ORONO- The #13 Maine Black Bears scored two goals in the first 3:23 of the third period Friday night, including a game winner by freshman Bradly Nadeau to defeat the #1 Boston College Eagles 4-2 in men’s Hockey East action in front of an electric sold out crowd of 5,043 fans at Alfond Arena. It is the first time Maine has beaten a #1 team in the country at home since they defeated the University of New Hampshire in the 1999-2000 season.
Boston College (7-2, 2-1 Hockey East) carried the play early and had a good chance to break onto the scoreboard 2:56 into the first period. Charlie Leddy found Andre Gasseau on a 2 on 1 in the low slot in front of Maine goaltender Victor Ostman, but Ostman was able to come up with the save. The Black Bears played stronger as the frame went on, and Reid Pabich made a good move down low with a curl and drag left to right but wasn’t able to get a shot off. Bradly Nadeau had a chance off a one-timer that missed the net, and also found his brother Josh Nadeau for an opportunity in front but Eagles goaltender Jacob Fowler made the stop as it remained scoreless after 20 minutes.
BC again nearly scored 4:04 into the second period, as a shot by Cutter Gauthier hit the post to the left of Ostman. Just 22 seconds later on a rush down the right wing, a shot by Bradly Nadeau was stopped by Fowler but wasn’t cleanly handled and Lynden Breen scooped up the rebound and found the net to make it 1-0 Maine. Liam Lesakowski took a roughing penalty 43 seconds after the Breen goal, and that allowed the Eagles to tie it back up. A beautiful tic tac toe passing play between Gabe Perreault and Gauthier would find the stick of Jack Malone on the doorstep at 5:57 to make it 1-1. The Black Bears thought they had taken the lead late in the stanza as they would score on a delayed penalty with 1:00 left, but after a review that was initiated by Boston College it was taken off the board for offsides.
Maine would start the third period with the carry-over powerplay time, but couldn’t find the go ahead goal. But 27 seconds after the BC penalty expired, Donovan Villeneuve-Houle would take a drop pass from Ben Poisson after a faceoff win by Harrison Scott and fire a quick shot far corner glove side over the shoulder of Fowler at 1:23 for a 2-1 advantage. Exactly 2:00 later, Grayson Arnott took a huge hit into the boards in his own zone to set up the next score. The puck came to Breen at the Eagles blue line who dropped it to Josh Nadeau, who quickly shuffled a pass to his left over to a streaking Bradly Nadeau who sizzled a one-timer into the net to extend it to 3-1. The guests later would cut it to 3-2 on a tally by Ryan Leonard with 8:33 remaining, and eight seconds after that they would go on a powerplay after a holding penalty on Scott. They wouldn’t be able to find the equalizer however, even pulling Fowler for an extra attacker with 2:35 to go. Arnott wrapped up the Maine win with an empty netter from between the circles of his own zone with 1:02 left. The Bears are now unbeaten in their last six games against BC (5-0-1), and have won the last five consecutively.
Ostman made 26 saves with several of the Grade A variety in the win, as Maine improves to 6-1, 3-0 in Hockey East. Breen and Bradly Nadeau both had a goal and an assist, and Josh Nadeau had two helpers. Fowler stopped 34 shots in the loss for Boston College, and Perreault had two assists. The teams will finish off the two game series on Saturday night at 7 p.m.
Recap and videos by Chris Lessner/Photos by Anthony DelMonaco
