Boston College Men’s Hockey Falls to Vermont 3-2

The Boston College men’s hockey team finished up their weekend series with Vermont with another ugly performance, falling 3-2 to Vermont. If you watched last night’s game, you pretty much know how this one went, as BC was just completely unable to get anything going on offense for long stretches of time and were repeatedly let down by their special teams units as they dropped a game that they really needed to win.

For the second night in a row, the Eagles got on the board first with an early power play goal. This time it was Nikita Nesterenko who was able to take advantage of a ton of open space after BC won a puck battle and fire a great shot into the net. That was all in terms of scoring for the opening 20 minutes, as once again BC didn’t generate a lot of offense outside of their opening goal. They didn’t give much up in their own end either, and Mitch Benson cleaned up the few good looks that Vermont did get as the Eagles held onto their 1-0 lead after one period of play.

Vermont tied things up less than a minute into the second period, scoring on a one-timer while on the power play after Lukas Gustafsson took a penalty for hitting after the whistle to end the first period. BC got a power play chance of their own just a few minutes later, and while they weren’t able to get anything going while on the man advantage, they did regain their lead just after the penalty expired. Colby Ambrosio took a perfect pass from Nesterenko at the attacking blue line to set up a breakaway and he made the most of his opportunity to give BC a 2-1 led. Vermont hit back a few minutes later, however, with their second power play goal of the game and third of the weekend to tie things up at two. They added another one a few minutes later just after BC came up empty on a power play of their own to make it 3-2 Vermont after two periods.

Seamus Powell took a major penalty for contact to the head just a few minutes into the third period and put BC in a situation where they essentially had to kill off a five minute penalty to have any chance of getting back into the game. They did manage to kill that one, but they couldn’t stay out of the box for the rest of the period. Cutter Gauthier took a major penalty of his own with 2:50 left in regulation and that was pretty much it for the game. BC hd some halfway decent chances on the penalty kill and even had some time with a man advantage after Vermont took a penalty of their own, but they weren’t able to find the goal they needed and dropped the game 3-2.

There’s not much else to say except that this was about a bad a weekend series as you could imagine for this team. The special teams were awful, there was almost no offense at even strength, and the team couldn’t stay out of the penalty box. It was ugly hockey for pretty much the entire two games and Vermont was able to take advantage of that while BC couldn’t. The Eagles will look to right the ship next weekend when they have a home-and-home series against BU.