The Boston University men’s hockey team hung tough with No. 14/15 Boston College for two periods Saturday night, but the Eagles overpowered the Terriers in the third, scoring three unanswered goals to earn a 4-1 victory at Agganis Arena.
BC (8-3-2, 6-3-2 Hockey East) sophomore defenseman Edwin Shea broke the 1-1 deadlock just 38 seconds into the final stanza with his first career goal.
Shea picked up the winner after BC sophomore forward Cam Atkinson stormed down the right wing and nailed the right post with a snap shot. He then tracked down the rebound and worked it back to Shea at the right point. The Shrewsbury native threw the puck toward the front of the net and it deflected off the skate of BU (4-8-3, 2-7-2) junior defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk (minus-3) and into the net.
Five minutes later, junior forward Joe Whitney (1 goal, 1 assist) gave the Eagles some insurance. Coming into the BU zone 3-on-2, BC sophomore forward Jimmy Hayes (2 assists) took a pass in the left faceoff circle and drew junior defenseman Colby Cohen (minus-3) to him before dropping the puck back to Whitney. The Reading native took a few steps in and then rifled a slap shot over sophomore goalie Kieran Millan’s (23 saves) right shoulder.
‘I think the third goal was a real bad read by our defenseman,’ BU coach Jack Parker said. ‘It was a 3-on-2 and our defenseman just played the wrong guy and let that guy walk down Broadway and rip one. And [Millan] couldn’t come running out on him because he still had to worry about the other guys, too.
‘It’s still a 3-on-2, and that kid can really shoot the puck. That’s point blank, 25 feet, coming into it and driving it.’
Junior forward Brian Gibbons capped off the scoring seven minutes later when he picked a bouncing puck off the stick of Shattenkirk, blew by the Terrier defense and slid a backhander past Millan’s outstretched left leg.
Despite the disappointing outcome, Parker said he was much happier with his team’s effort Saturday night than he was with its effort in a 3-3 tie against the University of Vermont on Friday, and made sure to credit BC for being the better team.
‘I thought we got beat by an awful good college hockey team tonight,’ he said. ‘I thought they played extremely well. They’re very quick, they’re tenacious and they did a great job in front of their net defending. I thought we played hard tonight. I was happy with my team’s effort.
‘We got a point [Friday] night in a game and outshot the other team badly, and I don’t think we played very well because of our lack of tenacity. I thought we played pretty hard tonight . . . The better team won tonight.’
After a scoreless first period that featured little in the way of sustained puck possession or quality scoring chances, junior forward Nick Bonino put BU on the board 2:10 into the second with his third goal in four games.
The assistant captain, who saw his streak of 39 straight games of BU not losing when he scores a point come to an end,’ gained control in the left corner and headed for the left post. At the last second, he opted to go behind the net rather than out front, and beat junior goalie John Muse (30 saves) to the right side, where he was able to quickly tuck the wraparound inside the post.
The Terriers had a golden chance to make it 2-0 when they had a 5-on-3 for 1:06 midway through the second. It quickly turned into what amounted to a 5-on-2 when freshman defenseman Philip Samuelsson broke his stick just seconds in. Despite teeing up one one-timer after another, though, each shot either failed to beat Muse or failed to hit the net altogether.
‘The 5-on-3 certainly was key,’ BC coach Jerry York said. ‘Philip Samuelsson broke his stick and became a passenger, and Johnny made some great saves. We got some fortunate bounces there, too . . . That was like a shooting gallery out there, and we came up with some incredible saves and some shots that were just wide there.’
The Eagles tied the game at one with 2:18 to go in the middle frame when senior defenseman Carl Sneep walked across the blue line and fired a wrist shot through a screen and into the top right corner.
BU is now just 1-6-2 in its last nine Hockey East games and finds itself sitting in ninth place, eight points behind conference leaders BC and the University of New Hampshire. With just an out-of-conference contest against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute between now and the new year, the Terriers have four weeks to regroup before hosting the No. 9 University of Massachusetts-Amherst on Jan. 2.
‘We can turn some things around for sure,’ Parker said. ‘Can we catch BC? Probably not. Can we catch UNH? Probably not. In order for us to get back in this, we have to win five league games in a row and start looking like we’re a hockey team again. And that can be done, maybe. But there’s no reason to think it’s going to be automatic.’
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