For all of No. 11 Boston College women’s hockey’s matchup against UConn, and for even an overtime and shootout period, it wasn’t clear whether the Eagles or the Huskies would take the game.
Diving for the puck in the shootout period, BC’s Grace Campbell kept the Eagles within the game—until she couldn’t.
Skating down the ice with the puck, the Huskies’ Claire Murdoch swung her stick back, notching the puck into the back of BC’s net and beyond the reach of Campbell.
But the Eagles would have one more shot at redemption.
Staring at UConn’s goaltender Tia Chan, Katie Pyne skated toward the Huskies’ cage as she winded up her shot and released the puck.
Instead, Chan came up big, knocking the puck off its path and giving BC (12–6–1, 9–4–1 Hockey East) a shootout loss, marking its fourth home loss this season to the Huskies (12–8–1, 10–3–1) in Conte Forum.
Friday’s game looked all too similar to the Eagles’ 2–1 loss to the Huskies on Saturday, Nov. 23, when BC split its weekend series with its recent conference rival.
“You know, to come out of that with essentially a tie nationally, that’s okay, we’re just getting our legs back under us,” BC head coach Katie Crowley said. “We’ll change a few things up a little bit. Our players will need to play more in the offensive zone, where, hopefully, they can get a few more opportunities in the offensive zone.”
Crowley touched on her team’s performance in the shootout, as well.
“I think it was a little rough,” Crowley said. “I think the puck bottled a little bit there at the end for the couple of them, but we will get them next time.”
Despite the Eagles falling to the Huskies in the shootout loss, the first three frames were a back-and-forth battle between both teams.
While BC started the matchup with almost complete control on the offensive front, neither the Eagles nor the Huskies were able to generate any successful shots on net.
It wasn’t until halfway through the third frame that the first goal was scored—and it wasn’t in BC’s favor.
After a power play for the Eagles ended 4:31 into the second period, UConn took advantage of its now balanced opportunity to rattle shots off on BC’s cage.
A little over three minutes later, Murdoch launched a shot through Campbel’s legs, as the puck swished into the back of the Eagles’ net.
And for some time, it seemed like UConn was going to take the game right then and there—shot after shot, none were converted into goals.
But the leading Hockey East scorer Sammy Taber would change just that. Aided by a Cailin Flynn and Julia Pellerin assist, Taber knotted the score 1–1 with less than five minutes to play in the game.
Despite Taber’s efforts, though, it would not be enough to deliver the Eagles a late-game win.
BC was plagued by an inability to score off power-play opportunities, a common occurrence this season for the Eagles.
“We weren’t supporting each other enough,” Crowley said when asked about BC’s power-play opportunities. “Puck-carriers were going in and zoning without support, and [UConn] forced us to do that a little bit. That puck carrier needs more support. When you get into playoffs, special teams is huge, and we need to be better on our power play and scoring goals.”
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