#1 Boston College Loses To #9 Boston University, 4-2ish

Joseph Gravellese: Alright. We're not going to get dramatic about one game. We are NOT going to get dramatic about one game. We are not going to get dramatic about ONE game.

If we WERE getting dramatic, we'd be concerned about the fact that BC's offense looked utterly anemic when the first line wasn't on the ice.

Grant Salzano: That sucked.

JG: But, we're not. Right?

GS: No. I think we're okay.

We ran into a good goalie and couldn't bury our chances. That's going to happen. But Milner looked good, the top line looked good... We really lose this game after a bad second period, and even then we weren't really truly out of it until the end-of-game chaos.

I think we gotta just chalk it up to "one of those games."

But $^%$#$&#@^&@$%^&@##

JG: Fair. They happen, they've just been so rare lately. But yes, @$!@#!@#1. A couple of opportunities lost toninght: obviously, the chance to see York break and tie the record against BU; the fact that we will most likely see the record broken away from Conte (well, hopefully it doesn't take that long), and BC's seniors missed out on sweeping all six career games at Agganis.

JG: So, it's a real bummer, and the first real disappointing performance on the big stage by BC in quite some time.

To recap, for those who missed it: the Eagles dug themselves an 0-2 hole in a very bad second period in which BU really, really dominated in all facets of the game. The Eagles nicked one back late in the second on a Pat Mullane goal from Johnny Gaudreau (who picked up another two points). But that was a close as BC would get. The Terriers added another early in the third period on a Matt Grwillzyxzkzkzk wraparound goal and ultimately won 4-2 after each team scored in garbage time (which featured some hilarity that we will get to later).

GS: O'Connor really stood on his head. But we also missed opportunities and shot it into diving defenders.

Ugh. It was just lame.

JG: BU did a very good job of blocking shots, yes. But we also made our own bad luck from time to time -- some of those usually crisp tape-to-tape feeds and drop passes were just a little off tonight, and I thought sometimes BC tried to force that pass when the shot was there.

GS: Fortunately, there was some late game ridiculousness to take the sting off of things...

JG: Indeed. So...you wanna take a crack at describing garbage time?

GS: I'll try?

With just about two minutes left, and BC trailing 3-1, Alexx With Two X's Privatera got two minutes for hitting from behind, and another two for unsportsmanlike conduct -- a big additional penalty, because if BC was able to score the first goal, they would still have the last two minutes of the second power play to get the tying goal.

Unfortunately that didn't happen, as BU scored an empty netter to make it 4-1. Privatera somehow got a 10 minute misconduct from the box (he left the box or something?) and then a few seconds later BU got another penalty for slashing. With the goalie pulled, BC had a 6 on 3, and Gaudreau managed to put one home.

So, then... what the hell happened? I have no idea what happened from there.

JG: Okay, so.

BC's goal on the two man advantage, of course, wiped out one of the BU penalties. So the guy who was in the boxx serving the penalty for Alexxxx Privatera came out of the boxx to rejoin the play. Except... he couldn't do that. It just knocked the penalty down to two minutes remaining, as it was a double-minor...

But the crack officiating team didn't really notice that BU inappropriately lined up with 4 players against BC's 6, when it should have been 3.

BU won the faceoff, then rolled one into the empty net (and drained about 8 seconds off the clock in the process).

Except, yeah, they weren't supposed to have four players on the ice. I'm not sure what the official rule is in this case, but what happened ultimately was that the whole play was wiped out -- the goal came off the board and the clock got reset to 34 seconds or whatever was supposed to be left.

To add to the confusion, after the clock ran out, the jumbotron read BU 3, BC 2 final. Yep.

GS: So it was either 5-2, or 4-2, or 3-2, but it definitely wasn't 3-2, and I don't think it was 5-2, so 4-2. Kind of.

JG: As usual, a BC/BU game had garbage time shenanigans. What else is new?

GS: We won't let this go too long, but I would like to give a quick shout out to the BU fan with the "BC Swimming and DIVING" sign, who looked kind of stupid after Evan "Pudge" Rodrigues got called for embellishment. Womp womp.

JG: As I tweeted earlier tonight, every time a BU player gets called for embellishment, an angel gets its wings. That's three times this year already just against BC. That, and the late game shenanigans, were enough of a laugh to take a little bit of the sting out of this one.

But not all of it.

Goddamnit.

There's no time to dwell, though. We're all bummed about losing the chance for the ALL OF THE RECORDS weekend, but losing out on that doesn't change the fact that tomorrow night is a HUGE game, for both momentum purposes and pairwise purposes. The fact that BC played a much stronger third period and had a few chances stymied that might have turned the game makes me feel a little bit better going into tomorrow night.

But I'm REALLY concerned about how... overmatched we look when the top line isn't out there. Gaudreau can make magic happen any time he's on the ice, but we need to see some secondary scoring. We need Straight back... the lineup looks just so much thinner without him.

GS: York gets a chance to tie The Record tonight at home against these same Terriers at 7:30pm. If you'll be around, come down to Conte at 2pm to see the Lady Eagles face Maine. Joe and I will be at both games.

JG: Indeed. The women, by the way, had an amusing 7-2 victory tonight over Maine, outshooting Maine 53-10. Hopefully we see more of the same tomorrow.

Go Eagles.