But as soon as the bus arrived back on campus, at roughly midnight, junior left wing Joe Whitney turned to senior captain Ben Smith and told him, “I want to play right now.’’

That resiliency carried over well, as the Eagles responded with their most dominant performance of the season, a 5-1 win over injury-riddled Northeastern last night at Conte Forum.

“This morning, our guys did a good job of compartmentalizing that and focusing on today,’’ said Smith, who had a goal and an assist. “I think we were hungrier because of last night. Every time you lose a tough game like that, you always want to get back out there.’’

The Huskies (3-4-0, 1-3-0 Hockey East) got on the board first with a goal from Kyle Kraemer four minutes into the game. Wade MacLeod dumped the puck to the right of the goal line, where Chris Student one-timed it to the low slot, where Kraemer beat John Muse (16 saves) to the far post, stick side, for the lead.

But from there, BC (3-2-1, 2-2-1) was the aggressor, scoring five unanswered goals on the strengths of a stalwart penalty kill (which came into the game with a pedestrian 82.6 percent success rate) and an aggressive, straightforward attack that crashed the net. The Eagles got off a slew of shots around the crease and in the slot, and outshot the Huskies, 34-18.

“I think we were quicker tonight with the puck on our sticks,’’ said BC coach Jerry York. “I think that’s been something I’ve seen recently from our team. If you’re deliberate and you’re thinking too much with the puck, you’re never going to get shots off. We’ve just been more alert the last couple nights.’’

The Eagles tied it at 10:39 of the first period, when Philip Samuelsson collected the rebound of a Matt Lombardi shot from the left circle and beat Chris Rawlings (29 saves) top shelf. The goal came seconds after the Huskies turned in an impressive penalty kill.

BC broke things open with two goals in the second period. First, in the midst of a 90-second two-man advantage, Carl Sneep fired a shot from the blue line that deflected off Brian Gibbons and back out to Smith in the right circle, where he beat Rawlings stick side for a 2-1 lead at 5:15. Five minutes later, Pat Mullane took a feed from Malcolm Lyles along right boards, got it to Atkinson in the high slot, where he fired and beat Rawlings stick side.

The Eagles scored two more in the third, from Paul Carey on a power play and Gibbons, both assisted by Sneep.

Northeastern coach Greg Cronin was encouraged by his team’s effort, considering the number of players out of the lineup - five, including Steve Quailer (ACL tear) - but was disappointed by the lack of discipline.

“I just told them, [this is the] third game in a row we’ve taken a penalty with significant time on the clock while we’re killing a penalty,’’ he said.

Referring to Kraemer’s penalty 30 seconds into the third period, Cronin added, “To hold a guy’s stick 50 feet from the net? Just stupid. We’ve had these problems in the past, I thought we corrected them, but the last three games we’ve been shooting ourselves in the foot.’’