Hockey season is fully underway at Boston College, with the Eagles having played three games so far against a very difficult opening schedule. BC dropped their season opener 4-3 to Quinnipiac before traveling to Minnesota where they came away with a win and a tie from a two-game series. This is a different looking Eagles team compared to the past few seasons, with a lot less truly game breaking talent at the top of the roster, but they’ve mostly looked pretty good throughout their opening nine periods
plus an overtime and have shown some reasons for fans to be pretty optimistic. Let’s jump into some of what’s stood out to this point.
DEAN LETOURNEAU GETS HIS FIRST
Dean Letourneau had a tough go of things during his freshman season, putting up just three assists and looking fairly invisible for the most part, but he looks like a completely different player this year. He has two points through three games and finally bagged his first collegiate goal in Friday’s game against Minnesota. Letourneau ripped a perfect shot into the back of the net late in the third period to tie things up at two and force the game into overtime, and based on how his teammates reacted, you could tell how excited everyone was for him
Letourneau is clearly going to blow his freshman scoring totals out of the water, but more important than that is just how different he looks on the ice. He looks noticeably stronger on the ice – both when carrying the puck and when battling for it along the boards. He’s also just in and around more plays as a sophomore. There were games during his freshman season where he could go entire periods without even being noticed, but now he seems to be making an impact just about every time he takes a shift. Sure it’s only three games, but Letourneau looks like he has benefited tremendously from a full offseason on a college training program. This has been an extremely encouraging start to his sophomore campaign.
LOUKA CLOUTIER ALREADY THE NEW #1?
There were plenty of questions surrounding BC coming into this season, but the biggest one might have been about who would get the majority of the starts in net. Jacob Fowler was one of if not the best goalies in the country for the past two years, but with him starting his professional career, there was an awfully big hole to fill. Jan Korec, Fowler’s backup for the last two seasons, got the start in the season opener against Quinnipiac and looked mostly fine but maybe could have had one or two of the goals that he let up, so head coach Greg Brown turned to freshman Louka Cloutier in the team’s next two games.
It was a real trial by fire for Cloutier – starting his first collegiate games on the road against a perennial powerhouse like Minnesota – but he passed every test he faced with flying colors. On Thursday night, he stopped 18 of the 19 shots that he faced in a game that BC really controlled for long stretches as he picked up the first win of his career. Minnesota was better on Friday night and Cloutier was tested a whole lot more, but he put together another excellent performance, stopping 31 of 33 shots through regulation and overtime, including some huge stops late in regulation to keep the game tied at two.
It’s hard to say definitively that Cloutier has won the starting job going forward, but it certainly seemed pretty telling that he got both games of a back-to-back and you would certainly have to imagine that it’s going to be his crease at least until he shows signs of struggling. Either way, that’s a heck of a start to his collegiate career in what has to be one of the tougher environments to make your debut.
RYAN CONMY A PERFECT ADDITION
Not that it’s hugely surprising based on how successful he was while playing at New Hampshire, but junior transfer Ryan Conmy looks like he’s going to have a big season for the Eagles and he’s looked like a fantastic offseason addition.
Conmy has a pair of power play goals so far and has been skating with James Hagens and Teddy Stiga on the team’s top line. He’s shown that he’s more than willing to fire the puck, racking up 14 shots in three games and has just looked like the kind of player that pretty much any team could confidently put in their top six and feel good about it.
BC was always going to need to find someone like this to help replace Ryan Leonard and Gabe Perreault, and that’s even more true with an early season injury already causing Oskar Jellvik to miss time. Conmy was right around a point per game in each of his two seasons at UNH and based on what we’ve seen from him so far, he’ll probably be right around that number again this year as well. That’s a great job from BC’s staff to add him to a forward group that really needed a player like him.
DREW FORTESCUE, OFFENSIVE DYNAMO
Drew Fortescue went 36 games without a goal in his sophomore season, so naturally the junior defenseman already has two this year. Fortescue scored in the season opener against Quinnipiac and added a tap in empty net goal against Minnesota on Thursday night thanks to an extremely unselfish play from Teddy Stiga to set him up.
What does that mean? Probably absolutely nothing, it’s just some fun early season noise and if Fortescue ends the season with just two or three goals, it won’t be that surprising. But it’s always nice to see a long term scoring drought come to and end, especially for someone who is so solid in BC’s defensive end.
