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'We Have to Trust the Process': BC Hockey's Search for Consistency Continues With Troubling Loss to Vermont

The Eagles showed no signs of life in the first period of Thursday's 5-2 beatdown by the Catamounts.
Graham Dietz|
Nick Green / BC Athletics

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — There was a grim feeling circulating through the Conte Forum air as Boston College men’s hockey went down 3-0 in the first 13 minutes of its Thursday-night affair with Vermont.

While the Catamounts, who finished dead-last in Hockey East last season, have been one of the league’s best teams right out of the gate this year, the Eagles have dominated meetings with them over the past decade — since 2015-16, BC has won 20 of the 27 matchups.

But UVM cruised right through the Eagles with a 5-2 win, which took BC’s record to 2-5-1 and 1-2-0 in conference play, tying 2022-23 as the worst seven-game start to a season under head coach Greg Brown.

“I think we got ourselves off on the wrong foot,” Brown said after the loss. “It’s a tough start for us. A couple silly mental mistakes, but gave some opportunities. Felt bad for Leo [Henriquez] because we left him out to dry there early in the game. [Their] chances were too good. Missed rush coverage, power play, and a turnover.”

Brown elected to start the freshman Henriquez in net instead of sophomore Louka Cloutier for Thursday’s contest, and it only took five Vermont (5-3-0, 4-1-0 Hockey East) shots to score three times against the rookie netminder, with goals from Tyler Dysart, Logan Renkowski on the power play, and Ethan Burroughs.

All three goals, like Brown mentioned, resulted from some variety of mental collapse, as the first one saw Dysart retrieve a pass right through the middle of BC’s defensive zone on an odd-man rush, obtaining a wide-open look on net.

Dysart beat Henriquez on his glove side, rifling the puck off the left post and in.

The second goal came while Vermont had an extra skater on the ice from Teddy Stiga’s tripping penalty, but the Eagles were unable to clear the puck away from the crease, allowing Renkowski to get his stick in just at the right time to jam it through Henriquez.

The third goal consisted of another troubling error, as a turnover deep in the Eagles’ zone gave the Catamounts a mini 2-on-1 look, and Burroughs was able to bury the puck right over Henriquez’s shoulder, which prompted Brown to swap him out with Cloutier for the rest of the night.

“Just not reading the situation clearly,” Brown said of what he attributes those goals to. “The power-play goal, that’s different. But the two even-strength goals, yeah. But especially the rush, I think we didn’t sort it out well. We work on that all the time, and we just didn’t read it together. It’s something all three guys kind of have to be on the same page for, so we gave up a good chance, and it was a great shot.”

Brown said it all boils down to BC pressing too hard — trying to do too much and not make the simple, smarter play.

But a three-goal lead in the first is a difficult one to chase, especially when three key forwards, Matias Vanhanen, Olivers Murnieks, and Will Moore, are not on the ice due to injury.

“We just didn’t have enough details to start the game,” Brown said. “Like I said, the response was pretty good, but it’s hard to come back. And Vermont’s a very good defensive team. They don’t give up much, so it’s harder to come back, but at least the mindset was right after that.”

Junior Dean Letourneau scored late in the first on a 2-on-1 that resulted from Michael Hagens’ whiffed-pass turnover at the blue line, which led to a beauty of a shot from the Eagles’ points leader.

But BC did itself no favors with a barrage of penalties throughout the second — it had four in the period alone and six in total — and Vermont cashed in with a 4-on-3 man advantage just under seven minutes into the frame on Hagens’ one-timer from the left dot to make it 4-1.

Teddy Stiga cut the deficit back to two with 3:49 remaining in the second on a breakaway after putting a defender through a spin cycle at the blue line and shoving the puck through UVM goalie Jacob Oster’s five-hole.

But Oster kept the Eagles off the board for the remainder of the contest despite prolonged offensive-zone time for much of the period, and Dysart put in the empty-netter with 52 seconds left in regulation to make it 5-2, the final.

“Right now it's pressing,” Brown said. “It's trying to do too much. [We] have to trust everyone. If each guy does their job, then we can be a lot better, and it's much easier. Right now, a lot of the situations, it's trying to do too much instead of kind of letting the game happen and working with each other more. So it's not uncommon. You want to do more when things aren't going well. We have to trust the process.”

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Graham Dietz
GRAHAM DIETZ

Graham Dietz is a 2025 graduate of Boston College and subsequently joined Boston College On SI. He previously served as an editor for The Heights, the independent student newspaper, from fall 2021, including as Sports Editor from 2022-23. Graham works for The Boston Globe as a sports correspondent, covering high school football, girls' basketball, and baseball. He was also a beat writer for the Chatham Anglers of the Cape Cod Baseball League in the summer of 2023.

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