Boston College Men’s Hockey vs Arizona State Preview

The Boston College men’s hockey team is set to get back in action after a few weeks off for the holiday break. The last time we saw the Eagles, they put together their best game of the season with a 9-6 win against rival BU. This weekend, BC will jump back into some non conference play with two games against Arizona State as they get the second half of their season underway.

WHO:

Boston College Eagles (6-5-4, 5-3-3 HEA) vs Arizona State University (9-10-0)

WHERE:

Mullett Arena in Tempe, AZ

WHEN:

Friday, Dec 30 at 9 PM

Saturday, Dec 31 at 5 PM

FOLLOW ALONG:

@bcinterruption and @bc_mhockey on Twitter.

PREVIEW:

Arizona State has had a bit of an up and down season record wise, but they picked up a number of impressive wins in the first half of their season, including victories over highly rated Minnesota and traditional powerhouse North Dakota. Most recently, ASU split a weekend series with a familiar foe in UNH, defeating them 4-1 on December 9 before New Hampshire took them down in overtime the next night.

Arizona State is currently lead by senior forward and former second round draft pick Robert Mastrosimone, who has six goals and 21 points in 19 games on the season. Their other second round draft pick, Josh Doan, is a sophomore who is tied for second on the team in scoring with 15 points. The Sun Devils are clicking at a bit over 21 percent on the power play on the season and a tick over 82 percent on the penalty kill, so the special teams battle should be a fun one to watch this season, as it seems to be an area of strength for both teams.

The big story for BC this weekend will be seeing exactly what they can do without their best player. Cutter Gauthier will be out for both games this weekend as he plays for the United States in the World Juniors tournament, so some different players will need to step up in his absence. The Eagles split the first two games of this season without Gauthier, but since taking the ice, he’s been their leading scorer and their most impactful player by a pretty wide margin, so it will be interesting to see how the team looks without him.

With the Eagles coming into this series with a 6-5-4 record, the team certainly needs to start stringing some wins together.Even without Gauthier, this should be a fun two games to get the second half of the season underway against a team that most of us probably haven’t seen play all that often.