I wanted to offer up a few quick thoughts on this week's games. As you probably know, BC beat Brown on Tuesday before settling for a pair of ties vs Providence over the weekend. In honor of transparency, I did not catch a lot of the Saturday game, despite my best efforts at my college roommate's engagement party.
BC got their first non-conference win of the season on Tuesday as they beat Brown 4-2 at Meehan Auditorium. To be perfectly honest, I thought BC was a little lucky to get out of there with a win. It was one of the poorer performances of the season, in my mind. However, they continue to succeed when it comes to the special teams battle. Cutter Gauthier had a very nice power-play goal, a move he would repeat three days later and BC's penalty kill was good once again, despite giving up a late tally. I thought BC came out of the gate hot against the Bears- their first period on Tuesday was one of their best all week. The staff mixed up the lines- opting to split up Cutter Gauthier and Nikita Nesterenko for the first time since the game at Merrimack. I am a little worried about how this team is closing out games. After BC went up 1-0, they had a couple of great chances to make it 2-0 right away, but did not do so. For the first two periods, BC did a nice job of preventing Brown from getting many grade A chances, with the exception being a golden opportunity in the middle frame just to the right of Mitch Benson, who made an unreal save. Benson was BC's best player all week- he won them the Brown game, prevented them from losing by five goals on Friday night and gave them a chance to win on Saturday. Besides the second Northeastern game, I think Benson has been what BC needed him to be coming into the season. Is he Spencer Knight or Thatcher Demko? No, but he keeps giving BC a puncher's chance in games they have no business being in.
My biggest concern stemming from the Brown game was how badly they got outplayed in the third period. I know what the shot totals were, but to me, those are awfully deceiving. First of all, Brown had two breakaways in a span of two minutes but thankfully, Benson was there to clean up the mess. BC keeps running into problems because of dumb penalties. For example, the officials called a penalty on Brown with under four minutes left in the game when BC was up 2-0. That should have been the end of the game right there- just move it around on the power-play, kill some time, and maybe make it 3-0. Instead, BC turns it over and one of their rookies takes a penalty. Of course, Brown scored on their ensuing power-play to make it a one goal game. Honestly, it felt like Northeastern all over again for a moment- Brown had a really good chance to tie the game right after they scored their first goal, but Benson made the save. BC was able to capitalize on a mistake at the Brown offensive blue line to score an empty netter, making it 3-1, but then Brown turned around and scored thirty seconds later. BC eventually got another empty net goal courtesy of Nikita Nesterenko, his second of the game. Like Coach Brown said after they tied Northeastern at Matthews (the second time), this team just has moments where they give up too much time and space. Sometimes against less talented teams like Brown, they can get away with it. If that happens, say, next Friday? Won't be pretty.
Onto the Providence series. I still can't believe BC got out of that Friday game with a tie. They were outplayed pretty much for the entirety of the contest and honestly did not have many great chances to take the lead at any point in the third period. Cutter Gauthier scored another power-play goal to give BC the 1-0 lead in the first period. BC's power-play has been good as of late. As of now, the Eagles have the 17th best man advantage in the country, which is good for second in Hockey East. When you are struggling to score 5 on 5 goals, which BC is, having a power-play that can perform at a level like that can help make up for some deficiencies. I thought BC's best portion of the game came right after they went up 1-0 in the first, but they were unable to double that lead. Providence tied the game up with under four minutes left in the first period because a BC defenseman was unable to cover his man in front of Benson- it was not pretty.
Another takeaway I had from Friday's game was that BC's top guys struggled to get anything going at even strength. I think they need to give it some time with the new lines, but guys like Nesterenko and Ambrosio just had a tough time garnering any grade A opportunities. Things got a bit chippy as the game went on- both teams took some ill-advised penalties, but BC got very lucky that neither of the penalties that were reviewed ended up being five-minute majors because both were, at minimum, borderline. Providence's best chance to take the lead was on their power-play in the second after an Aidan Hreschuk elbowing penalty as a loose puck came right out to the slot, but Benson was there to make the save.
Overtime was much of the same- Providence had the puck for the majority of the stanza, but BC did have one great chance when Eamon Powell made a pass to Cam Burke on an odd man rush, but Burke mishandled the puck. I don't think there is any doubt that both games, but especially Friday, can be described as "good" ties for BC. The Friars were the better team for most of the weekend, particularly on Friday, but the fact that BC was able to get a single point out of Friday's game was nothing short of a miracle.
As I said earlier, I did not get to see the entirety of the Saturday game, but I did see most of the third and OT. First of all, it was great to see Matt Argentina play like that. He's a guy that has been in and out of the lineup over the past couple of games, but the coaches gave him a shot last night with Jellvik out (illness) and he made the most of it. When your best players are a bit off their games, like BC's top guys were this weekend, you need secondary scoring and BC had that on Saturday. Connor Joyce got his second career goal at the conclusion of a very solid shift from BC's fourth line. BC kept grinding and were rewarded when Argentina made it 2-1 with 12 minutes left in the second- he finished off a two on one to give the Eagles the lead. Unfortunately, Providence once again responded after BC turned the puck over in their own end. They had a clear opportunity to get the puck out and get going up the ice, but they couldn't do so and as good teams do, Providence made them pay. I know I sound like a broken record on this, but BC has to clean up their defensive zone play. They really struggle making plays along the walls and getting pucks out. Their transition game is not what it once was, but they're shooting themselves in the foot seemingly every game with turnovers. BC is not going to be able to win many games in this league if they keep turning it over at this rate. Lastly, I try not to be the whistle whiner that I may or may not have been in the previous rendition of this blog, but that embellishment call on Leddy at the end of the third period was just a flat out embarrassment- I hope BC says something to the league about it because they should have had a power-play to end that game.
It was nice to see them get the shootout victory yesterday- they certainly played better on Saturday than they did the night before, but they were still outplayed for most of the game. To me, there are two ways of looking at things. One, as I've said before, they're not losing any games they're supposed to win (although they could have against Brown), so if they can pick up some wins against good teams, they'll give themselves a chance. On the other hand, they have to start winning some of those games- Lowell was a good win, but they need more. They were up a goal with under ten minutes last night and could not get it done in what would have been a massive pairwise victory. My personal opinion is that unless they bring their game up another level, they won't be winning many of those important games because you can't expect your goalie to play like that every night. By my count, BC has eleven games here on out against teams ranked 23rd or higher in the pairwise standings- eight of those are against teams ranked in the top ten (BU, UConn, and UMass). Obviously, no one is expecting them to win all of or even most of those games. However, if they can pick off some wins in those contests and then do what they're supposed to do against Vermont, Maine, and Sacred Heart, they'll be okay. There's a lot of hockey left to be played, but it won't matter unless they take their game up a notch because the way they played this weekend is unsustainable.
They have one more game before break and it happens to be the most important one of the semester. I have no doubt they'll be ready to play on Friday- it is a huge game for them. Sooner or later, they are going to have to start adding some wins against quality opponents. No better time to start than on Friday night. See you then.
