GOAL BY GOAL: BC Men’s Hockey Comes Away With 6-4 Win Over New Hampshire

Another game for Boston College, another great 5 on 5 effort, and another struggle on special teams.

That’s been the story all season long. The only question has been whether or not BC would be able to overcome its special teams woes to come away with the win. Fortunately, Friday night at New Hampshire saw a happy ending for the Eagles as Boston College skated out of the Whittemore Center Arena with a 6-4 win.

Boston College Goal #1: 5:00 of the 1st period
JD Dudek (Colin White, Graham McPhee)

BC 1, UNH 0

Nice quick start out of BC, and they’re able to jump out to the lead. UNH doesn’t do anything particularly terrible, but there are really too many skaters in white coming over to play the near side where the puck is — two Eagles are over there, and four Wildcats have their eyes on them.

The problem is, this allows Dudek to sneak in the back door. He’s got a pretty clean lane to the net, and ends up taking the shot from a pretty decent angle. He beats UNH goaltender Daniel Tirone for the score, and the party’s officially underway.

Boston College Goal #2: 8:44 of the 1st period
Colin White (JD Dudek, Connor Moore)

BC 2, UNH 0

Just a few minutes later and it’s a two goal lead. Here at BC Interruption we like to call this “The Kelli Stack.” Former BC women’s hockey and current USA Hockey legend Kelli Stack made this play famous while she was at BC, which involved skating a full circle around the offensive zone before finding her own shooting land and taking the shot.

That’s pretty much what we’ve got from Colin White here. Just a little scenic tour of the UNH end, ending up in the slot before anyone can really do anything about it, and taking a really nice shot through a screen. Nice goal.

Unfortunately, the Wildcats would score the next two — right at the end of the 1st, and at the beginning of the second — to make it a new game. But the Eagles responded well.

Boston College Goal #3: 3:46 of the 2nd period
Ryan Fitzgerald (Matt Gaudreau)

BC 3, UNH 2

It didn’t take long for BC to get back on track after the UNH rally, thanks to a beauty of a foced turnover from Matt Gaudreau.

Matty just straight up races his man down, lifts the stick, steals the puck, and finds his man for the one timer. That’s the sort of tenacity that wins you hockey games, and it’s a big reason why Matt Gaudreau is still the team leader in scoring.

Side note: This goal looked exactly like BC’s fourth goal against Notre Dame last week.

Boston College Goal #4: 17:02 of the 2nd period
Scott Savage (Ron Grece, Mike Booth)

BC 4, UNH 2

Scott Savage wound up for a huge, back-scratching slapshot on this goal, and he did not miss. The puck found its way cleanly through for the goal, but it wasn’t without controversy.

Daniel Tirone — along with all the UNH fans in the arena — felt that he was interfered with on the play. But contact was made after the puck had already beaten him (and he was a good two feet out of his crease), so the goal would stand.

Boston College Goal #5 (GWG): 0:34 of the 3rd period
Luke McInnis (Matt Gaudreau, Ryan Fitzgerald)

BC 5, UNH 2

BC was up two after two periods, but with 20 minutes to play, that was plenty of time for the Wildcats to score two of their own. The start of the third period was critical, and the Eagles were up to the challenge.

Right off the bat, the Eagles get the insurance goal to go up by 3. Luke McInnis gets the puck all the way back at the blue line, but there aren’t any Wildcats up there to challenge the play. So McInnis makes the smart play and creeps as far in as UNH will let him go — and they do let him go — before whipping off a wrist shot that went in and out of the net so fast even he didn’t know he’d scored.

The puck ricocheted off the crossbar, off the back bar, and all the way out to the neutral zone, but the referee on the goal line got a good look and signaled goal right away.

That goal would be pretty big for BC. Thanks to a couple untimely penalties, the Wildcats were able to scrape their way back into the game. One UNH’s goal to climb within one, Chris Calnan took a 5+game penalty for contact to the head, handing UNH a power play for the remaining 3:29.

But, the one time the BC penalty kill needed to buckle down, they got the job done.

Boston College Goal #6 (SHG, ENG): 19:13 of the 3rd period
Austin Cangelosi (Michael Kim)

BC 6, UNH 4 — FINAL

BC gets the shorty and the empty netter, and that would seal the deal. BC gets two league points, staying three points clear of BU in the Hockey East standings, and jumped to #8 in the Pairwise.

Now, all eyes look forward to Beanpot Monday, and BC’s third matchup of the season with Boston University. After getting swept in the season series last month, the Eagles hope to dish out some revenge in the battle for Boston.