Boston – Northeastern’s Joseph Manno scored two of the team’s three goals in Friday’s night’s 4-3 overtime loss to Boston College Saturday night, the first of his college career. When BC scored within the first two minutes, Northeastern answered quickly with an equalizer. By the end of the second period, the Huskies held a 3-1 advantage over the Eagles, but BC’s second goal would prove to change the game, giving them the boost they needed to get back in it.

That momentum got the Eagles to overtime, where a goal from Bill Arnold gave them the win with just a minute to play in the extra session. The win brings BC to 3-0-0 in Hockey East play and 5-1-0 overall, while Northeastern fell to 1-3-1 in league and overall play.

What I saw

Penalties — a lot of them. BC tallied 10 and Northeastern seven, but it felt like someone was constantly headed to the box. Between boarding, hooking and roughing, the refs stayed busy.

Northeastern’s Chris Rawlings was strong. While the score was close, shot numbers would suggest otherwise with BC outshooting the Huskies 43 to 22. In Northeastern’s last win, 3-0 against New Hampshire, much of the credit for the shutout had to go to the defensive pairings in front of Rawlings, but Saturday night the goaltender was confident in each of his saves, not much hesitation or fidgeting. Just clean saves on a lot of really good shots from BC.

What I thought

This was a Boston rivalry at it’s finest. The history between the two teams mixed with the talent level made for great hockey. It was really interesting to see the interaction between BC’s Johnny Gaudreau, a former Northeastern commit, and his “could have been” teammates and former USHL teammate Vinny Saponari. He definitely took some heat on the ice between chirping and a few scuffles.

Bill Arnold is going to be key for BC moving forward. It’s only October and it feels like the sophomore is already having a huge season. He leads the Eagles offense with five goals, and he clinched Saturday’s win with that overtime goal with just 60 seconds to play. Arnold and the BC offense put an awful lot of pressure on Northeastern’s defense in the first period.

Good looks from Northeastern’s freshman Joseph Manno. First home game against BC team isn’t a bad time to score your first two collegiate goals. The line of Manno, freshman Ludwig Karlsson and sophomore Braden Pimm is young, but it certainly didn’t look green against a strong BC team. All three find themselves among Northeastern’s top six leading scorers, Pimm with two goals and three assists, Karlsson with one goal and three assists, and Manno now with his two goals.

What they said

“We found a way to win a hockey game that was slipping away from us, especially when we took those two penalties in the third period, so the ability to sustain that energy level even though we’re down and time was winding down really impressed myself as a coach watching our club … We felt very fortunate that Billy’s [Arnold] stick was up there, he caught that puck of the shaft of his stick, must have been a baseball player growing up.”

— BC head coach Jerry York on his team’s play and Bill Arnold

“I just remember the line before I had a really good shift, and we got smart changes and were able to keep the puck down in their zone. I think it was Kevin Hayes who threw the puck out to Patch Albert. We talk a lot about going to the net and getting bodies to the net, so I went to the net, and Patch put the puck down there and when you do that good things happen and I was able to get a stick on it.”

– Bill Arnold on his game-winning goal

“When you lose a two goal lead in your own building, that’s not a good thing whether it’s a No. 1 team in the country or a No. 10 team in the country. But those are things we’ll continue to work at.”

– Northeastern head coach Jim Madigan

What they didn’t say

Still no word from Jim Madigan as to when Cody Ferriero and Rob Dongara will be back on the ice for Northeastern. It looks like he’s going to be a strict disciplinarian, because Ferriero and Dongara surely would have been useful on the ice against a top team like BC, but for a team whose season start was plagued with disciplinary issues, it seems best.

What else you should know

Matthews Arena was over capacity Saturday night with 4,746 in attendance. It was the biggest crowd Matthews has seen this season.

BC lost junior defenseman Patrick Wey. A skate blade went through the tongue of his skate and severed a tendon in his foot. He can be expected to be out for six to eight weeks and was headed to the hospital to hopefully get the tendon sewn back together post game.

Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 - 12:52 pm | Commentary, Hockey East, Notes, Thoughts, Ramblings