We have arrived at the end of the regular season!
Boston College Women’s Hockey has been playing very well lately, winning ten of their last eleven games and playing themselves not just into the NCAA tournament picture, but into a position where winning the rest of their games could earn them a home game in the national quarterfinals. But the last time the Eagles traveled to Lake Whitt, they lost 3-2 and were in the midst of their midseason swoon. Hopefully, that memory is fresh in the players’ minds and they come out of Durham without any surprises.
WHO
New Hampshire Wildcats (13-15-5, 10-14-2 WHEA)
at No. 7 Boston College Eagles (23-10-0, 19-7-0 WHEA)
WHAT
The LAST GAME of the regular season!
WHERE
Whittemore Center Arena
Durham, NH
WHEN
Saturday, February 23rd, 2019
2:00pm EST
HOW TO WATCH
The game will be streamed live for free via UNH’s channel on YouTube Live — very nice.
PROJECTIONS
KRACH has the Eagles pretty strongly favored, with BC at a 76.64% chance of winning (BC -328 on the money line).
GRaNT gives us a score projection of 3.22 to 1.59 in favor of the Eagles — something like a 3-1 final. The last time these teams played the projection was closer to 3-2, which is actually a decent amount of positive movement. The game was... er... not quite that close.
LAST TIME OUT
UNH came into their last game against the Eagles on a five game winning streak, but since BC laid the smackdown on the Wildcats in that game, UNH is 0-3-1 in their last four including an 0-1-1 weekend last week against Boston University. Despite that, the Eagles need to be on their toes — all four of those games were against top 14 teams in KRACH, and getting a tie against red-hot BU just last weekend is pretty impressive.
Boston College had a pretty good week against Maine, winning an angsty 2-1 decision before coming to play in a 5-2 win the next night.
THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE
BC’s goal nationally right now is to win its way into a home-ice spot in the NCAA tournament. The only way that will happen is if they win the rest of their games and get a little help. While the Hockey East tournament doesn’t start until next week, a stumble against UNH here at the end of the regular season would extinguish and hope, and also make it that much tougher for the Eagles to be able to get an at-large spot if they don’t win the league. We’re officially in crunch time now. BC needs to play like every game the rest of the way is an an elimination game.
BIG QUESTIONS
Will the Eagles continue to struggle on the road, or can they take advantage of the open ice at Lake Whitt? Who will we see in net in BC’s final tune-up before the post-season? Will be get a little help on the out of town scoreboard (hope for Cornell, Clarkson, Princeton, and/or BU to drop some points)? What is a shutout?
RANDOM, POSSIBLY INCORRECT FACT FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE’S WIKIPEDIA PAGE
UNH’s David Ball at one point held the NCAA D-I record for most receiving touchdowns in a career (51), breaking the record held by Jerry Rice at the time. Ball’s mark has since been surpassed, but hey, that’s still kind of neat I guess.
ICE CREAM OF THE WEEK
We do ice cream of the week because hell yeah, ice cream.
Neapolitan
Surely on the Mount Rushmore of Ice Cream. A potent combination of both simplicity and variety. Never disappoints. Just an overall pleasant ice cream experience.
GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK
Queen — Don’t Stop Me Now
I’m a shooting star, leaping through the sky
Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity
I’m a racing car, passing by like Lady Godiva
I’m gonna go, go, go
There’s no stopping me
BC’s on a roll! Gotta keep the good times going, though, because at this point any losses are going to be killer to our postseason chances. Also Queen rules. “Bohemian Rhapsody” wasn’t a perfect movie, but it was damn good and you should see it.
PREDICTION
This isn’t going to be 7-1, and BC needs to pretty much forget that game ever happened. New Hampshire is a team that plays with some pride and has had a really nice second half to the season despite their last few games. BC just doesn’t seem to play that well on the road, so this might be a little uncomfortable. Hopefully not! But let’s go with BC 3-2 in a squeaker.