NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — No. 3 Boston College and Merrimack met for the second game of a weekend series on Saturday night in a very entertaining Hockey East contest.
It was a back-and-forth game that came down to the final minute, but both teams settled for a 5-5 tie.
The third period started off with a goal from BC’s Adam Gilmour, who fired a shot from the faceoff dot to tie the game 4-4.
Merrimack’s Craig Wysozmirski was then assessed a five-minute major for elbowing Matthew Gaudreau and Casey Fitzgerald scored on the ensuing man advantage to put BC up 5-4.
In the final minute of play and with an empty net for Merrimack, Jonathan Lashyn fired a shot from the top of the faceoff dot that got by Thatcher Demko to tie the game 5-5.
“We started working harder and got back to basics and paying attention to detail,” said Merrimack coach Mark Dennehy. “We think we have some of the pieces to make some noise and a much-needed point tonight.”
The first period saw BC break the ice when Austin Cangleosi deflected a shot from linemate Miles Wood past Drew Vogler for the early 1-0 lead.
Each team had their chance at the man advantage, but weren’t able to capitalize.
Demko came up big for Boston College as he made eight saves, including a huge right pad save on the doorstep to keep Merrimack off the board.
Merrimack tied the game at 14:38 of the period when Brian Christie jammed home a loose puck to time the game at 1-1.
Ryan Fitzgerald made it a 2-1 BC lead just 46 seconds into the middle frame, but nine minutes later, Merrimack’s Mathieu Foget scored on the power play when he fired a bad-angle shot that snuck into the goal to tie the game 2-2.
Merrimack went on another man advantage with 8:04 remaining in the period and Hampus Gustafsson scored to give the Warriors a 3-2 lead. Just four minutes later, Fitzgerald answered with a power-play goal of his own to tie the game 3-3, but Foget returned the favor just 19 seconds later to give his team the 4-3 lead going into the final period of play.
“They’ve always been a tough opponent, so it doesn’t surprise me [that] they played well,” said BC coach Jerry York. “They did some nice things, so full credit to Merrimack. Certainly would’ve liked a win.”
