61st Beanpot: Quinn Smith, Boston College Roll to 4-1 Win Over Harvard
By Joe Micik
Boston College hockey knows what time of year it is and are responding accordingly. On Monday evening in the second Beanpot semifinal at the TD Garden, the Eagles defeated the Harvard Crimson, 4-1.
The Eagles will face the Northeastern Huskies next Monday at 7:30pm in the title game of the 61st Beanpot Championship. Earlier on Monday, Northeastern claimed a 3-2 victory over the Boston University Terriers.
With the victory, BC improves to 16-7-2 on the season and has now won consecutive games for the first time since late November. Boston College has now also won eight consecutive games in the Beanpot dating back to the 2009 consolation game.
The Eagles did not have a shot on goal for approximately the first nine minutes of the game, though Harvard hardly generated much offensive pressure themselves during that stretch. Thereafter, Boston College completely dominated the contest. On their first power play, despite not having scored, BC managed six shots on goal and kept the puck in their offensive zone for nearly the entire advantage; from there, the Eagles were off to the races.
Sophomore Quinn Smith was first to get BC on the scoreboard with a very late goal in the opening period; his goal came at 19:31 and made the score 1-0 Eagles heading into the intermission (assists Wey, Dyroff). Boston College enjoyed scoring at the end of periods so much, they did it twice in the second period: Quinn Smith again at 18:18 (assists Arnold, MacLeod) and Mike Matheson seven seconds into a power play at 19:09 (assists Doherty, Mullane).
Harvard captain Danny Biega got the Crimson on the board at 9:17 of the third on a goal (assists Fick, Greiner), but BC got it back at 14:58 of the final frame with a terrific unassisted goal by Steven Whitney. That goal for Whitney was his 17th of the year, setting a new personal BC high-water mark.
Offensively, Harvard was no match for Boston College and that much became evident as the game progressed. Final shots on-goal were an astounding 46-20 in favor of the Eagles, which is even more impressive considering that they went almost half of the first period without any. On man-advantages, the Crimson were out of their depth. Harvard entered the Beanpot with disastrous power play and penalty kill percentages, which got worse against BC on Monday: the Crimson went 0-for-3 on the power play, and went just 1-for-2 on the kill. That does not tell the whole story, however: BC had numerous shorthanded chances on Harvard’s power play, while Harvard struggled to even keep the puck in the zone, and the Eagles looked very strong on their man-advantages.
This was a take-care-of-business win for the Eagles who are now legitimately starting to build some momentum for the first time in months. Before they can face Northeastern for a potential fourth-straight championship, Boston College will host Jerry York Night at Conte Forum on Friday against UMass-Lowell.