The Boston College men’s hockey team dropped the first game of the weekend series with Denver on Friday night, falling by a 5-2 score after an ugly third period. The Eagles hung right with the Pioneers for the first two periods and had a chance to come away with a result from a team that has given them fits over the past several seasons, but instead they dropped their second consective game to fall to 1-3 on the season.
Playing a team with championship aspirations in a hostile environment, the Eagles played pretty well for most of the first period. They killed off an early power play chance from Denver and created a few good scoring chances of their own, inclduing a fantastic individual rush from Oscar Hemming that lead to a two-on-one rush from in close. Denver eventually broke through with about three minutes left in the period, however, scoring the first goal of the game n a perfect wrist shot from the slot that beat Louka Cloutier to give the Pioneers a 1-0 after the opening 20 miuntes.
Denver made it 2-0 just a few minutes into the second period in a brutal swing of events for BC. The Eagles had a breakaway chance that was turned aside on one end, and then allowed a long stretch pass that gave Denver a breakaway of their own that they were able to bury for a 2-0 lead. The goal didn’t seem to impact BC that much, however, as the Eagles continued to play a strong game and generated a number of dangerous looks at the net. They were finally rewarded just about halfway through the period when Dean Letourneau slammed home a puck into a wide open net after a great passing play to set him up. The Eagles kept applying the pressure on the ensuing shift and tied things up after a flurry in front of the net lead to Will Vote redirecting a shot for his first goal of the season. They almost took the lead on a Denver power play a few minutes later, but Jake Sondreal was turned away on a breakaway that he created after forcing a turnover at his own blue line.
Unfortuntaely for BC, they were not able to maintain their level of play for the full 60 minutes on Friday night. Denver regained their lead almost immediately in the third period, scoring under a minute in to make it a 3-2 game. They regained their two-goal lead a few minutes later and the game felt pretty much over from there on out. BC did have a chance to get back into the game with a late power play chance, but they weren’t ablet to capitalized and Denver added an empty net goal as they took this game by a 4-2 score.
This was a frustrating game at the end of the day, as BC played 40 really strong minutes of hockey over the first two periods before falling apart a bit in the first half of the third period. It was not an entirely unexpected result considering where the two teams are right now, but it would have been nice to start the weekend off on the right foot. Instead, the Eagles will need to find a way to grind out a result tomorrow night when they finish off their weekend series with the Pioneers.