BC Women’s Hockey vs. #3 Northeastern: Final Thoughts & Predictions

So. Last week was our GET RIGHT! opportunity against one of teams toward the bottom of the conference after nearly a month off for the winter break. There was no way we would lose to New Hampshire after losing 4 of our last 5!

Well, it turns out we can lose to New Hampshire and now we’ve lost 5 of our last 6. WOW! Talk about bad. So now that we’re on an even longer slide, we’ve got a new GET RIGHT! opportunity against...

...the consensus 3rd best team in the country.

Oh boy.

The good news is that a big weekend for BC would put the Eagles right back into the thick of the tournament bubble and change the narrative of the entire season. The bad news is, it’s been a very long time since the Eagles were this big of an underdog in the regular season.

WHO

No. 10 Boston College Eagles (13-8-0, 10-6-0 WHEA)
at No. 3 Northeastern Huskies (14-2-3, 12-1-2 WHEA)

WHAT

The biggest weekend of the regular season.

WHERE

Matthews Arena
Boston, MA

Conte Forum
Chestnut Hill, MA

WHEN

Friday, January 11th, 2019
7:00pm EST

Saturday, January 12th, 2019
2:00pm EST

HOW TO WATCH

Friday night’s game will be on real, honest-to-goodness TV, with NESNplus picking up the game. Those of you who don’t have NESN from your cable provider can stream online at GoNUxStream, NU’s very good (and free) streaming service.

Saturday’s game is at BC, which means that the game will be streamed on ESPN3.

PROJECTIONS

KRACH has BC as roughly 3:1 underdogs, with the Eagles at a 74.21% chance of winning (BC +288 on the money line).

GRaNT gives us a score projection of 2.72 to 2.09 in favor of the Huskies — something like a 3-2 final.

LAST TIME OUT

Northeastern had a great weekend, taking the series 1-0-1 over defending champion Clarkson and solidifying their claim as the best team in the east with scores of 3-3 and 3-1.

Boston College continued its never-ending tumble down the infinite Escher staircase that is the 2018-2019 season with a 3-2 come-from-ahead loss at New Hampshire.

THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE

The Eagles are solidly out of an NCAA tournament at-large position, Sitting 10th and a whopping .0274 out of 7th, the last at-large spot with no surprise autobids.

But should BC sweep Northeastern — certainly a tall task for a team struggling like the Eagles are, but not out of the realm of possibility — it would lift the Eagles all the way up to... well, 10th in the Pairwise still. But that huge .0274 gap up to 7th would shrink down to just .0057 (pending other results obviously, so in a vacuum). And with just .0092 separating 4th and 7th above that, they would definitely be right back in the thick of things.

BC would basically need to pull a miracle and figure out its problems all at once for it to happen, but this is a massive opportunity the Eagles are presented with this weekend.

BIG QUESTIONS

Who will each team start in goal for both games? Will BC starter Maddy McArthur get both games after coming off an undisclosed injury that kept her in street clothes at the end of the first half? And will Northeastern’s 1a Aerin Frankel — the nation’s top goaltender — continue to split time with 1b Brittany Bugalski? Will BC’s big boppers up front finally break out and show a glimpse of last year’s scoring punch? Will defender and Olympic Hero Megan Keller continue to lead the Eagles in scoring? Can BC please figure this the **** out, for the love of all that is good and holy?

RANDOM, POSSIBLY INCORRECT FACT FROM NORTHEASTERN’S WIKIPEDIA PAGE

Northeastern recently opened a satellite campus in Canada. That may or may not explain the recent surge in success for both the men’s and women’s hockey programs.

ICE CREAM OF THE WEEK

We do Ice Cream Of The Week because hell yeah, ice cream.

Bacon Ice Cream

A battle of two of the nation’s top teams — or, one team that is undeniably one of the nation’s top teams, and one team that, for God’s sake, should be one of the nation’s top teams — deserves a pairing of two of the nation’s top foods: Bacon, and Ice Cream.

But here’s the thing: It might be bad! We really don’t know! And frankly, it kind of looks like it actually will be bad! But it might be really, really good. And isn’t that why we’re here in the first place?

GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK

American Hi-Fi — Wake Up

Here comes that feeling again, pins and needles moving up my spine
You call it self absorbed, you can call me anything you like
Surrender that embrace, I’ll be there to watch the dive
You switched the panic on, no ones getting out of here alive

Wake up, wake up this is the bitter end
You’re past the point of no return
Wake up wake up it’s up to you my friend
If you’ve had enough I’ll take my turn

Hello Miss Misery, you’re the cause and the effect
Distorted melodies, it’s the only way that you connect
You don’t know how to connect!

Wake up, wake up this is the bitter end
You’re past the point of no return
Wake up wake up it’s up to you my friend
If you’ve had enough I’ll take my turn

Yep. That’s this weekend alright.

PREDICTION

This is a pretty brutal time to have run into one of the best teams in the entire country. Like we mentioned earlier, BC has a rare opportunity to rocket right back into the national conversation. But while my heart says they can do it, and on paper they have the personnel to do it, my head says there’s no way they could possibly have fixed the myriad problems that have plagued them on the ice in just one week.

It wouldn’t be a shock for BC to get something out of this weekend. But every bit of evidence we have points to a Northeastern sweep. Hopefully BC at least looks like a more cohesive unit along the way, but I feel like we’re going to see something like a 3-1, 3-2 sweep with 4 points to the Huskies.