Boston College Men’s Hockey Knocks off BU 3-1

The Boston College men’s hockey team bounced back in a big way after an ugly game on Saturday night, knocking off BU 3-1 in the final game between the two teams this season. The Eagles got goals from their big players tonight and did just enough in the defensive end to make that hold up and close out the weekend with a big win.

BU got on the board first just about six minutes into the game, scoring while on a four-on-three power play with a blast of a slap shot from the slot in front of Eric Dop’s net. That was it for the scoring for the first 20 minutes, as BC really struggled to get much going offensively. It looked very similar to Saturday’s game for stretches, with the Eagles looking sloppy with their passes and spending the majority of their time in their defensive zone. Dop was busy and had to make a couple nice saves to keep it a one-goal deficit after the first period.

The second period looked just like the first for a while, with BC still unable to generate any kind of dangerous look on offense. Dop made one amazing save to keep BU from extending their lead and continued to be pretty busy as the Eagles struggled to create scoring chances. That changed late in the period, however, when Jack McBain ripped a shot from the left circle into the net for his 16th goal of the season with 4:46 left on the clock. The goal came after BC forced a turnover near BU’s blue line to start a 2-on-1 that McBain took all the way by himself. The Eagles almost gave it right back a few minutes later, when they took two penalties in short succession to give BU about 30 seconds of a 5-on-3 power play, but BC was able to kill it off and keep the score tied at one headed into the third period.

BU continued to control the play to start the third, but Dop kept making some big saves and BC was able to do enough to keep it a 1-1 game. With about five minutes left in regulation, the Eagles finally managed to generate some offense. Marc McLaughlin made a cross ice pass to Drew Helleson, who ripped a one-timer into the net to give BC a 2-1 lead. The Eagles tightened up after that and kept BU from tying the score. BU pulled their goalie with about a minute left and Jack McBain took a penalty with 15 seconds left to make things interesting, but Patrick Giles made a great individual effort to clear the puck and score an empty net goal with 5 seconds left to give BC a 3-1 win.

It wasn’t the prettiest game for BC, but it was a much improved effort after last night. The Eagles didn’t create a ton of offense throughout the game, but they converted on the few chances that they did generate and Eric Dop put together a strong enough game for that to be enough. BC will get another big test next week when they close out their regular season with a home-and-home series with UMass.