GOAL BY GOAL: Two Quick Goals Lead BC Men’s Hockey Past UConn, 2-1

Boston College has certainly lost its share of games that it should have won, so it’s nice to see that it can go the other way every now and again.

88 seconds into the game, the Eagles had a 2-0 lead and looked like they might have themselves a Tuesday night coast. But the scoring dried up from there, and it was only by the grace of God and Joe Woll that the Eagles were able to hold on the rest of the way. The Huskies out shot Eagles 43-26, but it was Boston College that came away with the two league points with a final score of 2-1.

Boston College Goal #1: 0:54 of the 1st period
Michael Kim (Connor Moore, Austin Cangelosi)

BC 1, UC 0

BC came to play, and luckily for them, they were able to take advantage of their early chances. Otherwise this would have been a difference article.

The Eagles get their first goal right off the draw. It wasn’t even much of a chance, really — Cangelosi wins the draw back (as he is wont to do), Moore slides the puck over to Kim, and Kim throws it into traffic. Somehow it finds its way through a mess of bodies and into the back of the net.

Hey, whatever works.

Boston College Goal #2 (GWG): 1:28 of the 1st period
JD Dudek (Casey Fitzgerald)

BC 2, UC 0

Just seconds later, BC adds insurance (that’s a Hartford joke!) with a prettier goal. Casey Fitzgerald catches UConn mid-change, and JD Dudek is streaking in on goal.

Dudek puts in a slick backhand to forehand move before rifling the puck glove side, beating Nichols and putting the Eagles up 2-0.

After this, the Eagles took shots of tranquilizer and got pretty well worked but UConn for large chunks of the rest of the game. BC was outshot in every period, and substantially over the course of the game, and stayed alive thanks to a bevy of big stops from Joe Woll.

But UConn would make it more interesting in the second period.

UConn Goal #1 (PPG): 6:11 of the 2nd period
Tage Thompson (Maxim Letunov, Philip Nyberg)

BC 2, UC 1 — FINAL

More inopportune penalties — the story of the season — put the Huskies on the board and made the rest of the game a heart attack.

Right off the opening draw of the man advantage for UConn, it’s simple puck movement that gets the puck to an open player. Thompson is given plenty of space (though in fairness he’s not in the most dangerous of scoring areas), so Letunov gives it to him to see what he’s got.

Thompson absolutely unloads on a one-timer that Woll makes an alternative save on, earning him an alternative shutout on the night.

To the third period we went, where the Huskies used goalie intererence to score an alternative goal, keeping the score 2-1.

The rest of the third period saw the Huskies pepper Joe Woll a little more, with Woll equal to the task to keep the Eagles ahead, but it was UConn’s Rob Nichols who had the save of the night.

Nothing alternative about this one — yikes.

BC’s win kept them on the right side of the Pairwise bubble, and thanks to Merrimack’s shock win over Boston University, the Eagles are now 3 points clear of the Terriers (with BU having a game in hand) in the men’s Hockey East standings.

The Eagles are in the middle of league crunch time. Next up is Notre Dame, with BC keeping it at Conte Forum to wrap up a 4 game home stretch. Puck drops at 7pm on Saturday.