FINAL: Notre Dame 3, Boston College 2 - Deja vu as shorthanded Eagles lose lead

Things started off well enough for Boston College: a pair of first period power play goals boosted them to a 2-0 lead in South Bend. David Cotton and Julius Mattila had things feeling pretty good after 20 minutes.

But in the second 20 minutes, everything fell apart, as the Anders Bjork show took over. The Boston Bruins draft pick sniped both a power play goal and a shorthanded goal as Notre Dame erased a two goal deficit to take a 3-2 lead.

BC got a few chances in the third period, but not nearly enough, and Notre Dame held on for a big win.

It was deja vu for BC as it felt like a mirror image of last year’s BC-ND game in December at Conte Forum. Like last year, the Eagles were very shorthanded - both Ryan Fitzgerald and Austin Cangelosi were out, and the Eagles were forced to roll three lines for most of the night. And like last year, an early burst of energy wasn’t enough, as BC couldn’t hang on to a 2-0 lead.

Though BC had an excellent first half, this will be a bitter pill to swallow as BC carries a 13-6-1 record in to the break. Now the Eagles will stew on this for 17 days until they play Quinnipiac in Pittsburgh, when they’ll be even more shorthanded — Ryan Fitzgerald will definitely be out, as will most if not all of Julius Mattila, Jesper Mattila, Colin White, Casey Fitzgerald and Joe Woll. It will be a big test for this Eagles team, going through adversity after a strong start.