Boston College hockey runs over Merrimack, 6-1

No. 4 ranked Boston College gave a punch-the-clock effort Thursday night, focusing on the job at hand and the resulting 6-1 victory over Merrimack College in front of 3,124 Kelley Rink fans, keeping the Eagles’ hockey express rolling along to its sixth straight win.

The loss ended the season for Merrimack (9-22-3, 7-14-3 HE), which has been mathematically eliminated from the Hockey East playoffs.

BC (22-8-1, 15-6-0 HE) clinched at least a No. 2 seed for the upcoming HE tournament all while holding a 4-point lead with a tiebreaker over UMass with three games remaining in the regular season.

“It was an important game for us just to keep the momentum going,” said BC coach Jerry York. “We created a lot of scoring chances. The two goals in the first period set the tone. We had good depth with our offense. Forty shots on goal against a pretty good defensive team. … We were thorough in all three zones with our four senior defensemen and two pretty good freshmen and Spencer (Knight).”

The all-freshmen second line for BC, comprised of Mike Hardman of Hanover, center Alex Newhook, and right wing Matt Boldy of Millis, combined for seven points. The six freshmen on the BC roster have contributed 43 goals and 58 assists in 31 games.

“Boldy has taken strides. He’s very creative and has great strength on the puck. He’s getting accustomed to Hockey East. His two line mates are right there with him. They have some good jump to them,” said York.

The comfortable lead allowed York to lift starting goaltender Spencer Knight (19 saves), a first-round draft pick of Florida, with 2:33 remaining and put in third-string walk-on intramural club team member Adin Farhat, who was greeted warmly by fellow Eagles at the horn.

“It would have been nice to get Adin a save there. We got (backup) Jack Moffat in last week against Northeastern. So, that was good, too,” said York.

BC swept the 3-game season series from Merrimack.

“It was disappointing the way the game went, especially after we had a good weekend last week,” said Merrimack coach Scott Borek, who received a hustling effort from senior center Tyler Irvine. “BC certainly is the hottest team in our league and probably the hottest team in the country. BC was the better team tonight. Newhook-Boldy-Hardman are playing real well right now. Maybe they’ll continue to play well and we won’t have to face them again and we’ll be watching them on TV next year. But, I love coaching my team. Every game our team has played all 60 minutes.”

It didn’t take BC long to get rolling when Boldy one-timed a pass from defenseman Connor Moore at 1:20. Newhook drew the secondary assist on the play to extend his current points streak to nine games.

BC captain David Cotton made it a 2-0 lead at 7:30 from the doorstep by using his 6-foot-3 size to stake out territory while he pounded away. Cotton finally rammed the puck behind Warriors freshman goalie Troy Kobryn (34 saves) for his 14th goal and 37th point, a new single-season high. Cotton is in a race with his brother, Jason, the current captain at Sacred Heart and a former Northeastern skater, who will enter the weekend with 20-17-37 totals.

A pair of matching carryover minor penalties set the clubs up to skate 4-on-4 to begin the middle period. The available open ice worked to BC’s favor with Julius Matilla feeding his twin, Jesper, for a redirection after the senior defenseman came busting down the slot to join the attack at 0:51.

Eagles partisans could sit back in their seats after BC widened the gap to 4-0 at 5:28. The Eagles raced into the offensive zone on a 2-on-1 with Boldy sliding the puck over to Newhook, who quickly deposited his 18th goal of the season. Two more lamp-lighters would make the Colorado Avalanche selection the first BC freshman to record a 20-goal season since Calgary Flames star Johnny Gaudreau (21) back in 2011-2012.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3afpemK