CHESTNUT HILL – The Boston College men’s hockey team got ensnared in a Beanpot trap.
On the eve of a historic encounter, No. 11 Boston College was ambushed 6-1 by the Vermont Catamounts in a quantifiable trap game upset on Friday night at Conte Forum.
The Eagles fell to 15-9-1 overall and 10-6-0 Hockey East in their dress rehearsal for the 300th Battle of Commonwealth Ave. against crosstown nemesis Boston University, a rivalry that dates back 108 years.
“Probably,” said BC coach Greg Brown when asked if he thought his players were looking ahead to Monday. “We talked about this game a lot, for league standings, for national standings, everything is important and we weren’t sharp enough.
“We have to get over this in a hurry. We will take a look at it, regroup so we can be sharper. We know we can’t make those kinds of mistakes and win games.”
The timing of the milestone match could not have been scripted any better. BC and BU will play for the 300th time in the championship game of the 73rd annual Dunkin Beanpot Tournament on Monday night (7:30) at the TD Garden.
The defending champion Terriers will engage the Eagles for the 24th time in the title match. BU is going for its record 33rd Beanpot title while BC looks to secure its 21st. BU leads the overall series, 141-137-21.
BC advanced to the Beanpot title game with a 5-1 victory over Harvard. Boston Bruins 2025 first round draft pick and Hobey Baker Award nominee James Hagens had two goals and an assist against the Crimson.
BU scored two shootout goals after three-on-three overtime to beat Northeastern in the other semifinal. The game went into the books as a 2-2 tie with BU winning in the shootout. The No. 9. Terriers beat the No. 1 Eagles 4-1 in last year’s championship game.
“The timing just adds more excitement to it for everybody,” said Brown. “We know they are a great team and we have to play better than we did tonight.
“We have to play faster and execute at a higher level. It is going to be a fun game. I think both teams are capable of playing a lot of good hockey. It will be exciting to see who can execute better.”
BC showed early signs of being embroiled in a trap game when Vermont scored two unanswered goals in the first period. Top line center Colin Kessler forced a neutral zone turnover, broke in on the left flank and backhanded the puck around BC goalie Louka Cloutier at 1:20 for his fourth of the season. Vermont made it 2-0 when sophomore left wing Ethan Burroughs beat Cloutier top shelf on the glove side for his third of the season at 8:24.
“I thought it was a complete game from head to toe from our guys,” said Vermont coach Stephen Weidler. “I certainly felt like from the net all out we were dialed all the way into what our identity is and what our system needs to be.
“We were just playing our version of hockey. BC had their pushes and we didn’t get bored with being simple. We knew we had our hands full but for us it was about our process and staying focused on the first task at hand.”
BC attempted to dispel the notion of a trap game on the power play 47 seconds into the second period. The Eagles cut the lead to 2-1 when Hagens redirected a Lukas Gustafsson slapper from the point for his 15th of the season.
Vermont appeared to take a 3-1 at 7:20 but the replay revealed that defenseman Caeden Herrington kicked the puck into the net. Undaunted, Vermont went up 3-1 on the power play at 12:40 when Herrington set up junior defenseman Sebastien Tornqvist for his fourth of the season.
Vermont went up 4-1 at 2:27 of the third on a scenario that added injury to insult. On the same play that senior left-wing Massimo Lombardi netted his fifth of the season, BC freshman center and Bruins’ draft pick Will Moore left the game in pain with an apparent right shoulder injury. Vermont freshman right wing Matteo Michels scored on a breakaway to make it 5-1 at 5:39.
“There is no update on (Moore) at all,” said Brown. “It looked like he got caught in an extended position but hopefully he is okay.”
