Less than three weeks ago, then-No. 2 Boston College men’s hockey fell to UConn 5–4 after the Eagles collapsed at the beginning of the second period.
Jacob Fowler, BC’s anchor in net, let up three goals in the span of less than five minutes and released a frustration punch that connected with the Huskies’ Tristan Fraser. Fowler was ejected and the Eagles never fully recovered in the game.
“You know, you can’t lose your head,” BC head coach Greg Brown said when asked what his message to the team was before the game to keep tempers under control in the rematch. “You have to play within the game, and they make it hard for you. They’re an aggressive team, and we have to play smart.”
Wednesday night’s midweek rematch proved to be another intense game. As the squads headed into overtime knotted at 1–1, it appeared as though the Huskies could end up upsetting BC again, completing the season sweep of the Eagles and taking five out of six Hockey East points back to Storrs, Conn., with them.
“We had another hard battle against UConn,” Brown said. “They match up and play extremely hard.”
But 1:34 into the 3-on-3 overtime period, James Hagens unleashed a shot on a 2-on-1 that whizzed past Callum Tung and into the top shelf to give the No. 3 Eagles (11–3–0, 5–2–0 Hockey East) a 2–1 overtime victory over UConn (7–7–1, 4–6–1).
“It felt unreal being able to make sure we came out of there with a win,” Hagens said. “It’s,
an awesome feeling, but it was a great group effort that we had.”
Hagens has scored three of his four goals this season in BC’s last two games.
“It makes you feel great,” Hagens said when asked about how it feels to see his shots start to go in the net. “It’s something that you can’t really think about. It’s just something that you go out there and it happens. We’ve been doing really well out there as a team, and we’ve been able to win games.”
Hagens’ teammate from the U.S. Hockey National Team Development Program and current linemate, Teddy Stiga, opened up the scoring in the matchup.
On a tic-tac-toe play, a Drew Fortescue shot was deflected to Gabe Perreault, who sent the puck in front of the crease where Stiga was perfectly positioned to send the puck between the blockers of UConn’s Callum Tung 5:48 into the first period.
“He’s a great player,” Hagens said of Stiga. “I’ve been with him for a while now going all the way back to NTDP, so I’ve loved playing with him.”
The Eagles maintained that one-goal lead for over 20 minutes, and they had a chance to extend it after a Kai Janviriya tripping penalty gave the Eagles a power-play opportunity.
But just 19 seconds into the man advantage, UConn evened the score.
Shorthanded, Ryan Tattle corralled the puck off a lead pass from Hudson Schandor and beat Fowler 1-on-1 to make it 1–1 with 12:20 left in the second frame.
“Shandor made a great play to Tattle for that shorthanded goal,” UConn head coach Mike Cavanaugh said. “But we had a couple other chances on our penalty kill and we have four or five shorthanded goals now on the season. So they’re pretty dangerous, and they have been all year long.”
BC went 0 for 5 on its power play chances in the matchup.
“We had a couple good moments of tempo, but also some ones where we really needed to just be simplified, get pucks to the net, and we passed up, made the extra pass, and then got nothing to the net,” Brown said of BC’s power-play struggles. “So we’ll keep working on it.”
Tung logged 41 saves for the Huskies to send the game to overtime, but thanks to Aidan Hreschuk’s angle in a 2-on-1, Hagens scored and sent the Huskies out of Conte Forum with a loss and a single Hockey East point.
“Fortunately we were able to spring for that 2-on-1 in the overtime,” Brown said. “And James did a great job. He’s right, Hresch did take a great angle to really make it difficult on that defender. He got out wide early and then was attacking him. And if he doesn’t do that, the defender can stay closer to James.”
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