By: Neil Simmons | Follow me on Twitter / X: @NSimmz
In the most stunning result of the young 2026-27 college hockey season, Bruins prospect Dean Letourneau and the Boston College Eagles fell 3-2 to the Alaska Nanooks in their home opener at Conte Forum. Special teams and discipline played a major role, with the Eagles gifting Alaska seven power-play opportunities while scoring on a pair of their own.
The Nanooks came to Chestnut Hill after dropping both of their opening contests at home to Boston University and were projected as a middle-of-the-pack team, while Boston College entered with high expectations, ranked 11th in the preseason polls and rostering eight top-100 NHL draft picks.
BC jumped on the Nanooks immediately after puck drop, with Teddy Stiga drawing a hooking penalty 16 seconds in and converting on the man advantage a minute and a half later. Alaska quickly flipped the momentum by turning up the forecheck, which bothered and disrupted the Eagles all night and forced them into poor decisions on and off the puck. Their efforts led to a late first-period tie, with Sam Elliott winning a net-front battle off a point-shot rebound.
“They did a good job clogging the middle of the neutral zone, clogging the middle in front of the net, and we got impatient at times,” said BC head coach Greg Brown, whose young roster iced just six upperclassmen on Friday night. That group shrank to five midway through the second period when senior defenseman Nolan Joyce was helped off the ice with a lower-body injury and did not return.
The Eagles’ frustrations boiled over in the third period, and they took four of their seven penalties, allowing Alaska to take the lead on their only power-play goal of the night, a point-shot deflection by Davis Borozinskis. Moments later, after BC came up empty on an Alaska “too many men” penalty, Borozinskis struck again, pouncing on a mishandled pass by Eagles defenseman Carson Woodall in the defensive zone to walk in on goal and give the Nanooks a 3-1 lead. “(We) made some mistakes you can’t make when it’s going to be a low-scoring tight game,” said Brown.
Dean Letourneau cut the deficit to one with the Eagles’ second power-play goal with just over six minutes remaining, dropping to his knee to smash a pass from Luka Radivojevic home from the side of the net. Letourneau had been posted in that position all night on the man advantage and finally got a clean feed through an Alaska defense that had smothered the net up to that point.
However, the spark from Letourneau’s goal quickly faded as BC unraveled further in the final five minutes. Three penalties by Stiga and Quinn Beauchesne (two for Holding and Roughing) put the Eagles back on their heels, forcing them to defend a five-on-three for over a minute and effectively snuffing out any chance of a comeback despite killing it off. An offensive zone faceoff gave BC one last chance with 9 seconds left, but Alaska held on for the upset victory.
The Eagles will look to rebound next weekend, when they host St. Cloud State for two games on Thursday and Saturday night.
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