenko’s original shot was stopped, but Kuntar was able to jump on a huge rebound and fire it into the net to give BC a 2-0 lead and force Northeastern to take their timeout before four minutes of game time had elapsed. Northeastern started skating better after taking their timeout, however, and after some back and forth play from both teams, they were able to cut the lead in half with about six and a half minutes left in the period. Marc McLaughlin made an impact in his return though, scoring his 19th goal of the season a few minutes after Northeastern had scored to give the Eagles back a two-goal lead. He jumped on another pretty big rebound off of a shot from the point and BC took a 3-1 lead into intermission.

The second period was pretty even for a while, with both teams trading power play chances before the Eagles extended their lead. BC ended up with another power play chance about halfway through the period, but didn’t do much on it for the first 1:45. With about 15 seconds left on the man advantage, Marshall Warren took a puck from behind his own net and started a rush up ice. He ended up splitting between two Northeastern defenders to create a breakaway that he buried for a beautiful goal to give BC a 4-1 lead after two periods.

The third period saw BC playing a ton of defense in their own end, with Northeastern pushing hard to get back into the game. Eric Dop looked pretty solid in net over the first two periods, but he elevated his game in the third, making a number of big stops to keep BC’s three-goal lead in tact. He took an awkward puck to the head and looked banged up for a few minutes, but he was able to stay in the game and keep Northeastern off the board as BC wrapped up a 4-1 victory to end a streak of 12 games without a win.

After a long stretch of some pretty ugly looking hockey, it was nice to finally see Boston College put together a complete performance. BC came out strong and played their best 60 minutes in a long time, and it was fun to watch a winning effort for the first time in a while. The Eagles will have a chance to complete a weekend sweep on Saturday night when they take on Northeastern back at home.