The No. 14 Boston College Eagles men’s hockey team defeated the Boston University Terriers 6-2 on Monday night to win the Beanpot championship.
Although the game was not perfect, the Eagles had multiple positives and showed a lot of promise heading into the final four weeks of regular season play.
Below are three takeaways from the victory.
Eagles Power Play Unit Looked Stellar
One of the highlights of Boston College’s win over Boston University on Monday night was its success on the power play. In the victory, three of the Eagles’ six goals came during a power play, Andre Gasseau’s game-tying goal late in the first, Lukas Gustafsson’s goal to make it 3-1 in the second, and Gasseau’s second goal of the night early in the third. In total, the Eagles capitalized on three of their four power-play attempts, all of them coming within seconds of the power play starting.
On the other side of the power play, Boston College’s penalty kill also impressed. The Eagles only allowed one power play goal out of five tries for Boston University which came late in the third period by Cole Eiserman.
Coming into the contest, Boston College ranked 19th in the nation in penalty kill percentage (.826) and ninth in power play percentage (.250).
Boston College Proved It Can Face Adversity
The Eagles have had to face a lot of adversity and challenges this season. Monday night was no different. Not only did Boston College face adversity heading into the matchup trying to bounce back from its worst loss of the season 6-1 to the Vermont Catamounts on Friday night, but the team also faced adversity to start the game. The Eagles came out of the gate looking sluggish and did not play aggressively. The bad start resulted in the Terriers scoring first within the first three minutes to go up 1-0 early. Boston College was not able to score the equalizer until late in the period and was not able to go in front until the middle frame.
In the first period, Boston University outshot the Eagles 27-11 and had more shots on goal 9-7. After the rough start, Boston College tightened up, played smarter, was more aggressive, and looked like one of the top teams in the nation.
Boston College Stays In Postseason Contention
It is no secret that Boston College has had its ups and downs this season. Heading into the Beanpot championship with Boston University, the Eagles sat at No. 14 in RPI, the new formula that replaced the Pairwise this season, while the Terriers were No. 24. With only 16 teams making the postseason field in college hockey and conference champions being automatic qualifiers, any loss could put Boston College in jeopardy of missing NCAA Regionals.
However, since the Eagles won, they moved up to No. 12 in the RPI and will have a chance to move up even more against Merrimack this weekend.
