Despite not playing a regular season game for 34 days, No. 1 Boston College men’s hockey wasted almost no time making its presence known on the ice to start its 2024 campaign.
In fact, it took just 35 seconds for the Eagles to pick up right where they left off in 2023. Less than a minute into their tilt against No. 9 Providence, the Eagles found themselves in a down hill race toward the Friars’ net.
Cutter Gauthier received the puck at center ice and dished it to his left, finding Andre Gasseau. Gasseau quickly sent the rock to Oskar Jellvik, who, in one fluid motion wound up and sent a one-timer flying past the Friars’ Philip Svedebäck to give BC a 1–0 advantage with 19:25 remaining in the opening frame.
“Kind of a weird game,” BC head coach Greg Brown said. “Even the first shift, we got hemmed in our zone, we were scrambling around, and then Cutter, Gasseau, and Jellvik executed a great three-on-two there to get the goal. Which is always the way you want to start.”
Jellvik’s goal was the first and only goal of the opening period, but the Eagles (14–3–1, 7–2–1 Hockey East) took off in the second frame and scored five goals en route to a 7–1 blowout win over Providence (11–6–2, 4–4–2) in their first regular season game of 2024.
After Jellvik’s early score, the offenses of both teams stalled. BC and the Friars each had a power play opportunity, but neither squad could find the back of the net.
“Providence carried the play a little more than we did the rest of the first,” Brown said. “They did a great job stopping our breakouts, their forecheck was heavy, we turned over way too many pucks in our own zone or in the neutral zone. Fowler was there when we needed him.”
After over 26 minutes of scoreless hockey, the graduate transfer from Boston University, Jamie Armstrong, broke the silence, and the Eagles’ offense flew onto the scene from that moment on. BC went on to have its highest scoring period of the season in the second frame.
“Second period, felt pretty even, and then I think we had a few pucks that just had eyes and found the back of the net,” Brown said. “The game was much more even than the score turned out at the end of the second period.”
The scoring started after Will Vote forced a Providence turnover behind the Friars’ net and fired a pass to Jack Malone who redirected it to Jamie Armstrong. Armstrong found himself face-to-face with a wide open net and swept the puck home to make it a 2–0 game with 13:20 left in the period.
Less than two minutes later, Will Smith joined the scorers circle when he bounced a puck off of Svedebäck’s gear for his ninth goal of the season. Before the fans in attendance at Conte Forum could even blink, Ryan Leonard sent them back into a frenzy. Leonard corralled the puck and at nearly an impossible angle, almost parallel with the goal line, launched it into the net to make it 4–0 just 13 seconds after Smith’s score.
The Eagles refused to let up and Gauthier potted a goal of his own to continue the onslaught of BC goals. From straight on Gauthier sent a wrist shot toward the net and earned the Eagles fourth goal in under four minutes to make it a 5–0 lead. The goal prompted Providence to pull Svedebäck from the net, as the Friars’ defense simply had no answers for the Eagles.
But the goaltender change did not phase BC, and to close out the scoring frenzy Vote deflected a Jacob Bengttson shot and made it a six goal game.
The second period told the story of the entire game–pure offensive dominance from the Eagles. But behind Jacob Fowler, BC’s defense also held Providence scoreless for over 45 minutes of the game. The Friars ended the shutout in the last period, but BC responded as Smith notched his second goal of the game to put an exclamation mark on an overpowering BC win.
“For [the] first game back, you’re obviously very happy with the score, but we know we’re gonna have to be sharper tomorrow in their building, especially on our breakouts.”
