Jan. 5, 2014
Boston, Mass. – Notre Dame and Boston College returned to their hockey roots on Saturday night, braving the cold and rough ice conditions to play outdoors at historic Fenway Park in the second game of a Frozen Fenway, Hockey East doubleheader.
In a see-saw affair, the Irish rallied from 2-0 and 3-2 deficits but couldn’t do it a third time as they dropped a 4-3 decision to the sixth-ranked Eagles.
Boston College junior left wing Johnny Gaudreau scored a pair of goals and the Eagles got single markers from Brendan Silk and Bill Arnold to hand the Irish a one-goal loss in front of 31,569 with temperatures in the mid-20’s and a wind chill factor of 13 degrees.
Mario Lucia, T.J. Tynan and Bryan Rust scored for the Irish with Tynan and Rust turning in two-point games. Freshman Vince Hinostroza looked like he scored as time expired as he jammed the puck between goaltender Brian Billett’s pads, but after a video review, the goal was waved off.
The Irish out shot Boston College by a 23-21 margin. Steven Summerhays made 17 saves in the game while Eagles’ goaltender Brian Billett finished with 20 stops.
The loss, the second in a row for Notre Dame (the Irish lost their last game on Dec. 7), drops the Irish to 10-8-1 on the season and 3-5-1 in Hockey East play. Boston College goes to 13-4-2 overall and 7-1-1 in conference play.
“We got behind early because of our competitive edge,” said Irish coach Jeff Jackson.
“We practiced, we did some competitive things but it doesn’t simulate a real game. We played better as the game went on. That’s a direct result of being off for four weeks. Hopefully it is out of our system and we can get on a roll.”
Boston College opened the scoring at 4:54 of the first period when Silk pushed a loose puck in the crease past Summerhays for his first goal of the year.
Defenseman Adam Gilmour fired a shot from the slot that Summerhays stopped but the rebound dropped down in the crease and Silk got to it first for the 1-0 lead.
The Eagles made it 2-0 at 8:54 off a face off to the right of Summerhays. Senior center Bill Arnold pushed the face off ahead and then dropped it back to Gaudreau in the slot. He cut across the slot and pulling Summerhays towards him and tucked the shot between his right skate and the post for his 16th goal of the season.
Lucia cut the Eagles lead to 2-1 at 15:28 with his 10th goal of the season and second goal in an outdoor game in his career.
Defenseman Robbie Russo carried the puck deep behind the Boston College goal and threw a centering pass in front. Mike Voran redirected the pass to Lucia coming off the left wing circle and as he fell to the ice fired a wrist shot inside the right post past Billett to get the Irish back in the game. This was the second goal that Lucia scored in an outdoor game as he had the game winner in last year’s outdoor game at Soldier Field.
As the period came to an end, Boston College’s Michael Sit was given a five-minute major for boarding Tynan along the left boards with 0.7 seconds on the clock to give Notre Dame a five-minute power play to start the second period.
Tynan got his measure of revenge just 23 seconds into the second period, scoring on the five-minute power play to cut the BC lead to 2-1.
Notre Dame almost turned the puck over at there own blue line when Russo saw the puck hit a rut in the ice, but was able to get it back and move it ahead to Rust heading into the BC zone. Rust moved down the left boards and feathered a pass over a defenseman’s stick to Tynan in front who tied the game at 2-2 with his fourth goal of the year.
“I don’t know what happened on the penalty, I just felt getting hit into the boards,” said Tynan.
“Scoring that goal was huge. It would have been nice to get another one on the five-minute power play but we got some momentum off that goal.”
Boston College would get a five-on-three power-play chance for 40 seconds when Steven Fogarty and Jeff Costello were called for hooking and slashing respectively. Summerhays came up with a pair of stops in close to kill off the first penalty and the Irish penalty killers killed off the final 1:18 to keep the score at 2-2.
The Eagles would take the lead at 4:38 of the third period when Arnold scored a short-handed goal to make it 3-2. With Isaac MacLeod off for hooking at 3:43, Boston College broke back on Notre Dame as Kevin Hayes picked up the puck along the left boards and found Arnold coming through the slot. He then beat Summerhays low to his glove hand side.
The Irish answered back at 7:29 as the duo of Tynan and Rust teamed up to score the equalizer. Tynan carried the puck down the right side to the face-off dot and dropped a pass to Rust who whipped a shot from the right circle past Billett for his fourth goal of the year to make it 3-3.
The tie didn’t last long as the Eagles took the lead at 8:21 as Hayes and Gaudreau broke out on a two-on-one with Stephen Johns back. Hayes carried the puck into the Notre Dame zone and Johns played him. The senior right wing left the puck for Gaudreau who broke in on Summerhays and slid the puck between his pads for his second goal of the game and 17th of the season to make it 4-3.
The Irish got Summerhays off the ice in favor of a sixth attacker with less than 30 seconds left and got the final crack at the goal as Hinostroza jammed the puck past Billett after the horn had blown to signal the end of the game.
“We were just hoping the puck went in. We could see the guys jamming away at it,” said Tynan.
“I really couldn’t see much, we were just praying that the puck was in.”
Notre Dame finished the night 1-for-5 on the power play while Boston College was 0-for-9.
The Irish return to action at 7:35 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 10 when they play host to Alabama-Huntsville at the Compton Family Ice Arena.
** IRISH NOTES**
** To add to the disappointment of falling to Boston College the Irish found out following the game that their flight for Sunday morning was already cancelled due to the winter storm hitting the midwest. Last Thursday, the team’s flight to Boston was cancelled due to the storm that hit Boston on Thursday evening.
** Providence College and Merrimack played to a 1-1 overtime tie in the opening game of Frozen Fenway.
** The temperature at game time was 26 degrees with winds out of the northwest at 19 m.p.h.
GAME SUMMARY 1 2 3 - F#14/#14 Notre Dame (10-8-1/3-5-1) 1 1 1 - 3#6/#6 Boston College (13-4-2/7-1-1) 2 0 2 - 4
Scoring 1st Period: BC: Brendan Silk 1 (Adam Gilmour, Michael Matheson), 4:54; BC: Johnny Gaudreau 16 (Bill Arnold), 8:54; ND: Mario Lucia 10 (Mike Voran, Robbie Russo), 15:20.
Penalties: ND: 3 for 6 minutes; BC: 4 for 19 minutes.
2nd Period: ND: T.J. Tynan 4 (Bryan Rust), PPG, 00:23.
Penalties: ND: 4 for 8 minutes; BC: 1 for 2 minutes.
3rd Period: BC: Bill Arnold 5 (Kevin Hayes), SHG, 4:38; Gaudreau 17 (Hayes, Arnold), 8:21.
Penalties: ND: 3 for 6 minutes; BC: 2 for 4 minutes.
Shots On Goal:Notre Dame 5 - 7 - 11 - 23Boston College 8 - 5 - 8 - 21
Goaltender Saves:ND: Steven Summerhays (59:30) 6 - 5 - 6 - 17BC: Brian Billett (60:00) 4 - 6 - 10 - 20
Power Plays:ND: 1 for 5BC: 0 for 9
Attendance: 31,569