GOAL BY GOAL: #1 Boston College Hockey Holds Off #12 Vermont, 4-3

It's not exactly how you draw it up, but it's a win against an NCAA tournament team. Friday night, Patrick Brown led the Eagles with two goals en route to a 4-3 win over the 12th ranked Vermont Catamounts.

Thatcher Demko had his first game since Brown where he gave up more than two goals. But his boys had his back.

Goal #1 -- 13:27 of the 1st period: Austin Cangelosi (Ian McCoshen, Ryan Fitzgerald)
BC 1, UVM 1

Vermont scored the first goal about halfway through the first period on a shot right off the draw, but BC answered just a few minutes later. This is a pretty bad rebound by Vermont goaltender Mike Santaguida. Cangelosi finds it on his stick and fires it home to knot the score up at one.

After two consecutive BC penalties and 4 minutes of UVM power play, BC finally got one of their own with 30 seconds left in the first. It carried over into the second period, and it wouldn't take long until the Eagles would go ahead.

Goal #2 (PPG) -- 0:30 of the 2nd period: John Gaudreau (Kevin Hayes, Bill Arnold)
BC 2, UVM 1

First off, nice little drop back from Arnold to Hayes, allowing Hayes to blast a slapshot. The puck doesn't go in, bu there's another enormous rebound from Santaguida, and unfortunately for him it winds up on the stick of Gaudreau who has time to really pull back and fire for the power play goal that extends his points streak to 25 games.

More penalties -- there were just a ton of whistles in this game -- gave BC 4 straight power play minutes afterward, and then gave Vermont a minute-long 5 on 3 in the second half of the period. Finally, we had a stretch of even strength hockey, and the Captain scored a goal very late for some insurance.

Goal #3 -- 19:49 of the 2nd period: Patrick Brown (Steve Santini, Michael Matheson)
BC 3, UVM 1

Does Patrick Brown know how to man the front of the net or what? He got taken down in the Beanpot, and he's getting totally manhandled on this goal, he but managed to make a brilliant tip both times for the score.

I wouldn't have believed that he would have as many goals as Bill Arnold to this point in the season, but you pull up BC's team stats and there he is.

The third period got pretty interesting, as Vermont scored to get back within 1 just 2 minutes in. But just 23 seconds later, the Captain would answer.

Goal #4 (GWG) -- 2:23 of the 3rd period: Patrick Brown (Ryan Fitzgerald, Austin Cangelosi)
BC 4, UVM 2

Patrick Brown is not just about tipping pucks! He beats his man to the net, allowing Fitzgerald to feed him the puck at the top of the crease. One shifty move to the forehand to get Santaguida to open up the legs and there's a nice insurance goal.

And the Eagles would need it -- with the extra attacker on, Vermont would score a goal with 18 seconds left to cut the lead once again back to one, but they didn't leave themselves enough time to complete the comeback.

So 4-3 was the final. It wasn't BC's best efforts, and it had been a while since they'd given up 4 goals. It was also tough to get much of a flow to the game with all of the whistles. But secondary scoring (which, as I tweeted yesterday, is not an issue) was responsible for all but one of the goals yesterday. It reinforces the fact that BC has so many strengths -- at this point, the first line, the secondary scoring, the defense, and the goaltending. And the coaching. And even the power play. And especially the penalty kill -- that even if you are able to slow one of them down, they have other ways to beat you.

Highlights are below. Game #2 of the weekend series is tonight at 7pm. As a reminder, UVMAthletics.com has free live streaming here. *Dap* to those guys for the quality, free video. Be sure to come back and join in the discussion tonight on the game thread.