Defensemen Scoring Goals and Some Noticeable Absences on Saturday Night: Boston College Men’s Hockey Weekend Thoughts

Looking back on another two-win weekend

The Boston College men’s hockey team kept rolling this past weekend, picking up a pair of wins against Vermont as the regular season continues to wind down. That makes six straight wins for the Eagles, who can clinch the Hockey East regular season title with two wins in their final three games. With a home-and-home series against UNH coming up, let’s take one last look back on some of what stood out from another successful weekend of hockey.

DEFENSEMEN CHIP IN ON THE SCORING

Three different blue liners lit the lamp on Friday night, with Lukas Gustafsson opening the scoring before Jacob Bengtsson and Aidan Hreschuk added goals of their own later on. For a team that scores as much as BC does, they haven’t actually gotten a ton of goals from their defense, with Gustafsson, Eamon Powell, and Drew Fortescue all leading the way with three each.

That’s not to say anyone in this group has been unimpressive this year, far from it. Powell and Hreschuk have already set career bests in scoring while Bengtsson has been a fantastic addition as a senior transfer from Lake Superior. But it was nice to see a number of them rewarded with goals after doing a lot of the dirty work for the past several weeks to help get BC to where they are.

BIG ABSENCES MAKE SATURDAY A GRIND

BC faced some adversity when they were looking to make it a sweep on Saturday night. After winning on Friday night by a decisive 7-1 score, the Eagles were without two of their most important players on Saturday, with both Eamon Powell and Gabe Perreault coming out of the lineup. Powell is the captain and the leader of a much improved defense while Perreault was leading the country in scoring after a two-point game in the first game of the weekend. BC has been mostly fortunate this season in terms of avoiding injuries to big name players, but these were two big names that they were missing.

As a result, Saturday night was not a pretty hockey game. The Eagles managed to win 4-2 largely thanks to a few moments of individual brilliance spread out over the 60 minutes, but it was clear from the start that they were feeling the absences, particularly up front. While the new look first line that saw Cutter Gauthier skating next to Will Smith and Ryan Leonard accounted for all four goals and looked as dominant as expected, the other three lines didn’t generate much at all. Of BC’s 31 shots on goal, 16 came from the top line with another 11 coming from defensemen. Only Oskar Jellvik and Andre Gasseau registered a shot on goal out of the non first line forwards, meaning that lines three and four were shut out all together. The power play looked awful as well, coming up empty on six opportunities and never really looking remotely dangerous.

Defensively, the Eagles held up just fine, only allowing 19 shots on goal on Saturday night. Charlie Leddy, who has spent most of the season listed as the seventh defenseman, has proven more than capable of skating more regular shifts when called upon, and outside of a few breakdowns early in the first and third periods, Vermont didn’t threaten all that much offensively. But the offensive struggles are a concern. As it is right now, BC has two lines that they can rely on to score regularly. It’s a bit alarming how quickly that became one line by removing just one player on Saturday night, even if the player who was missing has arguably been the team’s best player this season. It doesn’t sound like either injury will be anything long term, so let’s hope both players can get back on the ice soon so we can get back to watching the kind of team that we saw on Friday night.

ELITE PLAYERS MAKING ELITE PLAYS

Hey it’s the weekly part of this column where I gush about how incredible the high end talent on this team is. Will Smith and Gabe Perreault are first and second in the country in scoring. Cutter Gauthier is tied for third and Ryan Leonard is all the way up to seventh and could absolutely climb even higher based on how red hot he’s been these past few weeks. The four of them combined for four or five highlight reel goals this weekend, but I think my favorite was when Smith just created a goal out of absolutely nowhere for Perreault:

We’re lucky to have these guys, enjoy watching them for the rest of the season