Boston College Men’s Hockey vs. Long Island: Game Preview

The Eagles are home after a successful road trip down to Hamden! After defeating Quinnipiac in OT last week and playing spoiler to the Bobcats’ banner presentation night, the Eagles return to Conte Forum for their own home opener against the LIU Sharks.

WHO:

#5 Boston College Eagles (1-0-0) vs Long Island University Sharks (0-2-0)

WHERE:

Kelley Rink at Conte Forum, Chestnut Hill, MA

WHEN:

Friday, Oct 13. Puck drops at 7PM.

HOW TO WATCH:

The game will be streaming on ESPN+.

FOLLOW ALONG:

@bcinterruption and @bc_mhockey on Twitter.

PREVIEW:

Well, how about that? Greg Brown’s squad defeated the defending national champions last week, and there was a lot to like about the new-look Eagles. Freshman goalie Jacob Fowler looked incredibly strong in net, making 29 saves and helping the Eagles go 7-for-7 on the penalty kill. The highly anticipated freshman line of Will Smith, Ryan Leonard, and Gabe Perreault got better as the game went on, and Leonard tallied the first point of his BC career on Cutter Gauthier’s overtime game winner. Quinnipiac is a tough team to start the year, but the freshmen held their own against the very defensively-sound Bobcats.

And of course, we can’t forget about the goal scorers. Andre Gasseau and Gauthier picked up right where they left off last year, starting their sophomore seasons off with a bang. Gasseau picked up his first goal of the season on an unassisted shorthanded tally, while Gauthier scored the overtime game winning goal with 9.5 seconds to go in the OT period on a shot that beat Quinnipiac goalie Vinny Duplessis clean.

On the other side of things, the Sharks have started the season 0-2-0, losing games to #16 Penn State and Holy Cross last week. Last season, the Sharks went 13-22-1. They return defenseman Cade Mason, who was the third highest scorer on last year’s team, and led the team in points per game with 32 points in 26 games. This year so far, grad transfer Grayson Constable has three points in two games played, so he likely will also be a player to watch on Saturday. In net, LIU seems to be splitting time between grad student Rico DiMatteo and senior Brandon Perrone, who have gotten one game each — it’s early in the year though, so we’ll have to see who the Eagles face on Friday.

Against LIU, I would think the freshman class has a bigger opportunity to make space for themselves and break out to really start the year — Quinnipiac plays a very stifling game, so it’s understandable that the first years had to battle through a bit more. It’ll be interesting to see who gets the game in net for the Eagles — this seems like a good opportunity for Jan Korec to start a game early in the year, but with the way Fowler played on Saturday I would think he’d continue to get the starts.

Here’s to hoping BC can continue their strong start as they enter a month-long home stand. As always, go Eags! :)