Boston College Men’s Hockey vs. Harvard: Preview & Predictions

Um… so last week was not great! (I don’t know how many different ways there are to say that any more! Pain!) The Eagles have a losing record for the first time this season, and they’re set to take on Harvard this week in a rescheduled game from the fall.

WHO:

Boston College Eagles (10-11-4) vs. Harvard Crimson (10-7-2)

WHEN:

Tuesday, February 1st at 7PM.

WHERE:

Kelley Rink

Chestnut Hill, MA

FOLLOW ALONG:

@bcinterruption and @bchockey on Twitter

SO, WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH HARVARD:

Harvard’s had a bit of a back and forth season this year but is currently sitting at 10-7-2, good for third in the ECAC. They went 4-3-1 in January, and are coming into Tuesday night’s game off a shootout win against Cornell.

The Crimson are led on offense by junior Nick Abruzzese, who leads the team with 21 points in 17 games. Following him are freshman Sean Farrell and sophomore Alex Laferriere, who each have 19 points. Both Abruzzese and Farrell will be at the Olympics, so it’s likely they will not be on the ice on Tuesday. In goal, junior Mitchell Gibson has started most games, and has a .913 save percentage with a 2.12 GAA.

KEY BC PLAYER(S) TO WATCH:

I am really interested to see who steps up in the absence of Marc McLaughlin and Jack McBain on offense — but I’m not sure who that will be yet. It seems like either Nikita Nesterenko or Colby Ambrosio are consistently on the verge of breaking out in goal-scoring this season but something just hasn’t clicked yet, so maybe the increased opportunity in the absence of two key pieces of the offense will lead to that.

On defense, I can only imagine that Marshall Warren and Jack St. Ivany will be playing huge minutes with the absence of Drew Helleson.

LAST TIME OUT:

Okay, so, I thought that BC was going to win 4-1 against Maine last week. I ended up getting the score prediction right, but BC was on the losing end of it — and it was painful. To make things worse, the one goal was scored by captain Marc McLaughlin, who as we know, is getting ready to head over to the Olympics.

PREDICTIONS:

The only thing giving me a bit of solace here is that while BC is missing three of their best players to the Olympics, Harvard is also missing two of its best players in Farrell and Abruzzese — so these two teams could be pretty evenly matched on Tuesday. However, the Crimson seem to be stronger in net, so if that ends up being the difference I think the Eagles will end up losing, 3-1.

HOT BEVERAGE OF THE GAME:

A hot toddy? I don’t know, at this point it’s anything that will get you through the game.