On Friday night, the BC men’s hockey team traveled down the street to play the 301st Battle of Comm Ave against BU. After defeating the Terriers in the Beanpot championship game last month, the Eagles are looking to secure their spot inside of the NCAA tournament as the postseason quickly approaches. BU, meanwhile, split its series against UNH last weekend and must make a run in the Hockey East tournament to get to the NCAAs. Both teams have no problem getting up for the greatest rivalry in college hockey, especially considering it was BU’s final home game of the season.
Veteran Eagle Oskar Jellvik saw his first ice action in a long while in the first period. The Terriers started the game with almost total control of the flow of the game as they applied a heavy forecheck that BC struggled to break through. After 10 minutes of pressure, that culminated in a breakaway rebound goal for Ryder Ritchie to give BU a 1-0 lead. That didn’t seem to wake up BC’s roster at all. Goaltender Louka Cloutier was playing admirably as he got shelled all period, but he couldn’t stop every shot. Another flurry of BU attackers pressured the net with under two minutes remaining in the period, and Cole Eiserman eventually found the back of the net to make it 2-0 heading into the intermission. Shots on goal favored the Terriers, 19-4.
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Boston College was gifted a roughing penalty to start the second period, but only managed one real scoring chance on the powerplay. A slashing penalty followed a few minutes later, and finally BC got on the board when Dean Letourneau sniped one by Yegorov right in front of the net on the powerplay. Finally with some momentum, Boston College started to push back and create more of a back-and-forth game. Their powerplay looked more steady on the third go-around, but failed to convert towards the end of the period. It left BC staring at a 2-1 deficit even though they had been given a 3-0 powerplay advantage thus far.
BU finally got a (weak) slashing call because the refs were just dying to call something the other way. The Terrier powerplay failed, but they quickly got a weak interference call to go back on the man-advantage. That one failed too as the third period began.
Playing with more energy now, BC got some great opportunities in front of Yegorov at the start of the third period. Jake Sondreal had a wide open shot on net after a deflected pass, but passed to his covered teammate instead of firing at the net. BC’s newest freshman forward Oscar Hemming got caught slashing at the shins of a BU defender for another penalty, but the Eagles killed it incredibly well. Still, with time ticking down, Boston College still needed to score and at least equalize the 2-1 score.
BC finally played with urgency as the third period progressed. They out-physicalled the Terriers and connected on threatening passes that finally broke them into the offensive zone. From there they had plenty of scrums and bounces in front of Yegorov that came close to tying the game, but they were either just wide or saved each time. BC was finally controlling the flow of the game, but it was much too late and they needed to actually convert. Dean Letourneau was doing a great job of creating scoring opportunities and finding his teammates in a position to shoot, but either the passes were just a bit too difficult to handle or the Eagles just couldn’t focus in on the shots, because none of them actually made their way past Yegorov’s pads.
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With about 2 minutes left, BC called their timeout and prepared for the final push. They pulled their goalie and got a couple of great opportunities to score, but the final shot hit Yegorov on the neck and BU went down the other way to score the empty-netter. Time expired and Boston College fell to Boston University, 3-1.
