GOAL BY GOAL: Boston College Hockey Tops Maine, Sweeps Weekend

Boston College hockey is back on track.

It was another weekend against bottom-tier opponents, but BC finally appears to be taking care of business—and looking pretty good doing it. Despite giving up their first shorthanded goal of the season, the Eagles handled the Maine Black Bears at Conte Forum, 4-1.

Oh, and we transitively beat BU, which, neat.

Boston College Goal #1: 9:35 of the 1st period
Teddy Doherty (Destry Straight, Chris Calnan)

BC 1, UMass 0

BC's strength in this game was in creating "Grade A" opportunities. The shot count was an unremarkable 27-23 (in BC's favor) but the Eagles certainly had the better chances.

And this is one of them. Somehow a 3 on 1 develops for BC that turns into a 2 on 0. Maine's guys just get burned by Straight and Doherty and and Dan Renouf, #2 for Maine, goes over to try to play Calnan. It's a bad string of events because Calnan is able to dish to Straight, and Renouf can't turn around in time to have any effect on the on the play.

Straight gathers in the puck and at the last second dishes over to Doherty who pokes the puck past Sean Romeo for the early BC lead.

Maine Goal #1 (SHG): 11:57 of the 1st period
Blaine Byron (Cam Brown)

BC 1, Maine 1

Hey Matheson wyd

— Austin (@blanksy3) November 23, 2014

Yeah, this.

I love me some Michael Matheson but this is not good. Matheson has a puck go off his skates onto the stick of Maine's #21, Cam Brown. It wasn't the best pass in the world, so we'll let that slide. But if you follow Matheson for the rest of the play he ends up not really defending anything. He glides over to one guy, glides over to a second guy, and then glides into the slot, losing track of the eventual goal scorer, Byron, in the process.

Byron has a totally free lane onto Demko's doorstep and just needs to finish a nice pass from Brown.

Not good.

Boston College Goal #2 (GWG): 1:38 of the 2nd period
Destry Straight (Adam Gilmour, Teddy Doherty)

BC 2, Maine 1

Redemption, thy name is Destry Straight.

Destry has been a bit of a goat on the BC Hockey twitterverse, but he made himself look pretty darn good tonight. He sets up this play early on by handing off the puck to Teddy Doherty at the point in space, and then just goes right to the net. Not really hockey rocket science but he gets himself in such perfect position at such perfect timing that he has the equivalent of a layup to beat Romeo.

Boston College Goal #3: 5:11 of the 2nd period
Destry Straight (Adam Gilmour, Matt Gaudreau)

BC 3, Maine 1

And he wasn't done!

For some reason there are four Black Bears on one side of the ice going toward Gilmour, giving Straight space to cross the blue line. Then does a really nice job of using the Maine defenseman as a screen and firing off a real rocket of a wrist shot past Romeo for the insurance.

Boston College Goal #4: 2:51 of the 3rd period
Alex Tuch (Unassisted)

BC 4, Maine 1 -- FINAL

And if there was any doubt whether BC was going to be able to let Maine hang in the game or find the goal to put them away, Alex Tuch answered that question nice and early. He just totally burns his defender to create a 2 on 1, and then (my favorite part) gives a sly little shimmy that keeps the other defender off him and close to the other half of the odd man rush.

It earns him a totally clear lane to the net and Tuch rifles an absolute laser to wrap up the scoring.

The weekend was nothing to write home about—Maine and UMass are pretty bad, after all—but BC controlled both games and managed to create chances and score goals. The offense was nicely balanced, too.

BC has quietly climbed to 22nd in the Pairwise. They're going to need to keep winning games to get out of the hole they've dug, but they can see daylight.

Next up: Minnesota. Friday night at 6pm, with a chance at a season-altering W. Here's to BC getting a little payback on the last couple meetings with the Gophers.