Boston College Men’s Hockey vs. Quinnipiac: Game Preview

The long summer is over! After an extremely eventful offseason for the Boston College men’s hockey team, the Eagles take the ice against Quinnipiac to open the season for the second straight year.

WHO:

#6 Boston College Eagles (0-0-0, 0-0-0 HEA) vs #2/3 Quinnipiac Bobcats (0-0-0, 0-0-0 ECAC)

WHERE:

M&T Bank Arena, Hamden, CT

WHEN:

Saturday, Oct 7. Puck drops at 7PM.

HOW TO WATCH:

The game will be live on NESN and streaming on ESPN+.

FOLLOW ALONG:

@bcinterruption and @bc_mhockey on Twitter.

PREVIEW:

Where do I even begin? Saturday marks a highly-anticipated day for BC fans after a heartbreaking end to the 2022-23 season. We’ll get our first look at the new Eagles roster on Saturday in which more than half the team are newcomers, highlighted by the top ranked freshman class. BC also returns two out of their top three leading scorers from last season in Cutter Gauthier and Andre Gasseau, who are entering their sophomore seasons.

Overall, this team will look very different from the one that took the ice last year, so it’ll be interesting and exciting to see the lineup that Greg Brown opens the season up with. Freshmen Will Smith, Ryan Leonard, and Gabe Perreault all played on the same line at the USNTDP last year and were all drafted in the first round of the NHL Draft this summer — so something to keep an eye on is whether they start the season on the same line or if they’re split up as they adjust to college hockey. There’s a good mix of returners and newcomers on defense, so I’m curious to see how Brown incorporates freshmen Drew Fortescue, Aram Minnetian, and Nolan Joyce and grad transfer Jacob Bengtsson to an already strong unit.

All three goalies on this year’s roster — Jacob Fowler, Jan Korec, and Alex Musielak — are freshmen as well, so it’ll be interesting to see who gets the start against a strong Quinnipiac team. Based on their experience prior to BC, my guess is that Fowler starts but we won’t know for sure until the lineups are posted.

The Bobcats are the defending National Champions, winning their program’s first championship in overtime against Minnesota. Although some of their leading scorers return to the team for another year, there was a bit of roster turnover for the Bobcats, namely the departure of goaltender Yaniv Perets, who signed an NHL contract shortly after the season ended. Quinnipiac has always been a strong team over the past couple of years regardless of their roster, so this will be a good test for BC to start the year, though much of the team will be adjusting to the college game.

The Eagles are winless against the Bobcats in all their matchups so far, going 0-4-2 in six meetings. Most recently, they fell 4-0 to the Bobcats to open the 2022-23 season, so they’ll be looking to flip the script on Saturday evening.

We’ve been looking forward to the start of the season for months, and it’s finally here. Roll Eags!