Boston College 3, Northeastern 1 (First draft)

With 2:39 remaining in the third period, her team clenching a 3-1 advantage for 11-plus minutes straight, Boston College coach Katie King saw her chance to simultaneously savor and properly execute a knockout punch when Northeastern’s Casie Fields took a defensive zone penalty for hitting after the whistle.

“I just wanted to make sure that I calmed the kids down a little bit, because I didn’t want them to be, too, too excited about it,” said King, who cashed in on a timeout at that point.

“I wanted to stick with our game plan and I thought they did a really good job. You can get so hyped about a power play at that point and try to overdo it, but I thought they did a great job of sticking with our plan and taking care of that two minutes.

“I didn’t think it was over by any means, but you do get a little bit excited.”

With BC’s continued pressure on the other side of that break, the Huskies’ penalty killers would clear the zone only once. And moments after returning to full strength and breaking the puck out once more, they could only listen to the dinning cheers of the Eagle faithful as BC stamped a 3-1 win for its first Women’s Hockey East playoff crown Sunday afternoon at Walter Brown Arena.

After posting each of the game’s first five shots on net, the Eagles sent the Huskies a written invitation to thaw out upon taking the game’s first penalty, a too-many-players infraction at 4:11. Building upon that power play, Northeastern soon pulled even in the shooting gallery and struck first at 8:00. Casey Pickett flustered a routine breakout in the near alley of the BC zone and strolled uncontested to the cage, where she buried her third goal of the tournament.

But in another four minutes and 13 seconds, the Eagles repossessed the momentum and drew a 1-1 via Danielle Welch. Within seconds of the Huskies’ clearing their zone, Welch absorbed a feed from Ashley Motherwell around the center face-off circle and cut into the high slot, where she sent a low rider home to the left of Schelling.

With 41.8 seconds to spare in the opening frame, BC converted its first power play to usurp the lead. While forwards Kelli Stack and Welch moved the puck in the near corner, defender Blake Bolden went out of her way to absorb a diagonal feed and snap it over Schelling’s blocker from along the opposite post.

The Huskies’ long-arid power play squandered three opportunities to draw another knot in the middle frame. Carrying over a minute and 47 seconds from a holding-the-stick minor to Dru Burns, they failed to utilize the fresh ice and the numerical advantage.

Later on, with Mary Restuccia off for bodychecking, Katie MacSorley took a hitting-after-the-whistle minor after Molly Schaus swallowed her slapper at 11:00. That negated the remaining 64 seconds of the NU advantage.

Restuccia’s opponents bailed her out once again after she went off for interference at 13:25. As Stack tried to break free on an attempted shorthanded rush up the near lane, she drew a hooking call on Pickett at 14:48, creating a 37-second 4-on-4 segment.

BC rookie Taylor Wasylk punched in the insurance with 14:09 to spare in the third period. While linemates Melissa Bizzari and Mary Restuccia exchanged the puck in the far end, she shuffled uncontested to the opposite half of the cage and tapped home Restuccia’s diagonal feed from the corner.