Boston College 9, Wisconsin 2: Eagles Honor York, Slam Badgers
By Joe Micik
On the night where Boston College Eagles hockey officially celebrated Jerry York breaking the all-time wins record last year, the team paid its coach due homage. The #7 Eagles shut down the #2 Wisconsin Badgers, 9-2, on Friday evening at Conte Forum/Kelley Rink.
With the victory, the Eagles have now won back-to-back games and improve to 2-1-0 on the season. All three of their games so far have been against ranked competition, and Boston College has won two of them to get off to a strong start.
Even from early on, the game never seemed to be in doubt. Boston College started with several quality scoring chances, and eventually broke through with 9:46 remaining in the first period. At that point, the floodgates opened for the Eagles, who began an offensive blitz.
Goal Sequence
[BC] Austin Cangelosi (10:14 1st; Hayes, Gaudreau): BC 1, WIS 0
[BC] Austin Cangelosi (11:04 1st; Hayes, Fitzgerald): BC 2, WIS 0
[BC] Johnny Gaudreau (GW; 13:30 1st; Gilmour, Santini): BC 3, WIS 0
[BC] Ian McCoshen (15:53 1st; Gilmour, Arnold): BC 4, WIS 0
[BC] Mike Matheson (0:21 2nd; Gaudreau, Gilmour): BC 5, WIS 0
[BC] Scott Savage (1:45 2nd; Calnan, Brown): BC 6, WIS 0
[BC] Michael Sit (13:34 2nd; Silk, McCoshen): BC 7, WIS 0
[WIS] Michael Mersch (PP; 14:45 2nd; McCabe, Barnes): BC 7, WIS 1
[BC] Kevin Hayes (4:44 3rd; Cangelosi, Fitzgerald): BC 8, WIS 1
[WIS] Nic Kerdiles (9:18 3rd; Faust, Zulinick): BC 8, WIS 2
[BC] Patrick Brown (SH; 10:55 3rd; Smith): BC 9, WIS 2
Brian Billett was good in-goal for the Eagles, though he rarely had anything about which to worry. Billett made just fourteen saves on sixteen shots faced, which speaks to how little pressure the Badgers generated. Nevertheless, the junior held his ground and acquitted himself well again. Backup Brad Barone entered the game for approximately the final nine minutes for Billett to call it an early night.
Wisconsin themselves made a goalie change, but theirs was out of necessity. Landon Petersen was removed after the sixth Boston College goal early in the second period; Adam Miller played the rest of the way and allowed three more goals.
Ironically, none of the Eagles’ goals came on the power play, though they did net a short-handed goal.
Boston College went on a relentless attack, buzzing around the Wisconsin net for virtually the entire game and cashing in on nine goals. In reality, the Eagles offensive pressure was so good and Wisconsin’s offensive shifts were so ineffective that Boston College could have won the game by ten goals. It was as thorough a beating as the Eagles have put on an elite team in a long time. The Eagles’ passing was crisp and it seemed like they were generating rushes down the ice for legitimate scoring chances every other minute. In fact, it probably seemed that way because they did. Not only was the score indicative of how the game truly went, it could have actually been even worse for Wisconsin.
Final shots on goal were 49 to 21 in favor of Boston College, which further underscores the thrashing.
The Eagles can now enjoy a week off before heading to Minnesota for a two-game series against the Golden Gophers.