BC comes from behind to beat UMaine hockey team 3-2

For 50 minutes, the University of Maine’s fifth-ranked hockey team appeared as though it was going to continue its recent dominance in the series with No. 2 Boston College as it held a 2-0 lead with 10 minutes remaining.
But the Eagles scored three goals over the final 9:35 to rally for a 3-2 Hockey East victory over the Black Bears at Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Mass.
BC improved to 6-1 after beating UMaine for the first time in their last eight meetings.
UMaine was 5-0-2 in the previous seven games.
UMaine fell to 6-1-1.
The teams will conclude their series at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
It was BC’s first conference game while UMaine is now 3-1-1 in league play.
Sophomore right wing and Washington Capitals first round draft pick (8th overall) Ryan Leonard scored the game-winner with 1:33 remaining when he converted off a two-on-one break with James Hagens as he snapped the puck past UMaine goalie Albin Boija off Hagens’ perfect feed to the far post. It was his fourth goal of the season.
UMaine sophomore right wing Josh Nadeau’s second-period goal and a third-period goal by freshman center Oskar Komarov staked UMaine to a 2-0 lead but junior left wing Andre Gasseau began the BC comeback with a power-play goal off a Leonard feed with 9:35 left.
Senior center Mike Posma tied it with 3:01 remaining.
“It’s disappointing to lose a game that you’re leading 2-0 with 10 minutes left,” said UMaine head coach Ben Barr. “That’s not how we should be. We have to learn from it and move on.”
Barr said the loss was painful.
“It hurts. We obviously did some good things but we had some individual breakdowns. Those breakdowns didn’t hurt us at home last weekend or the weekend before (but they did tonight),” said Barr. “We played some bad hockey and we haven’t played a lot of it this year. But a part of it is BC is really good.
“Whenever you miss a hit or turn the puck over, it ends up in a scoring chance when you play a team like BC,” he added.
He called the game-winning goal “atrocious.
“It was a nothing play. But we didn’t backcheck, we didn’t shut it down in the neutral zone so their best player scores into the empty net at the back door with a minute and a half left,” said Barr.
UMaine’s Nadeau broke a scoreless tie with 3:10 left in the first period.
Nolan Renwick won a faceoff to the right of BC goalie Jacob Fowler and Nadeau released a quick snap shot that sailed over Fowler’s left shoulder into the far corner.
It was his second goal of the season.
Boija preserved the lead with two critical saves later in the period.
Posma poked the puck past UMaine defenseman Jack Dalton high in the offensive zone and broke in alone down the middle of the slot but Boija held his ground and made the save.
Shortly afterward, UMaine defenseman Brandon Chabrier fell down and Connor Joyce gathered in the puck and slid it across to a wide open Brady Berard between the faceoff circles.
Berard took a quick shot that Boija was able to get his glove on.
Komarov made it 2-0 seven minutes into the third period when his wraparound shot glanced into the net off Hagen’s skate for his first college goal.
UMaine defenseman Grayson Arnott took a tripping penalty in the offensive zone with 9:44 left and the Eagles scored just nine seconds later as Gasseau netted his second of the season with a one-timer from the bottom of the right circle off Leonard’s cross-ice pass.
Posma’s first of the year came on a perfectly-placed shot from in tight. He had his initial shot blocked but got the puck back and roofed a close-range wrister over Boija’s glove into the short side corner.
UMaine graduate student right wing Ross Mitton was assessed a five-minute major and game misconduct in the second period for kneeing but the Black Bears not only held the Eagles without a shot on goal during the penalty, they also generated five scoring chances including break-in chances by Cam Fowler, Thomas Freel and Thomas Pichette.
Pichette served Mitton’s penalty and seconds after he came out of the penalty box, the puck came to him and he had a clean breakaway only to have Fowler make a nice glove save off him.
Fowler finished with 30 saves for BC while Boija made 27 stops.