Hey, look at that — the perfect start continues for the Eagles!
Let’s not get carried away though: it’s not all sunshine and roses. Boston College Women’s Hockey had their first real struggle last week in Burlington against the Catamounts. It took a miracle kick save on a wide open net by Cayla Barnes in the waning seconds for BC to escape with a 3-2 win up in the Great White North despite getting outshot in all three periods.
The jury is still our on how good Vermont is (they have had a reasonably good start to the season, in fairness). The Eagles should be easily handling the bottom half of Hockey East, but the Cats have a real chance of being in the top half of the league this year.
Anyway. Avanti!
WHO
Holy Cross Crusaders (0-5-2, 0-2-0 WHEA)
at No. 6 Boston College Eagles (6-0-0, 5-0-0 WHEA)
Maine Black Bears (2-3-1, 0-2-0 WHEA)
at #6 Boston College Eagles (6-0-0, 5-0-0 WHEA)
WHAT
Home Sweet Home!
WHERE
Conte Forum
Chestnut Hill, MA
WHEN
Friday, October 25th, 2019
2:00pm EDT
Saturday, October 26th, 2019
4:00pm EDT
HOW TO WATCH
Both games this weekend are on honest-to-goodness HDTV this weekend, with NESN picking up both broadcasts. NESN proper has the game Friday afternoon at 2pm, with Saturday’s game against Maine being shown on NESNplus at 4pm.
PROJECTIONS
We’re still very early in the season, so we haven’t posted this year’s KRACH or GRaNT projections just yet. But I have some super-early numbers to play with early on, so why not.
Super-early KRACH has BC 3rd in the country and Holy Cross 33rd (out of 41, including the NEWHA D-I/D-II teams). The numbers work out to BC having 96.22% odds for Friday. That’s equivalent to BC -2,546 in the sports books, if you’re into that sort of thing. GRaNT, which is used for score projections, has BC 4th, Holy Cross 36th, and projects a 4.05 to 0.50 final score — something like 4-0 or 4-1.
For Saturday’s game, it’s a bit closer. Maine is 27th in early KRACH, putting the odds at 90.59% (that would be BC -963 in Vegas). The Black Bears are a much-better 16th in GRaNT though, and the formula gives us a 3.06 to 1.44 score projection — a 3-1 or 3-2 final.
These numbers aren’t worth too much right now, but GRaNT does feel a bit more accurate at this super-early point. Go me.
LAST TIME OUT
Holy Cross has a rough weekend against St. Lawrence, losing 5-1 and 4-1 up in Canton. Those are both better than their 6-0 loss to BC earlier this year, so progress?
Maine had a similarly bad weekend, but against way better competition. Their 6-1 loss at home to Northeastern was pretty bad, but Northeastern is #3 in the country. They then lost 3-1 to #10 Boston University, also at home.
The Eagles circus-cannoned Merrimack last Friday by a score of 8-0, but had a much tougher go of it on Sunday, just barely holding on for a 3-2 win and getting (marginally) outshot in all three periods.
THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE
There really hasn’t been all that much of a change these first several weeks. BC is once again facing lower-ranked teams this weekend, but the Eagles do have their first weekend of two home games of the season. Kinger’s Krew does typically play very well at home, so it would be nice to see two comfortable wins. Holy Cross should certainly be one, but Maine can be tricky for us sometimes.
BIG QUESTIONS
Is goaltender Maddy McArthur recovered from her injury in which she took a puck to the dome in practice a couple weeks ago, missing last weekend’s games? Can Erin Connolly (Nothing But Respect For Our Queen) stay out of the penalty box? How many goals will Kelly Brown — the team leader in assists and one of BC’s strongest two-way players — get this weekend after mind-bogglingly getting to this point in the season snakebitten with zero? Can BC’s special teams keep up the great effort to start the year? Really can anyone stay out of the penalty box?
RANDOM, POSSIBLY INCORRECT FACT FROM OUR OPPONENTS’ WIKIPEDIA PAGES
Holy Cross’ campus is “a registered arboretum,” which the best I gather just means it has trees. Good for you guys. You enjoy those trees.
In addition to being a land grant university, Maine is also a sea grant and a space grant university. I don’t have the slightest idea what that could possibly mean other than trying to sound cool. It works though! I wish BC was a space grant university.
GAME TIME MEAL OF THE WEEK
Cheese Spaetzle
“Come now, Grant, that’s just mac and cheese, is it not?” you may be asking me. Nay, reader, it is not.
The Mrs. and I have a friend visiting from Germany this week (and in fact, your favorite women’s hockey writer will actually get to go to the game against Holy Cross on Friday before picking up said friend at Logan later in the evening), so this is your dish of the week.
How to describe cheese spaetzle? It’s a favorite of the Mrs., so I asked for her input. “What’s the picture? Oh no... Man, eff you. I want some.”
Say no more.
GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK
Pokemon Red/Blue Battle Theme
Dananananananananananananananana NA! NA! NA! NA-NA! NA! DA NA NA! NA! NA! NA-NA! NA! Daaaa naaaaa... Da naa naa naaaa (dununununununununuh)...
Just a routine battle here against Youngster Joey or whoever the hell you accidentally walked into. Break out the big guns and 1-hit KO these fools with Ice Beam or what have you and move on to the next one.
PREDICTIONS
Early as it may be, those GRaNT projections from earlier actually looked pretty good. That’s probably just luck with only a handful of games in the books, but why not, let’s go with it. Let’s take the upper end of both with the home ice advantage and call it 4-0 against Holy Cross and 3-1 against Maine. Those feel intuitively right. What a great rating system, eh?!