There were many storylines surrounding Boston College men’s hockey prior to the season. Whether it be the losses of Will Smith and Cutter Gauthier, the addition of James Hagens, or the lofty expectations of postseason success, much was being said.
However, not much was said about Will Vote, who turned out to be the star of the game in No. 2 BC’s season opener against No. 4 Michigan State.
The 5-foot-8 forward from Arlington, Mass., only played 20 games last season for the Eagles, tallying just one goal before missing the second half of the season. He buzzed around the ice alongside new linemates Jake Sondreal and Dean Letourneau, playing what was certainly his best game in a BC sweater so far.
”We’re so happy for Will,” Brown said. “He had such a hard year last year, being injured for a good portion of the second half of the season. So for him to get off to the start like that is outstanding and a tribute to all the work he put in this summer. He was working out at BC the whole summer, putting in a lot of time to get back up to speed, and that’s just a great start for him.”
The Eagles (1–0–0) defeated Michigan State (2–1–0) by a score of 3–0 thanks to two goals from Vote and a 26-save shutout from sophomore goaltender Jacob Fowler.
Vote’s first goal came 1:47 into the second period when he got in position behind the Spartans’ netminder Trey Augustine to tip in the puck after Lukas Gustafsson fired it on net from the point, opening up the scoring after neither team managed to score in the first frame.
He lit the lamp again just under six minutes later, 7:27 into the period, doubling his goal total from last season just two periods into this campaign. This one came off of a turnover in the neutral zone by the Spartans, off of which Hagens carried the puck into the zone and dished it across the slot to Vote, who fired it into the open net.
“I thought for a first game, they did a great job,” Brown said of Hagens and the freshmen skaters. ”I thought all six freshmen adjusted to the pace very quickly. Michigan State did a great job taking space away, and that’s hard for your first game in college hockey, but it didn’t take them long to get used to it, and they did a great job.”
Oskar Jellvik scored the third goal of the second period with 28 seconds left, hammering home a one-timer after Gabe Perreault hit him with a tape-to-tape pass from across the slot.
“When you’re playing a goalie as good as Trey, you need traffic and you need to get rebounds and you need to move him,” Brown said. “We had a couple good passes across from side to side to get him to have to cover a lot of net, and we were able to capitalize on a few of them.”
One player who didn’t get his name on the scoresheet was star sophomore forward and newly minted alternate captain Ryan Leonard. However, it certainly was not for a lack of trying. Leonard put six shots on Augustine and put another two shots off of the post.
BC played more of a defensive game in the third period, sustaining every punch that the Spartans threw at them, including killing two penalties, an Eamon Powell hold 1:28 into the frame and a Jake Sondreal slash 8:32 into the period.
Jacob Fowler was up to the task on every Spartan shot during both of those power plays, across the whole third period, and the game as a whole, earning a shutout in his first game of the season against his 2024 Team USA World Junior Championship teammate Augustine.
“The penalty kill was excellent, and it was a good, clean game both ways, so there wasn’t a lot of special teams action,” Brown said. “And Jacob was pretty good too,” Brown emphasized.
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