Box score

Postgame comments (Jim Madigan - YouTube.com)

The Northeastern men's hockey team will have to wait another year to end its Beanpot draught as the Huskies endured a 7-1 setback against Boston College in the semifinal round of the 60th annual Beanpot Tournament on Monday night at the TD Garden.

Sophomore defenseman Anthony Bitetto netted Northeastern's lone goal of the contest on the power play while junior Garrett Vermeersch and rookie Ludwig Karlsson recorded the assists.

Junior goaltender Chris Rawlings was dealt the loss with 24 saves on 29 shots while second-year backstopper Clay Witt played the final 20 minutes and stopped 15-of-17 shots. BC's Parker Milner blocked 22-of-23 Huskies' attempts.

The Eagles doubled Northeastern's shot total, 46-23. BC connected on 2-of-4 power play opportunities and tallied a pair of short-handed goals. NU went 1-for-5 with the man advantage.

Rawlings saw his fair share of rubber in the first five minutes of the game and it yielded the Eagles' first tally at 5:14 of the contest. Pat Mullane stripped rookie Josh Manson on the Huskies' blue line and parlayed the turnover into a tic-tac-toe goal. Mullane discovered Johnny Gaudreau in pursuit and Gaudreau relayed the puck in the slot to Paul Carey for the one-timer goal and the 1-0 lead.

The Huskies responded with pressure on Milner from all sides and nearly evened the shot total, but another turnover deep in Northeastern's zone gave way to a Gaudreau marker at 9:43. Sophomore Luke Eibler had difficulty with the clearing the puck and Gaudreau was the beneficiary of a loose disc in front of Rawlings. He gathered it quickly and slipped the puck through Rawlings' five-hole for the 2-0 cushion.

Boston College let NU back in the contests after taking back-to-back penalties at 11:09 and 12:14, giving Northeastern a 56-second two-man advantage. Chris Kreider and Steven Whitney were the perpetrators and the Huskies converted 20 seconds into 5-on-3 power play.

Junior Garrett Vermeersch generated the scoring play from the left wing after making the centering pass to rookie Ludwig Karlsson. Karlsson faked the shot from the point and hit Bitetto with the one-timer missile on the right dot at 12:34 to cut BC's lead in half, 2-1.

Before the first period concluded, Rawlings and Bitetto teamed up to keep a third BC goal out of the net. Gaudreau nearly scored his second, but Rawlings got a piece of the shot and Bitetto made a sprawling dive to deny the disc.

Northeastern gained the first power play of the second stanza after a Kreider hitting-from-behind infraction occurred at 5:43, but it was the Eagles who managed to light the scoreboard for their third tally of the game.

Barry Almeida made an aggressive play on Bitetto at the half boards and managed to poach the puck and scoot up the right side of the ice with S. Whitney to his left. Almeida perfectly timed a pass to the flanking Whitney and he buried the cross-ice one-timer past Rawlings's blocker for the short-handed marker and 3-1 lead at 6:51.

Just over two minutes later, Boston College extended its lead to three goals when Gaudreau potted a Patch Alber rebound at 8:58 of the second period. Alber triggered the scoring play by tearing in from the top-right corner of the zone and unleashed a quick snapshot high on Rawlings. The save was made with the blocker, but the puck dribbled out to the crease and Gaudreau pushed it back over the goal line to make it a 4-1 affair.

Boston College padded its advantage with a second short-handed marker at 13:11 of the middle stanza. Gaudreau took a tripping call at 11:34, but another aggressive forecheck paid dividends for the Eagles. S. Whitney gobbled up a puck in the neutral zone, skated in on Rawlings and duped a Husky blue liner to hammer home the top-shelf lamplighter and make it 5-1.

Witt took over between the pipes for Northeastern to start the third stanza and withstood another BC barrage before surrendering the Eagles' first power play goal of the game at 8:47. S. Whitney passed out to Brian Dumoulin from the goal line for the slap shot. Witt blocked the initial blast, but Barry Almeida was there to brush back the loose carom to build the lead to five goals, 6-1. Boston College converted on a hooking call at 7:13 to sophomore Braden Pimm.

Northeastern's penalty kill nearly staved off a four-minute power play handed out to sophomore Rob Dongara at 13:23, but Carey netted his second of the night with three seconds remaining in the window at 17:20 to cap off the 7-1 game.

Northeastern will step back into conference play this Friday and close out the regular-season series at New Hampshire. Game is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Whittemore Center. The Huskies look to win their second series of the season (Vermont, 3-0) as both NU and UNH have beaten each other once this season.

Game Notes
• Garrett Vermeersch is riding a career-best five-game point streak after assisting on Anthony Bitetto's power play goal. The Macomb, Mich. native has scored at least one point in 13 of his last 15 games and has accounted for 16 points (6-10-16) over that time. Vermeersch tallied his fifth assist in the Beanpot Tournament and now leads Northeastern's current skaters in points scored in the tourney.

• Anthony Bitetto scored his first goal in the Beanpot Tournament and second point in three games (1-1-2). Rookie Ludwig Karlsson picked up his first-career Beanpot point on Monday, as well.

• Clay Witt earned his first time in the Beanpot Tournament and stopped 15-of-17 shots.

• The Huskies are now 9-32 in games against Boston College in the Beanpot Tournament and 4-17 in first-round games.

• Northeastern  had its non-conference unbeaten streak bothered on Monday night after the loss. The Huskies are now 4-1-1 in non-conference games this season.

• Northeastern is 32-30-3 in games that occur between the two Beanpot Mondays. Last year, Jamie Oleksiak was the overtime hero after sending in the game-winning goal with just six seconds left in overtime at UMass Lowell on Feb. 11, 2011. In the formative years of the Beanpot Tournament, there was more than one contest between the two Mondays. NU looks to up its record against UNH on Feb. 10.