Hockey East Quarterfinals, BC Women’s Hockey vs. Maine: Final Thoughts & Predictions

The regular season has come to an end, and that means any loss will bring an end to the Boston College Women’s Hockey season. Hockey East has moved to a single-elimination format this year, and with the Eagles on the outside looking in for the national tournament, they’ll have to win the conference title to make it to NCAAs.

That certainly raises the stakes... but that just makes things more fun, doesn’t it?

WHO

Maine Black Bears (14-18-1, 12-13-1 WHEA [5th]
at Boston College Eagles (19-13-1, 16-9-1 WHEA [4th])

WHAT

The Hockey East Quarterfinals

WHERE

Conte Forum
Chestnut Hill, MA

WHEN

Friday, February 25th, 2022
1:00pm EST
EDIT: Due to the weather, the game will now be played at 7:00pm EST.

HOW TO WATCH

The game will be shown live on NESN for folks in New England. Anyone outside of the region can stream the game on CollegeSportsLive.com.

LAST TIME OUT

It was a pretty frustrating weekend for BC Women’s Hockey as they went 0-1-1 against Vermont. The Catamounts sit just outside the top ten nationally, and BC really had a chance to come away with two wins after being tied late in both contests — so it’s not quite as bad a weekend as it looks at first glance.

The Black Bears had a righting-of-the-ship weekend with a 4-1, 5-0 sweep against New Hampshire after losing five straight. The Wildcats just saw their season end at the hands of Merrimack on Tuesday, but they were probably just about ready to pack it in anyway.

PROJECTIONS

KRACH (used for odds) has the Eagles ranked 16th and Black Bears in 25th. Running the numbers gives us Boston College with an 70.24% chance of winning, or BC -236 with your local bookie.

The GRaNT rankings (used for point spread) have the two teams a smidge closer, with the Eagles in 17th and Maine in 23rd. Our calculator gives us a projected score of 2.78 to 2.04 in favor of BC — something like a 3-2 BC win.

THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE

Win or go home. This is it; from this point onward, the only way the Eagles get to play another game is by winning the next one. The games will get progressively more difficult from here. Time to dig deep.

GAME TIME MEAL OF THE WEEK

Lobster Roll

Not one of those nonsense, fake, mayonnaise-filled monstrosities that they serve you up in Maine. No, I’m talking the real deal, Connecticut style: lobster, butter, and a roll. The way God intended.

GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK

The Karma Killers — Domino

But I’m not ready yet
What lies ahead?

Gotta win this game to get to the next one, and the next one, and the next one... all the way to the national tournament. Let’s go.

PREDICTION

BC’s postseason prospects are going to loosely tied to how the matchups fall, but fortunately the Eagles get to start out with a pretty favorable pairing. The Eagles are 3-0-0 against Maine this year. Two of those wins came in overtime, but they were also the only two wins BC had in the midst of their 2-7-0 stretch in the middle of the season.

I think BC matches up pretty well with the Black Bears and should come out of this one without too stressful of a W. Let’s go with a 4-1 Boston College win to open up their Hockey East run.