CHESTNUT HILL – Boston College scored three first period goals and NU never recovered as the Eagles went on to beat NU 5-2 in front of 5,807 at Conte Forum.

The Huskies, who found themselves down 1-0 just 1:21 into the contest, found themselves trailing 3-0 at the end of the first and 4-2 after two periods.

“You can’t fall behind to a team like BC,” said Northeastern coach Bruce Crowder. “Our (slow) start put us behind the eight ball and we couldn’t get it going. I don’t know why. We had a good week in practice, played well last weekend. But after the first 20 minutes, I thought we competed hard.”

NU, which hasn’t won at BC since November of 1998 (a 5-4 victory), pulled within two at 3-1 when Joe Mastronardi ripped a slap shot past Matti Kaltianen.

The Huskies had golden opportunities to get the game closer including two breakaways by Mike Ryan. But both were denied by Kaltianen.

“Those saves were game turners,” said BC coach Jerry York. “Those saves were big time saves for us.”

Mike Gilhooly was bombarded early failing to make stops on two of the first three shots he faced.

Joe Santilli scored his third goal of the season in the second period when a strange bounce slid out in front. The freshmen happened to be skating through and took a whack at it and buried through the wickets.

“NU played hard in the second period,” said York. “There are no easy w’s in this league at this time of year.”

No easy w’s but ties seem to be the flavor of the week as UMass-Lowell came back from a two goal deficit to tie UNH and inch within one point of NU and eighth place in Hockey East.

NU battles BC Saturday night at Matthews Arena. Game starts at 7.