BC Women’s Hockey vs. #10 St. Lawrence: Final Thoughts & Predictions

Here we are in week 3, and somehow we’re already wrapping up the entire non-conference schedule on the BC Women’s Hockey calendar (other than the Beanpot, of course). Saint Lawrence comes to Conte Forum as a ranked team (though just barely so), so this should be a nice little test for BC to see if they’ve improved since the abomination against then-#9 now-#4 Minnesota-Duluth on opening weekend.

Given that the only ranked team left on BC’s schedule is conference foe Northeastern (clinging to the bottom of the rankings themselves at #9), this is one of the last real opportunities to see if the Eagles can live up to the pre-season hype. If BC drops even a point in this series, it’ll be time to push the panic button. The stakes really are that high.

WHO

#10 St. Lawrence Saints (2-1-1, 0-0-0 ECAC)
at #6 Boston College Eagles (1-2-0, 0-0-0 WHEA)

WHAT

The Battle For Shipping Rights Through The St. Lawrence Seaway, one of the most financially valuable rivalry games in sports

WHERE

Conte Forum
Chestnut Hill, MA

WHEN

Thursday, October 11th, 2018, for some reason
6:00pm EDT

Friday, October 12th, 2018
2:00pm EDT

HOW TO WATCH

This week’s games, like all BC men’s and women’s hockey home games, will be streamed live on ESPN3. You can watch the game on TV as well if you have Xfinity. Just say “ESPN3” into your voice remote and select the game from the menu.

LAST TIME OUT

Boston College easily handled Syracuse last weekend in a one-off nonconference matchup by a final score of 5-1. Unfortunately, Syracuse isn’t that good, so it doesn’t really tell us much.

St. Lawrence had a pair of not-all-that-impressive games against New Hampshire last weekend in which both games went to overtime. Game one was a 1-1 draw, and the Saints pulled out a win in game two by a score of 1-0. Quite the power outage from a team hoping to find itself on the NCAA tournament bubble.

BIG QUESTIONS

How many goals will Bionic Woman Caitrin Lonergan score now that she’s surprisingly returned so quickly from her week 1 knee injury? Who would win in a peace-off, Saint Lawrence or Saint Ignatius? Is northern New York really just southern Canada? Is it snowing up there yet? Can BC get a shutout for once seeing as how our defense is supposed to be amazing this year but has thus far been just kind of meh? Is there anything BC can do in this week’s games to make us feel better about getting swept by Duluth?

RANDOM, POSSIBLY INCORRECT FACT FROM ST. LAWRENCE’S WIKIPEDIA PAGE

Originally I was going go just go with the mention that St. Lawrence is apparently non-denominational, but I kept reading and thought this part was kind of funny:

Though St. Lawrence today is non-denominational, it was founded in 1856 by leaders of the Universalist Church, who were seeking to establish a seminary west of New England and were enthusiastically courted by the citizens of Canton. The church almost did not place the school in Canton, however, as they felt students might be exposed to too much “excitement” within the village limits in 1856.

I laughed.

ICE CREAM OF THE GAME

We do ice cream of the game because hell yeah, ice cream.

Nutella Shake — BOLOCO

Boloco closed its Cleveland Circle location a couple years ago, which is very depressing seeing as how they made the best milkshake in history, the Nutella Shake. However, there are still a whole bunch of Boloco locations out there. Find one, get a shake, and hunker down for some edge-of-a-hurricane hockey this afternoon and tomorrow.

GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK

Arctic Monkeys — Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured

BC wants lots of red lights this week because red lights also indicate goals. Get it?!

PREDICTION

St. Lawrence comes in at #10 in the rankings. Minnesota-Duluth came in at #9. But there’s a few things to keep in mind here. For starters, the Duluth games were on the road, and for whatever reason the Eagles are almost lights-out at home. Next, St. Lawrence has had a rough start to their season, splitting with Robert Morris and eeking out one win in two games again New Hampshire (and scoring only two goals in the process), whereas Duluth has come out like gangbusters and has already climbed to #4 in the rankings. And lastly, there’s just a very, very big gap between the top seven or eight teams and everyone else.

Also, there is no way the Eagles end the season at #6 or lower in the polls. They are just flat-out too good. BC is one of the four best teams in the country, week one be damned, and St. Lawrence is coming into Chestnut Hill at a pretty bad time. I don’t quite expect a 5-1 drubbing like we gave Syracuse last week, but I expect BC to be fully in control in both games. I’ll go with a 3-0, 4-1 sweep for BC — definitely with at least one shutout in there.