After giving up a goal to Lincoln Griffin midway through the third period Saturday evening, Thatcher Demko, presumably out of frustration, intentionally knocked over the very goal that he had been charged with defending.
The Boston College netminder’s exasperation was emblematic of the Eagles’ woes against the Northeastern Huskies. Despite a 33-save performance from Demko, the No. 2 Boston College Eagles were unable to hold leads on two separate occasions, and the Eagles tied Northeastern, 3-3.
“I’m pretty proud that [Demko] was in our net, because otherwise we’d have no points, [from the game],” BC coach Jerry York said.
The Eagles opened the scoring when Miles Wood fired a shot from out in front of Ryan Ruck. After bouncing around a few times after the puck went through traffic, the puck crossed the goal line, and the Eagles took the 1-0 lead.
The Eagles extended their lead a little less than five minutes after the Wood goal. Alex Tuch got past multiple Northeastern defenders, and after a few dekes picked up his fourth goal of the season.
A common colloquialism is that there is nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal. The Northeastern Huskies, other than on four occasions (two ties and two wins), have played the role of the wounded animal this season, and they were doing so early in the game Saturday night.
It was only a matter of time before the wounded animal started to fight back.
The Huskies answered the two goals to open the first period with a goal of their own, from Nolan Stevens, seconds after the Tuch goal. Following the Stevens goal, the Huskies began what resulted in a game long onslaught of Thatcher Demko. Demko stood tall, but it was evident at the buzzer at the end of the first that the Huskies had a fight in them.
The Eagles had a chance in the second period to increase the lead to two goals. Ryan Fitzgerald had a redirection chance right in front of Ruck. He ran into the freshman goaltender, and due to Fitzgerald’s transgression, a succeeding following review led to the goal being called back.
Then, disaster struck for the Eagles. After a scrum following a save by Ruck, Wood was caught cross checking a Northeastern player. Wood was sent to the locker room with a game misconduct due to the penalty. While the infraction does not carry a one-game ban, and the ensuing major penalty did not yield a goal, the Eagles were forced to play without their second highest scorer for the rest of the game.
The third period saw Demko, who had continued to face solid scoring chances from the Huskies in the second, face 17 shots. Eight and a half minutes into the third period, one of those shots went past him. Lincoln Griffin tipped a shot on Demko’s glove side, and the game, for the first time since Wood’s goal, was tied. With the Griffin goal, and Demko’s net flip immediately afterward, the stakes of the remaining part of the game became higher.
Consequently, so did the Eagles’ frustration levels.
Eight seconds after the Griffin goal, Josh Couturier took a boarding penalty that frustrated the Eagles bench. Matthew Gaudreau had the most pronounced reaction to the penalty, banging his stick in abject fury. For his trouble, Gaudreau, who was on an eight-game point streak, was sent to the box for a 10-minute-misconduct. Ryan Fitzgerald joined Couturier and Gaudreau moments later after taking a tripping penalty.
“We took too many penalties, no question,” York said.
The Eagles penalty kill, which had killed a major penalty earlier in the game, had one more trick up its sleeve in the form of Colin White. White found the puck on a breakaway, and he sent the first BC shot of the period past Ruck to give the Eagles a tenuous one-goal lead.
The Huskies responded later in the third. Stevens rifled a shot past Demko as the third period began to wind down for his second goal of the game, and the game was tied 3-3, as it finished after the ensuing overtime period.
“It’s a point; it’s not a win, and I explained that to our guys, but it’s a good point,” Northeastern coach Jim Madigan said. “It’s a point that will continue to build as we went from last weekend to this weekend.”
John Stevens left tonight’s game with a lower body injury. Madigan said after the game that Stevens will be revaluated after the team got back to campus.
