Boston College Men’s Hockey vs Michigan Tech Preview

With their Hockey East schedule on hold for the moment, the Boston College men’s hockey team is in Vegas for the weekend to take part in the Ice Vegas Invitational. BC is coming off a solid win over UConn to start their second half, and will be looking for their first non-conference win of the season when they play Michigan Tech tonight in the early game. With the US still looking to take the bronze at the World Juniors Tournament, Joe Woll is out for the weekend, so look for Ryan Edquist to be in net.

In the second game (at 11:30 PM!!! If BC wins, that’s our time slot on Saturday) Arizona State faces off with Northern Michigan. The winners will meet in the championship game, while the losers face off in a consolation game.

GAME DAY DETAILS

GAME DAY FACTS

Who: Boston College (10-6-2; 10-2-0 Hockey East) vs Michigan Tech (10-8-5; 7-6-5 WCHA)

What: Game one of the Ice Vegas Tournament

Where: Vegas

When: 8PM Puck Drop

For more information on the game, ways to watch or listen, and a heads up on how to follow our coverage, check out our ‘How to Watch’ piece here.

STATS

Goals Per Game: BC: 2.68 Michigan Tech: 3.04

Opponents Goals Per Game: BC: 2.74 Michigan Tech: 2.70

Power Play Percentage: BC: 14.9% Michigan Tech: 17.9%

Penalty Kill Percentage: BC: 81.3% Michigan Tech: 79.1%

Penalties Per Game: BC: 6.2 Michigan Tech: 3.9

ICE CREAM OF THE GAME

Many of our other previews feature a beverage of the game, but this year we’ll be picking an ice cream dessert of the game for MIH games. Why, you ask? Because when Jerry York got the BC coaching job, he went out for ice cream sundaes to celebrate.

Gonna level with you guys, I have no idea what to do here. Unlike some of the other writers, I am not an ice cream aficionado. I may have to outsource this section for tomorrow’s game, I probably should have outsourced it for today.

But this is about Jerry, not me. So I’ll go ahead and pick...Blue Moon Ice Cream, because Hudsonville Ice Cream is apparently big in the Midwest.

CAT PREDICTIONS

Every game, we have the cats of the Ellen M. Gifford Cat Shelter (located right across from BC at 30 Undine Road) predict the outcome of the games. The Gifford Cat Shelter is the oldest cageless, no-kill shelter in the USA.

Laura is in Vegas and, to my knowledge, unable to ask her cats for a prediction, so I texted my sister who lives in New York in an apartment where all her neighbors have cats for a prediction. She told me that a cat named Coffee predicted a 5-4 win for BC (methodology unconfirmed). Coffee must not know about BC’s defensive mindset and their tendency to play low scoring games, but he is a cat and the cats are currently tied with me in the prediction game so maybe I’m just not as smart as I think.

HUMAN PREDICTIONS

Laura: BC 2- Tech 1

Grant: BC 3-Tech 1

Steven: BC 3- Tech 2

AJ: BC 3 - Tech 0

Prediction Standings (3 points for the 100% correct score, 2 points for the correct outcome & goal differential, 1 point for the correct outcome)

Laura: 16

Grant: 15

Arthur: 13

Cats: 8

Steven: 8

Eaglekeeper: 3

AJ: 1

Share your prediction in the comments!