The seniors on the Boston College men’s hockey team entered Saturday night’s second quarterfinal game having never lost a single contest in the Hockey East Tournament. On Sunday morning, that fact is still true.

Boston College defeated the Vermont Catamounts, 4-1, in the Hockey East quarterfinals, sweeping the best-of-three series. The Eagles, the tournament’s second seed, will advance to the semifinals at the TD Garden in Boston next weekend. Notably, BC will have a date with Boston University in that contest, marking the final time the Eagles will face rival coach Jack Parker. This also was the final home game for the current senior class.

The story of this game was penalties — many thought that Friday night’s contest featured a few too many, but Saturday night’s Game 2 crossed into absurdity. By the end of the matchup, twenty penalties were levied to both teams combined, with an astounding 14 being charged to Vermont. Boston College had a grand total of eleven power plays, and rather disappointingly from a BC perspective, only scored once on the man-advantage. Two of Vermont’s penalties were majors, kneeing and misconduct.

The Catamounts are not known for their shutdown abilities on the penalty kill, but in the face of eleven disadvantages of manpower, they stopped Boston College ten of those times. For one of Hockey East’s top teams on the power play, that was a bit underwhelming. That one score came in the first period on Steven Whitney’s 25th goal of the season at 12:12 (Mullane, Gaudreau). On the other end of the ice, BC stopped all four Vermont power play opportunities.

Defense had something to do with the Eagles’ 4-1 victory over the Catamounts, but one might also be able to attribute Vermont’s 17 shots on goal (BC: 33) in part to the fact that they were on the penalty kill eleven times. Though Boston College did not do a great deal of damage on the power play, they did score at even strength. Following that one man-advantage goal, the Eagles would find the net three more times.

Patrick Brown picked up the game-winner at 16:45 of the second (MacLeod), Johnny Gaudreau scored his 20th of the season at 3:53 of the third (Arnold, Straight), and captain Pat Mullane got BC’s fourth goal at 12:45 of the third to put the game out of reach (Whitney, Linell). Vermont added a late goal from Matt White just 21 seconds after the Mullane goal to make it a 4-1 game (McCarthy), but the Catamounts would be silent for the remainder of the contest.

This series resulted in a Boston College sweep, though there are still a few issues to be corrected as the games take on a larger significance each time. The Eagles went just 2-for-15 (13.3%) on the power play over the course of the weekend and took 14 penalties in the two games. Neither game felt particularly in doubt, except perhaps the first one when it was 3-2 BC in the third, but it was as good a collective performance as it had to be for the Eagles to advance.

On the plus side for BC, Johnny Gaudreau managed three points in two games, signaling that perhaps he is ready to heat up again, while getting goals from five other players. Boston College will need Gaudreau and all the rest at their finest as the Eagles head to the TD Garden.

The next game is the Hockey East semifinal on Friday night at 8pm against Boston University.

Boston College men’s teams did not get shut out on Friday after all.

On Friday night at Conte Forum, the 2-seed Boston College Eagles defeated the 7-seed Vermont Catamounts in the first game of their 2013 Hockey East Quarterfinal series, 4-2. It is the third-straight game the Eagles and Catamounts have played against one another, and BC can go for the best-of-three sweep on Saturday night.

The story for the Eagles has been somewhat of a familiar one in the last few months, particularly early in the game. Boston College took three penalties in the first period and gave Vermont several opportunities on the power play, but it was the Eagles who ended up scoring the frame’s only goal. Brooks Dyroff netted just his second score of the season from a tough angle on the side of the net to give the Eagles a 1-0 lead at 14:47 (Doherty, Wey).

More penalties were forthcoming for Boston College in the second and third periods, but so were goals. At 9:13 of the middle period, the Eagles doubled their lead as freshman defenseman Mike Matheson scored on the power play (Mullane). Nearly four minutes later at 13:04, Cam Spiro picked up his second goal of the season, and it turned out to be the game-winner (Silk).

Vermont got back into the game with a score at 4:56 of the third period; that came off of the stick of Ben Albertson, also his second goal of the season (Bruneteau, Pattyn). The contest truly became scary for the defending champion Eagles at 12:37, when Vermont’s Matt White scored an unassisted shorthanded goal to make it a 3-2 game. This came after an Eagle turnover led to a breakaway opportunity. BC seemed to be reeling a bit, but once the Catamounts net was empty, Johnny Gaudreau potted an easy goal to seal an Eagle victory at 18:58 (Brown).

Boston College did not play a crisp game by any stretch but it was good enough to beat Vermont. In sum, the Eagles took eight penalties; Steven Whitney had three in the final period by himself. The Eagles won in part because Vermont went 0-for-7 on the power play, whereas BC took advantage of one of their four chances.

Still, despite some good individual efforts and plays, it was far from a flawless performance and there is a great deal of room for improvement if the Eagles plan to advance. They will get a chance to do that on Saturday night at 7pm.

The Boston College Eagles hockey team, once #1 in the nation but now #6, finds themselves in a bit of an unfamiliar position.

When they play their regular-season finale series against Vermont this weekend, they will not only need the games, but they will need a few big breaks to win the top seed in the upcoming Hockey East Tournament.

“Trophy Season” is only good when you win trophies, and while there are more to possibly be won in the near future, it’s likely that this one for the regular-season champion will find a new home this year. The Eagles find themselves trailing in the conference standings with just two games to go, having to leap over two teams to repeat as Hockey East’s victors. Thus, expectations of winning it are not exactly high.

This weekend, BC draws the Vermont Catamounts for two games. UVM, with a win in either game, can guarantee themselves a spot in the Hockey East Tournament; the Catamounts sit in seventh place overall and lead ninth place by three points. Vermont would play this weekend hard for a sake of pride, anyway, but the Catamounts can both assure their place in the tournament and make sure BC’s path to ultimate victory is harder.

BC and Vermont played each other at Conte Forum a little over a month ago just before the start of the Beanpot; the Eagles won by a score of 4-1.

Not being particularly hot heading into this weekend presents a problem, but it also presents an opportunity for Boston College. A good weekend for the Eagles up in Burlington could give them the momentum they’ve been desperately seeking. A bad weekend would mean quite a bit for Vermont in terms of their own standing, but it would definitely set the wrong tone for BC as they prepare for the most important time of the season. Steven Whitney and Patrick Wey will reportedly be back in the lineup to help to that end.

That tone has been all wrong since the very end of last year. Boston College did enough to this point in the season to secure themselves a spot in the tournaments to come, so they will get a second chance. If they intend to take advantage of it, however, this weekend would be a very good place to start.

Both Friday and Saturday night’s games begin at 7pm.

Boston College Eagles hockey needed a win in the worst way. With the calendar having finally turned to February, at least for one night, BC put the unpleasantness of January behind them.

The Eagles claimed a 4-1 victory on Friday night over the visiting Vermont Catamounts to snap a brief losing streak. With the win, BC rises to 15-7-2 (12-6-1) on the season, now leading Hockey East with 25 points.

In this sorely-needed victory for Boston College, the home team went into the first intermission trailing despite having outplayed the Catamounts for the balance of the period. Vermont got on the board first with a goal just 4:14 into the game, scoring on Anders Franzon’s first goal of the season (assists Fallon, Brickley). The Catamounts then had another chance at a quick second goal, but video review confirmed a no-goal to keep the score at 1-0.

Franzon’s score was the only time the Catamounts would slip the puck beyond BC’s Parker Milner on the evening. Boston College took over from there in the second, tying the game at the 10:30 mark of the middle frame with his 12th goal of the season (assists Linell, Gaudreau). As it turns out, the Eagles would then go on to take the lead less than a minute later at 11:17 on an accidental goal: after a play around Vermont’s net, a Catamount player inadvertently sent it into his own goal; Quinn Smith was credited with his second of the year (assists Doherty, Dyroff). Still, BC was far from out of the woods, but shortly after the second goal, the Eagles killed off a Vermont 5-on-3 which secured their momentum.

In the third, two familiar faces rounded out the scoring: Steven Whitney (8:05; Sit, Arnold) and Johnny Gaudreau (14:46; Linell, Mullane). For Whitney, it was a terrific goal that he shot at from his knees and his 16th of the season, while Gaudreau netted his 13th.

For much of the game, Vermont had a substantial advantage in shots on goal, but the Catamounts’ offense, near the bottom in Hockey East, could not capitalize on the opportunities they gave themselves. To their credit, Vermont’s lowest-rated penalty kill did not give up a power play goal.

The next time Boston College takes to the ice will be Monday night in the Beanpot semifinal against Harvard at the TD Garden. They will do so with some forward momentum.

Had the slump been in November, that would have been one thing. In January, it’s merely par for the course. It’s February now, with the Beanpot days away and the Hockey East Tournament next month, and to be completely blunt, the time for BC to screw around is over. If they intend this to be another special season, then that downslide from last month cannot carry over.

Pat Mullane’s Boston College Eagles will host the Vermont Catamounts tonight in a conference clash and unofficial tune-up for the Beanpot (which is almost nonsensical, because the Vermont game has real significance in conference play and the Beanpot semis technically mean nothing). Much like Maine, the Catamounts come to Conte Forum with a very sub-par record: 7-13-4 (4-9-4); Vermont’s 12 points has them in eighth place and barely clinging to a Hockey East Tournament spot. If the standings somehow hold up, Vermont will be back at Conte Forum in March for the best-of-three quarterfinals.

About those, however: BC only has a two-point lead over New Hampshire in the Hockey East race, but UNH has two extra games in hand. Boston University is also just two points behind, and they have a game in hand over BC as well. The Eagles have played 18, UNH has played 16, and BU 17. Now you see why the Eagles need to win this game urgently.

One of Boston College’s problems in the Maine series was offense, at least inasmuch as scoring goals were concerned. BC scored just twice in the two-game series, but had a total of 60 shots on-goal. To their credit, they put plenty of pucks on the net but the Eagles kept getting stood up, which led to a lot of frustration on the ice and in the Conte Forum general admission seats. Defenseman Mike Matheson was a non-participant in the Maine games due to injury, but will reportedly return. Frankly, with the state BC is in, they could use all the help they can get anywhere.

Vermont recently snapped a five-game losing streak with a home win over UMass on Saturday. It is to date their only victory in 2013, so at least BC had a better January than someone else. The Catamounts have the second-least potent offense in Hockey East at 2.25 goals per game (Maine’s was the only one worse, for all the good it did the Eagles), but the difference here is that UVM’s goaltending also happens to be near the bottom of the conference. They have given up the most goals at 75 and are second-worst with 3.12 goals allowed per game. Vermont also has the worst penalty kill in Hockey East once again this season, stopping the other team from converting just over 80% of the time — that’s a significant improvement from the previous year, believe it or not.

The Catamounts take a lot of penalties and they don’t do a great job killing them off. Boston College could not ask for much more if they want to get February off to a good start, but they have to be able to take advantage. Losing to another inferior team at home would send all of the wrong messages.

The puck drops at 7pm.