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Boston College Men’s Hockey pulled off one of its ugliest wins in recent memory on Friday night in game one of the Men’s Hockey East quarterfinals.
The Eagles were more than doubled up in shots in all three periods of play — 11-2, 11-4, 15-7 — but scored the game’s only goal in the second period for the only stat that mattered. Joe Woll put together a pristine 37-save effort to lead the way for the Eagles as they took the 1-0 win and 1-0 series lead over the Merrimack Warriors.
Boston College Goal #1 (PPG, GWG): 17:08 of the 2nd period
Connor Moore (Graham McPhee, Aapeli Räsänen)
BC 1, MC 0 — FINAL
There isn’t much to say about this entire game leading up to and following this point. The Eagles were unable to make anything happen offensively, until Merrimack took a penalty late in the second period.
The Eagles actually did a halfway decent job of using the extra space on the ice with the man advantage. BC is moving the puck down low, where the Warriors have things pretty well clogged up. All four Merrimack defensemen are below the hashmarks, so McPhee and Räsänen quickly pass the puck up top with Moore filling the vacuum in the high slot.
He’s all the way in to the top of the circles before he fires away, and the puck goes off the shoulder of Pantano and in for the 1-0 lead and eventual game-winner.
The Eagles are going to have to play better than this in games going forward, but they’ll definitely take the win any way they can get it. Hopefully BC can chalk this up to being rusty after two weeks off, but with a game under their belt on the weekend, they won’t be able to use that excuse Saturday night.