CHESTNUT HILL, Mass- A night after upending the 4th ranked Eagles of Boston College, the Maine Black Bears made it five straight wins vs BC with a thrilling 3-2 overtime victory to cap off a huge weekend sweep. BC opened the scoring on the man advantage when Maines Tim Doherty went to the box on a high sticking call. Julius Mattila scored on a one timer from the right faceoff circle from Logan Hutsko and Ben Finkelstein to give BC a 1-0 lead.
Maine evened it up late in the first on the man advantage. Jesper Mattila took a high sticking minor and Veli-Matti Tiuraniemi scored on a shot just inside the point that was set up nicely by Adam Dawe and Eduards Tralmaks at 18:49. Eagles goalie Spencer Knight had lost his stick on the play, and the Bears took advantage.
Things got chippy in the second period as Patrick Shea took a two minute delay of game as he smashed his stick in frustration. Further replay showed that Shea took a stick to the chin/face but the officials missed it. Shea came out of the box as a man on a mission, seemingly getting revenge about nine minutes later taking a penalty for boarding.
The Black Bears took the lead at 13:49 on a power play goal by Mitchell Fossier. Doherty and Dawe had the assists as Aapeli Rasanen sat in the box for holding, and Maine just like Friday night took a one goal lead into the final 20 minutes.
The 4th ranked Eagles (15-7, 9-5 Hockey East) weren’t going away easily. The third period was chippy with some good BC scoring chances, but they couldn’t connect until halfway through the frame as Graham McPhee lit the lamp and the Conte Forum came to life as he knotted it at 2-2 with a high rising shot moving right to left in the slot past Maine goalie Jeremy Swayman with 10:46 left.
The Maine defense was strong throughout the game as they didn’t give BC many decent scoring chances, breaking up odd man rushes and blocking several shots, especially down the stretch.
In overtime, Patrick Shea got the ultimate revenge for the missed stick to the face when he buried a Tim Doherty and Mitchell Fossier pass at 4:12 to give Maine the win. BC Head Coach Jerry York protested but to no avail and the Black Bears took a crucial four point sweep of the Eagles. BC outshot Maine 38-25. Swayman had 36 saves, while Knight finished with 22. Maine (12-9-4, 6-7-2) heads home for a two game series next weekend at the Alfond Arena against 10th place and fellow Hockey East foe, Merrimack. The Black Bears with the sweep are now 17th in the NCAA Pairwise Rankings. The top 16 teams get an automatic bid to the national tournament.
