Boston College Men’s Hockey vs. Harvard: Beanpot Preview

Game Details

Who: Boston College Eagles (9-10-6, 5-7-5 HEA) vs. Harvard Crimson (15-6-1, 13-4-0 ECAC)

When: Monday, February 6 at 5:00 PM

Where: TD Garden, Boston MA

How to Watch: Monday’s first round game will be broadcast on NESN

How to Listen: Listen to the game on BC’s website here or on WEEI 850 AM.

Live Stats: Live stats for the game will be updated online here.

How to Follow: BC Interruption’s coverage can be found on Twitter @bcinterruption, and BC’s updates at @BC_MHockey.

Preview

BC and Harvard will kick off the 70th edition of the Beanpot with the 5 PM game as the Eagles continue to search for their first win since January 14. The Eagles are winless in their last six games and continue to be plagued by the scoring woes that have been an issue for them for pretty much the entire season. They have not scored more than three goals since their win over UMass at Fenway Park and they haven’t really come all that close to doing so in some of these games.

Harvard dropped their only game last weekend, getting shut out by Quinnipiac 3-0, but they had been on a bit of a roll before then. Before their game against Quinnipiac, Harvard had won five of their last six games and had been lighting up the scoreboard a bit, scoring five or more goals in three of those games. They have plenty of scoring talent up front, with four players averaging better than a point per game. Sean Farrell leads the team in points with 34 in 22 games while Matthew Coronato’s is the top goal scorer with 14 on the season. The good news for BC is that there is a pretty significant drop-off in scoring after Harvard’s top two lines, but the Eagles will need to be able to take advantage of that seeming lack of depth, and they have not been able to rely on their bottom six forwards much at all in recent weeks.

BC will be facing another team with strong goaltending on Monday night. Mitchell Gibson has started in 15 of Harvard’s 22 games on the season and has a .919 save percentage while allowing just over two goals per game. Harvard has scored the most goals and allowed the third fewest in the ECAC, so the Eagles will certainly have a test on their hands as they attempt to advance to the finals of this tournament.