BOSTON —On Thursday night, Brian Gibbons of Braintree was voted a place on the All-Hockey East First Team. On Saturday night he can secure a spot on the conference’s best team.
Officially.
Unofficially, Boston College already merits that tag, given the way the Eagles have come flying down the stretch here.
With Friday night’s 3-0 win over upstart Vermont in the first game of the Hockey East Tournament semifinal doubleheader at TD Garden, BC (24-10-3) is a blistering 12-2-1 since Jan. 29 and will carry an eight-game unbeaten streak (7-0-1) into tonight’s tournament final against either defending champ Boston University or Maine (7 p.m., NESN).
Seeded-second in this tournament, the Eagles are tied for fourth in the latest USCHO.com PairWise rankings – a reliable predictor of the NCAA field that will be announced Sunday. By the time the bids come out, BC might have its ninth Hockey East crown (third in four years) and even more momentum as it embarks on its quest for a second national title in three seasons.
“Getting hot at the right time is always important,” said Gibbons, a junior center who prepped at Thayer Academy and Salisbury (Conn.) School. “You want to be hot at the end of the year, winning games. It reminds me a lot of freshman year, which turned out pretty well.”
As for the individual honor, Gibbons (15 goals, a team-high 27 assists) said, “It’s pretty special. I battled hard all year for it. It was good to get rewarded for your efforts. But it just as easily could have been (linemate) Cam Atkinson (BC’s top gun at 24-21–45), so I feel bad that he didn’t get it.”
Over the previous 18 games, the line of Gibbons, Atkinson (a second-team pick) and Joe Whitney had been white-hot, combining for 29 goals. On this night, however, it was the less-heralded trio of senior center Ben Smith flanked by flashy freshman Chris Kreider (Boxford) and sophomore Jimmy Hayes (Dorchester) that did the damage. They each had a goal – one in every period – with Hayes adding a pair of assists.
“They were awesome,” Gibbons said. “Tonight they were the first line, no doubt about it. That’s another reason we’ve been good lately – our depth. We have four lines, and coach (Jerry York) just rolls them. Tonight they stole the show. They’ve been working hard and (the attention) is well-deserved.”
BC’s greatest achievement Friday was denting Vermont sophomore goaltender/rock wall Rob Madore. The pride of Pittsburgh had authored back-to-back 1-0 shutouts at New Hampshire last weekend as the eighth-seeded Catamounts stunned the top-seeded Wildcats, two games to one, in the quarterfinal series.
It was the first time UNH had been blanked in consecutive home games in the program’s 86-year history, and it made Vermont, a Frozen Four team last season, just the fourth No. 8 seed to make the semis in Hockey East’s 26-year history.
Madore carried a shutout streak of 135 minutes 52 seconds into this one, but Kreider finally broke through against him on a wicked wrister with 4:11 left in the first period. It was Kreider’s 14th goal of the season. (Madore’s streak ended at 151:41.)
“He’s able to make plays at top speed,” Vermont coach Kevin Sneddon said of Kreider.
Madore still wound up stopping 14 of 15 shots in the opening 20 minutes and made dazzling saves against Kreider (on a wraparound at the right post), Whitney (sliding across the crease) and Atkinson (backhander on a break).
Sneddon said the first-period assault (the Catamounts were outshot 15-8) put his team back on its heels.
“I thought we played pond hockey,” he said. “We stood around and watched in amazement. We all thought there were seven BC guys on the ice. They were just flying out there.”
Smith took the air out of Vermont’s balloon by scoring his 13th goal of the season with 7.9 seconds remaining in the second period. Freshman defenseman Philip Samuelsson (Ulf’s kid) made a nice play to avoid a Catamount at the left point, skated in along the wall and fed Smith, who was tightly marked at the right post but nudged it over the goal line for a 2-0 lead. Earlier in the period, Smith had hit the right post on a rush seconds after leaving the penalty box.
The goal was a bitter pill for Vermont, which had whiffed on three power plays in an 8:30 span during the period and had seen BC goaltender John Muse (30 saves for his first shutout of the season) stone senior winger Colin Vock on a shorthanded breakaway with 54 seconds left in the period.
“That was a two-goal swing,” Gibbons said of the save/goal sequence. “It kind of killed their momentum and sparked ours going into the third period. We were able to roll after that. Johnny Muse has been playing well lately.”
Hayes made it 3-0 at 3:06 of the third period, converting a pretty behind-the-back feed from Kreider, who was behind the net to Madore’s right.
Sophomore forward Matt Marshall of Hingham did not dress for Vermont, missing his fourth straight game as a healthy scratch. A fifth-round draft pick of Tampa Bay in 2007, Marshall is 1-4–5 in 33 games this season.
Vermont is still clinging to hopes of an at-large NCAA bid, although Sneddon said the possible scenarios are too difficult for him to understand. “I hope like heck we’re still playing” next weekend in the NCAA regionals, he said.
“We’ll just sit back (this weekend) and watch the scoreboard.”
Unofficially, Boston College already merits that tag, given the way the Eagles have come flying down the stretch here.
With Friday night’s 3-0 win over upstart Vermont in the first game of the Hockey East Tournament semifinal doubleheader at TD Garden, BC (24-10-3) is a blistering 12-2-1 since Jan. 29 and will carry an eight-game unbeaten streak (7-0-1) into tonight’s tournament final against either defending champ Boston University or Maine (7 p.m., NESN).
Seeded-second in this tournament, the Eagles are tied for fourth in the latest USCHO.com PairWise rankings – a reliable predictor of the NCAA field that will be announced Sunday. By the time the bids come out, BC might have its ninth Hockey East crown (third in four years) and even more momentum as it embarks on its quest for a second national title in three seasons.
“Getting hot at the right time is always important,” said Gibbons, a junior center who prepped at Thayer Academy and Salisbury (Conn.) School. “You want to be hot at the end of the year, winning games. It reminds me a lot of freshman year, which turned out pretty well.”
As for the individual honor, Gibbons (15 goals, a team-high 27 assists) said, “It’s pretty special. I battled hard all year for it. It was good to get rewarded for your efforts. But it just as easily could have been (linemate) Cam Atkinson (BC’s top gun at 24-21–45), so I feel bad that he didn’t get it.”
Over the previous 18 games, the line of Gibbons, Atkinson (a second-team pick) and Joe Whitney had been white-hot, combining for 29 goals. On this night, however, it was the less-heralded trio of senior center Ben Smith flanked by flashy freshman Chris Kreider (Boxford) and sophomore Jimmy Hayes (Dorchester) that did the damage. They each had a goal – one in every period – with Hayes adding a pair of assists.
“They were awesome,” Gibbons said. “Tonight they were the first line, no doubt about it. That’s another reason we’ve been good lately – our depth. We have four lines, and coach (Jerry York) just rolls them. Tonight they stole the show. They’ve been working hard and (the attention) is well-deserved.”
BC’s greatest achievement Friday was denting Vermont sophomore goaltender/rock wall Rob Madore. The pride of Pittsburgh had authored back-to-back 1-0 shutouts at New Hampshire last weekend as the eighth-seeded Catamounts stunned the top-seeded Wildcats, two games to one, in the quarterfinal series.
It was the first time UNH had been blanked in consecutive home games in the program’s 86-year history, and it made Vermont, a Frozen Four team last season, just the fourth No. 8 seed to make the semis in Hockey East’s 26-year history.
Madore carried a shutout streak of 135 minutes 52 seconds into this one, but Kreider finally broke through against him on a wicked wrister with 4:11 left in the first period. It was Kreider’s 14th goal of the season. (Madore’s streak ended at 151:41.)
“He’s able to make plays at top speed,” Vermont coach Kevin Sneddon said of Kreider.
Madore still wound up stopping 14 of 15 shots in the opening 20 minutes and made dazzling saves against Kreider (on a wraparound at the right post), Whitney (sliding across the crease) and Atkinson (backhander on a break).
Sneddon said the first-period assault (the Catamounts were outshot 15-8) put his team back on its heels.
“I thought we played pond hockey,” he said. “We stood around and watched in amazement. We all thought there were seven BC guys on the ice. They were just flying out there.”
Smith took the air out of Vermont’s balloon by scoring his 13th goal of the season with 7.9 seconds remaining in the second period. Freshman defenseman Philip Samuelsson (Ulf’s kid) made a nice play to avoid a Catamount at the left point, skated in along the wall and fed Smith, who was tightly marked at the right post but nudged it over the goal line for a 2-0 lead. Earlier in the period, Smith had hit the right post on a rush seconds after leaving the penalty box.
The goal was a bitter pill for Vermont, which had whiffed on three power plays in an 8:30 span during the period and had seen BC goaltender John Muse (30 saves for his first shutout of the season) stone senior winger Colin Vock on a shorthanded breakaway with 54 seconds left in the period.
“That was a two-goal swing,” Gibbons said of the save/goal sequence. “It kind of killed their momentum and sparked ours going into the third period. We were able to roll after that. Johnny Muse has been playing well lately.”
Hayes made it 3-0 at 3:06 of the third period, converting a pretty behind-the-back feed from Kreider, who was behind the net to Madore’s right.
Sophomore forward Matt Marshall of Hingham did not dress for Vermont, missing his fourth straight game as a healthy scratch. A fifth-round draft pick of Tampa Bay in 2007, Marshall is 1-4–5 in 33 games this season.
Vermont is still clinging to hopes of an at-large NCAA bid, although Sneddon said the possible scenarios are too difficult for him to understand. “I hope like heck we’re still playing” next weekend in the NCAA regionals, he said.
“We’ll just sit back (this weekend) and watch the scoreboard.”
