2023 Women’s Beanpot Championship Preview: No. 5 Northeastern vs. No. 15 Boston College

Trophy Opportunity #1 is here!

Boston College Women’s Hockey will take on Northeastern University tonight in the Women’s Beanpot championship. Both teams are ranked, both teams are on a nice winning streak, and both teams are looking to bring the Beanpot home after losing out last year.

Should be a real banger. Let’s go.

WHO

No. 5 Northeastern Huskies (27-2-1, 22-2-1 WHEA)
at No. 15 Boston College Eagles (18-12-1, 15-10-0 WHEA)

WHAT

The 44th Women’s Beanpot Championship

WHERE

Conte Forum
Chestnut Hill, MA

WHEN

February 14th, 2023
7:30pm EST

HOW TO WATCH

As they do every year, NESN will be picking up the feed for the Women’s Beanpot games — the championship this year will be on NESNplus. For those of you outside of the NESN coverage area, you’ll also be able to stream the games online on ESPN+. Here is a direct link to the game.

THE TRENDS

Northeastern just keeps winning... though the did get a scare over the weekend against UConn. The Other-Huskies held a third period lead against NU on Friday, forcing a Northeastern comeback with a tying goal in the third and the winner in overtime. That gave the Huskies their 15th straight win — though none of those have come against a team currently ranked in the top ten... not that anyone in Hockey East has had many such opportunities this year.

Boston College had a scare of their own against Boston University on Saturday, starting out hot but holding on for dear life in the waning minutes for a 2-1 win. That was BC’s 4th win in a row, and the goal they gave up to the Terriers was the only goal they’ve given up in over 240 minutes of game time. Not BC’s usual M.O.!

PROJECTIONS

Alright, let’s run some numbers.

KRACH (used for odds) has Northeastern in 8th and Boston College in 17th. Running the numbers gives us Northeastern winning 86.1% of the time, or NU -619 with your local bookie.

The GRaNT rankings (used for point spread) likes both teams slightly better, with the Huskies in 5th and the Eagles in 15th. That works out to a projected score of 3.31 to 1.17, or something like a 3-1 Northeastern win.

THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE

End The Drought. It has been five very long, very painful years since Boston College Women’s Hockey has won any hardware. The Eagles won the 2018 Beanpot and the 2018 Hockey East regular season title... and nothing since. There’s not even a Nutmeg Classic win in there for us to hang out hats on. Ugh. But tonight the Eagles just have to win one game to bring a meaningful trophy back to Chestnut Hill. It would be a big night for the program to get a huge win and start the march back to glory.

PREDICTION

Can the Eagles beat Northeastern? They certainly can! In fact, Boston College has looked quite good in all three of their matchups against the Huskies this year, especially the most recent contest where BC took the Huskies to overtime before falling 1-0 in a heartbreaker.

Will the Eagles beat Northeastern? That’s a much harder sentence to type. Despite looking solid in these contests, BC hasn’t scored on NU all season. I think that streak will end today, but my gut tells me that Northeastern wins another slugfest by a score of 2-1. Here’s hoping that I’m proven wrong!