Notre Dame junior center Aaron Gill scored with 42 seconds left and goaltender Morgan Cey stopped 35 shots to give the Fighting Irish a 3-3 tie with third-ranked Boston College in front of a standing room only crowd at the Joyce Center Friday night.
With Cey pulled in favor of a sixth attacker, Gill took a feed off the left-wing boards from Rob Globke to the left of Boston College goaltender Matti Kaltiainen. Gill spun and flipped a quick wrist shot under the crossbar for his fourth goal of the season at 19:18 to tie the game, 3-3.
In overtime, the Irish outshot the Eagles 4-2, but neither team could dent the opposing goal for the 3-3 final. The tie gives Notre Dame a 3-2-2 overall record this season while the Eagles go to 5-0-1 for the year.
Gill’s late heroics saved the Irish as they saw a 2-0 lead midway through the second period slip away before scoring a third-period goal that wasn’t.
Sophomore Alex Lalonde staked the Irish to a 1-0 lead at 17:17 of the opening stanza when freshman Tim Wallace slid a pass to him alone in the slot. Lalonde fired a wrist shot from the right-wing circle that found its way behind Kaltiainen for his first of the season.
The score would stay that way until 8:24 of the second period when hard work around the goal by Yan Stastny paid off. Michael Chin fired a shot that Kaltiainen stopped but couldn’t control. Stastny fought off a Boston College defender and jammed the puck under the Eagle goaltender for his fourth of the season.
Boston College started its comeback at 11:19 of the second stanza when Chris Collins drilled a low shot past Cey from the right wing circle for his second of the season.
The Eagles tied the game at 2-2 just 2:50 into the final period. The Eagles’ forward Ty Hennes was able to control the puck to the right of Cey and fed the puck to the point to defenseman Brett Peterson. Peterson’s low blast from the right point appeared to deflect in front and break through Cey’s pads to just barely get over the goal line for the tying goal.
The Irish appeared to take a 3-2 lead with just under nine minutes left in the game when Lalonde carried the puck out of the right-wing corner and fired a backhander that appeared to go off Kaltiainen, hit the base of the goal, and come back out between his legs. No goal light went on and play continued with the game tied 2-2.
Boston College moved ahead 3-2 at 16:29 when Ryan Murphy scored his seventh goal of the season from in front of Cey to silence the sellout crowd.
Gill’s goal marked the second time this season that the Irish had scored after pulling the goaltender to tie the game. In the season opener at Minnesota-Duluth, Stastny tied the game with 57 seconds left on the clock.
Boston College outshot the Irish by a 38-29 margin. Kaltiainen made 26 saves for the Eagles. Boston College has lost just once at the Joyce Center and is now 6-1-1 in eight visits. The Eagles are 7-1-2 in the last 10 meetings between the two schools and leads the all-time series, 14-7-2.
