CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — About three quarters of the way through the third period of Sunday afternoon’s matchup between No. 3 Boston College and Maine, Sam Becker found the puck in the faceoff circle to the right of Thatcher Demko.
Demko misjudged the play, and left a gaping opening on net for Becker to shoot on. Becker flicked a wrist shot on net, and Demko stretched behind himself to snatch the puck out of the air and keep the puck out of the net.
Becker looked on in utter disbelief.
The frustration of Becker was but a microcosm of the Black Bears’ futility during their Sunday matinee against the Eagles. The Black Bears’ were unable to score on Demko, the second time this weekend Demko shut Maine out, and the Black Bears’ winless streak marched on to nine games after the final buzzer sounded on BC’s 2-0 victory. On the other side of the ice, the Eagles won their seventh straight game.
“Of course there’s concern [about Maine’s winless streak],” Maine coach Red Gendron said. “What else do you want me to say about it? We’re working our tails off to get over the hump and we haven’t yet.”
The frustration manifested in the third period.
Much like in the game between the two teams on Friday, tensions boiled over into a brawl that resulted in 74 penalty minutes assessed on both teams. The fight also involved goalie Rob McGovern, who was sent to a very crowded Maine penalty box to serve a 10-minute-misconduct following the brawl.
BC coach Jerry York mentioned after the game that he had never seen a goalie in the penalty box during his career.
The rest of the game, fittingly for an early game on a Sunday, was a lot less intense. The two teams largely played most of the game with little emotion.
“I thought that both teams really weren’t on top of it to start,” Gendron said. He went on to cite the early start as a possible reason why the two teams played passively.
The only moment of consequence in the first period came from Ryan Fitzgerald halfway through the first period. Fitzgerald, who had been out serving a one game suspension Friday night, was able to shot the puck through some traffic in front of McGovern to give the Eagles the 1-0 lead. That was all that Demko needed to preserve his sixth shutout in seven games.
The second period went on with no major incident. The Eagles had three power-play opportunities in the second, but failed to score on each occasion.
“[Maine’s PK] was awesome,” Gendron said. “On the five-on-three, they might have had one good chance.”
The third period rolled in, and much like the second and first periods, the first half of the third went without much consequence. Following the media timeout, the game began to escalate.
It started with Miles Wood’s third goal of the season, shot through traffic to beat McGovern to give the Eagles insurance. With the margin a bit wider, the tensions started to simmer.
The tensions reached a boiling point when the game descended into a brawl 16:15 into the third period.
“There’s going to be some games where there won’t be any scrums, but a lot of games are scrum type games,” York said. “You have to be able to play in that type of environment.”
The brawl resulted in McGovern being sent to the box. He was replaced by Matt Morris for 2:58 before he was pulled for an extra attacker.
At the buzzer, another scrum broke out in the BC defensive end. The end result of the scrum was a five-minute major for spearing and game misconduct for Nolan Vesey.
Gendron did not comment on whether he anticipated hearing from Hockey East regarding the incident.
York revealed after the game that senior defenseman Teddy Doherty was diagnosed with a Grade 1 shoulder separation. He set the likely timeline for 7-10 days for Doherty’s return.
