Huskies Lose to Eagles in Homestand

In the first of home-and-home, back-to-back games between the Northeastern University Huskies and the Boston College Eagles, the Huskies played host at historic Matthews Arena. Coming into the game, in the month of February, Northeastern’s men’s hockey team carried a 3-1-1 record and the tie had come in the Beanpot Championship game that actually required double overtime to determine the winner. Likewise, the Eagles also had the same record for the month of February.

The pace of the first period was solid. Even when returned Husky forward Matt Filipe—who had missed a number of games due to injury—notched the first goal of the game on a wraparound, the Eagles did not diminish their attack or speed. Northeastern was able to withstand the Eagles’ power play early in the game when Tyler Spott was sent off for tripping. Unfortunately, the Huskies were unable to convert on either of their two power play chances. The first was the result of BC’s Matt Boldy being whistled for a slashing close to the halfway point of the period. The second was after BC’s Ben Finkelstein was sent off for elbowing at 14:20 of the opener. The Eagles ability to kill off the two penalties undoubtedly gave them some confidence—given how good Northeastern has been on the man advantage. With 1:18 remaining in the period it was looking like the Huskies might get out of the frame leading 1-0, but the Eagles had other ideas. Julius Mattila was able to put a shot on Craig Pantano that trickled through Pantano’s five hole to tie the game up. And the teams went off tied up into the first intermission.

That late goal for the Eagles clearly gave them momentum. They came out in the second period and had their play at an entirely different level. It took the Huskies four minutes to get their first shot on Spencer Knight in the middle frame. Meanwhile Pantano was seeing a shooting gallery at his end—seeing seven shots in those first 4 minutes.

“Yeah, we weren’t at the net enough, so I mean, we didn’t play “Big Boy hockey” and we weren’t at the net enough. And when we did go to the net, we had some opportunities as you saw but we weren’t at the net nearly enough and we weren’t heavy enough down low. And I’m hoping that’s a wakeup call to our guys because if we don’t play better tomorrow, you know, we’re not going to get the result we want and we’re in a playoff push here,” said Northeastern’s head coach Jim Madigan.

By the end of the period Pantano had faced 18 shots, letting in two. Marshall Warren got his fifth of the season at 10:45 and about six minutes later Julius Mattila added his second of the game. At 15:23 it looked like the Huskies might get the opportunity to tie things back up as they were on a power play when Zach Walker went off for boarding the just returned Filipe. However, ten seconds later Grant Jozefek was sent off for slashing and it was while the teams were four-on-four that Julius Mattila and Logan Hutsko had the odd man rush that gave the Eagles their third goal of the game. At 18:54, Zach Solow for NU was sent off for an interference while Aapeli Rasanen earned an embellishment. As the clock stalled at 2.9 seconds and the referees decided the last play had run out the clock, the Huskies were fortunate not to have been down by more than two goals having managed just six shots on the Eagles’ netminder in the middle twenty and Pantano’s skill keeping quite a few pucks out.

The third period began with the carryover penalties to Solow and Rasanen for the first 55 seconds. And the Huskies of the first period made a reappearance. After the end of the four-on-four carryover, there was a lot of north and south skating with speed. The Huskies kept the Eagles at bay, making better defensive decisions as well as having more effective offensive zone time. Biagio Lerario was able to get the Huskies one back at 6:47 of the third, assisted by Jordan Harris—from the blue line—and Jeremie Bucheler. Bucheler also played a stronger, grittier game in the third—taking the body when he couldn’t get the puck. But in the end, it was too little, too late. Though the Huskies outshot the Eagles 11-6 in the final period, Knight denied them all and Northeastern just couldn’t get the tying goal to send it to overtime.

“Boston College was a better team than us here tonight and they’re a real good club. They skate well, they’re very good in transition, they play the game fast, they’re well balanced from the goaltender out, and you know they had us on the [ropes] particularly in that second period. Yeah, we did some good things in the first period, some in the third but our effort wasn’t good enough for 60 minutes to beat that hockey club. They’re a very good team and for whatever reason we just didn’t have a full 60-minute effort, credit Boston College for some of that. But, you know, we’re going to play against the real good teams and that’s a very good team. We’re gonna have to have a better effort and we gotta…, I didn’t see the conviction enough in their eyes going into tonight’s game that we could beat this team. And so that’s disappointing with their inconsistent effort and not playing to the way we need to play, and just playing simple hockey and, you know, when you don’t do that you fall you fall behind and we were chasing the game the third period and, you know, got it, the 3-2 but wasn’t good enough and they were the better team,” said Coach Madigan after the game.