GOAL BY GOAL: BC Men’s Hockey Goes Wire To Wire In 7-0 Blowout of Vermont

Boston College men’s hockey went just about as “wire to wire” as you can possibly go in a hockey game.

The Eagles scored just 8 seconds into the game and never looked back, exploding on offense and handing Joe Woll his first career shutout. With 0:00.2 left on the clock, Christopher Brown put the finishing touches on an inspired BC performance, capping off a 7-0 win for the Eagles over the Vermont Catamounts in the Men’s Hockey East quarterfinals.

Boston College Goal #1 (GWG): 0:08 of the 1st period
Austin Cangelosi (Colin White, Casey Fitzgerald)

BC 1, UVM 0

It took just 8 seconds for BC to score the game’s first goal.

Austin Cangelosi is at the start and the finish of this play. He wins the faceoff clean, and bolts for the offensive zone. He comes in with a full head of steam to get to White’s semi-pass, semi-dump in, and comes in on Vermont goaltender Stefanos Lekkas at a tough angle.

The puck looks like it takes a deflection off the Vermont defenseman, and it finds its way into the net.

That was a pretty good precursor for how the rest of the game would go.

Boston College Goal #2: 5:15 of the 1st period
Colin White (Luke McInnis)

BC 2, UVM 0

The Eagles dusted off an old section of the playbook for tonights game — the stretch pass.

BC was clearly trying it all over the place, and it worked over and over again. Colin White is the beneficiary of the first one, clearing the Vermont blue line without a player in green within 20 feet of him. That allows him to slow up just a bit and treat the breakaway more like a penalty shot, which gave him more options.

He beats Lekkas cleanly, and it’s 2-0.

This isn’t the only breakaway goal the Eagles would score in this game.

Boston College Goal #3: 14:23 of the 1st period
Luke McInnis (Casey Fitzgerald, David Cotton)

BC 3, UVM 0

BC wasn’t done yet in the first period. Luke McInnis — the top scorer for the Eagles tonight at 1-3—4 — found himself a shooting lane after his maroon and gold brethren quickly circled the offensive zone with the puck.

It gives McInnis

Boston College Goal #4: 5:27 of the 2nd period
Matthew Gaudreau (Michael Kim, Luke McInnis)

BC 4, UVM 0

In BC’s last series of the regular series, the Eagles went up 3-0 on Vermont in the first game of the weekend and promptly gave it all back, settling for the tie. You have to figure that was on their minds after once again jumping ahead to a three goal advantage on the Catamounts.

No such problems tonight. BC scored the first of many daggers on another stretch pass, this time to Matty Gaudreau, who took an incredible pass from Michael Kim right at the blue line for a very, very open breakaway goal.

Vermost asked for a review for offsides, but it was a good goal. That is one impressive pass from Kim.

Boston College Goal #5 (PPG): 13:02 of the 3rd period
Christopher Brown (Matthew Gaudreau, Luke McInnis)

BC 5, UVM 0

Vermont was pretty much dead in the water for the third period after not getting one back in the second, but the Eagles kept the tachometer pegged for the last 20 minutes — something we’ve been dying to see.

Another thing we’ve been dying to see has been a power play goal. After starting out okay on the man advantage early in this game, BC put together an awful 5 minute effort on a kneeing major early in the third period (in which they didn’t even record a shot on goal), but they got another opportunity shortly after.

The reason BC scored was probably because it was on a rush and not a setup power play. We’ll take it.

This is beautiful stuff from Luke McInnis. He’s the one who receives the drop pass from Gaudreau across the blue line, and has himself at no angle to really do anything with the puck. But he snaps a pass over to Brown right as Brown enters the slot, and it’s just perfect timing. Brown will have a hard time missing from there, and it’s 5-0.

Boston College Goal #6 (SHG, TD): 18:30 of the 3rd period
Julius Mattila (Ryan Fitzgerald, Connor Moore)

BC 6, UVM 0

Yet another breakaway opportunity for the Eagles.

This game plan must have taken the Catamounts completely by surprise. BC hasn’t played this strategy all year. In fact, it seems like BC has given up a ton more odd man rushes than they’ve gotten, particularly lately.

This pass from Ryan Fitzgerald is almost coast to coast — it’s actually so far that Mattila has to race to get to it before the goaltender, and he gathers it in right about at the faceoff dot.

He’s got a full head of steam, and Santaguida (who replaced Lekkas after the 2nd period) had just about no time to react.

You’d have thought that was enough, for the Eagles, and it probably was, save for some goonery out of the Catamounts late.

Joe Woll gives a great facewash to a Catamount player after a late scrum, and several penalties later, you’d think that was all she wrote. But another Vermont penalty for slashing 6 seconds later brought the faceoff into the Vermont end, and BC decided to give the Catamounts another one to think about on their way back to the hotel.

Boston College Goal #7 (SHG, PAT): 19:59.8 of the 3rd period
Christopher Brown (Unassisted)

BC 7, UVM 0 — FINAL

Just 0.2 seconds left in the game, and BC gets its extra point.

This is an absolute snipe. Let’s take another look:

Beauty.

Vermont tried to leave the ice without going through the handshake line, but UVM head coach Kevin Sneddon was having none of it and sent his players out to man up and finish the job. Good for him.

It’s too bad this isn’t an aggregate series. The Eagles could probably use some of those goals on Saturday. As the quarterfinals are a best of three, BC will need to take one more win from the Catamounts this weekend to punch their ticket for the TD Garden and the Hockey East semifinals. They’ll also see their season end if they don’t, as their on the wrong side of the NCAA tournament bubble, so they’ve got plenty to play for.