AMHERST, Mass. - No. 5 Boston College scored three second period goals as No. 7/6 University of Massachusetts hockey suffered the 3-0 setback to the Eagles in a matchup between two top-10 teams on Friday night at the Mullins Center in front of a crowd of 7,336. The loss leaves the Minutemen at 16-9-2 overall, 9-6-2 in Hockey East, while BC improves to 16-7-0 overall and 10-5-0 in conference action.
"I felt like when we were loose tonight in a couple spots, BC took advantage," said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. "They've got the ability when they get chances to score, they finish. That was, to me, a big difference in the game, their ability to finish on their chances. I thought their goaltender did a nice job. He was in control all night. We tried to create some chaos in front of him and we did at times, but he did a nice job. Two of the goals came out of us getting beat up the ice, beat out of the corner, some checking details that were too loose. We did a good job on the PK, kept them off. Again, we didn't score, but the power play looked like it had some life, moving the puck around and got the puck to the net fair bit, so that's a step in a positive direction."
After a scoreless first period that saw UMass narrowly out-shoot BC, 9-8, the Eagles got on the board early in the second. Alex Newhook batted home his own rebound 1:09 into the stanza with Ben Finkelstein and Logan Hutsko earning the assists.
Hutsko doubled the lead for Boston College on a two-on-one attack at 10:44 after David Cotton won the puck along the wall in the Eagles' defensive zone.
Graham McPhee scored the third and final goal of the night at the 18:26 mark of the second, roofing a shot over UMass goaltender Matt Murray from the faceoff dot off a pass from Jack McBain and Finkelstein down low.
The Minutemen finished the contest with a 30-27 shot advantage, but were unable to solve BC goaltender Spencer Knight who earned the 30-save shutout. Murray made 24 stops for UMass and both teams were 0-for-5 on the power play for the evening.
The Minutemen will be back in action on Friday, February 7, when the squad will host No. 9/8 Providence at the Mullins Center at 7 p.m.
