BC Women’s Hockey vs. UConn: Final Thoughts & Predictions

Last week was bad! After Boston College Women’s Hockey easily handled New Hampshire in week one, the Eagles were swept by Providence in week two despite playing reasonably well. It was a bit of a reality check, and a reminder that while the Eagles may well be better than last season, getting back into national contention isn’t going to happen all at once.

Nonetheless, a good weekend here against the Huskies would go a long way toward giving BC their confidence back that they had after beating lowly UNH.

Let’s go.

WHO

Friday
No. 10 Boston College Eagles (2-2-0, 2-0-0 WHEA?)
at UConn Huskies (1-0-1, 0-0-0 WHEA?)

Saturday
UConn Huskies (1-0-1, 0-0-0 WHEA?)
at No. 10 Boston College Eagles (2-2-0, 2-0-0 WHEA?)

WHAT

I think these are actually conference games?

WHERE

**Games will be played without fans, so don’t show up hoping to get in the door**

Friday
Freitas Ice Forum
Storrs, CT

Saturday
Conte Forum
Chestnut Hill, MA

WHEN

Friday, November 27th, 2020
6:00pm EST

Saturday, November 28th, 2020
2:00pm EST

HOW TO WATCH

Friday’s game will be streamed free on CollegeSportsLive.com, as all Hockey East games will be this season (all non-NESN games, and all NESN games being streamed outside of New England).

Saturday’s game will be shown live on NESNplus. If you don’t have cable TV, hopefully they’ve fixed their stream because I know it’s been giving people problems lately.

PROJECTIONS

As we get deeper into the season, this space will be used to give you game odds and point spreads using our KRACH and GRaNT calculators. We’ll still be running them this season because even though they’ll be useless to compare teams from different conferences, they’ll be perfectly fine to use for intra-conference games... which are the only ones that will be played anyway.

But, not enough games have been played for the numbers to mean anything, so we’ve got no projections just yet. It might take a while given how many games are getting postponed every week.

LAST TIME OUT

Boston College had quite a frustrating weekend, getting swept in matching 3-2 decisions in a home and home against the Friars despite playing pretty well for the most part. It’s too early to panic given that BC has played well for the majority of all four games this season, but it was a pretty tough kick in the gut for a team that sure felt like they were Capital-B-Back after thumping New Hampshire.

Fun fact: Those two losses, for now, go down as non-conference games since the Eagles still have their regular conference series with Providence still scheduled. Hilarious.

UConn snuck in an impromptu series against Providence two weeks ago as well and took a loss and a tie... and they haven’t been able to play since. Those games went down as non-conference games too, so the Huskies still haven’t played any league games.

THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE

Every week is going to be about just getting games in, but this week it’s more about continuing to play well and coming away with the points to go with it. UConn pretty much always gives BC fits (especially at Freitas), so a sweep would feel mighty good... despite it just being the Huskies.

THE BIG QUESTION

How about some special teams? BC’s an embarrassing 1 for 10 on the power play and just 78.6% (13th out of the 18 teams to have played so far) on the penalty kill. Chemistry has been great, 5 on 5 has been really good... but special teams have really left the team out to dry so far. Even just keeping things even while on special teams would go a long way.

IN THE BEFORE TIME, IN THE LONG LONG AGO

We’ve done the “Random, Possibly Incorrect Fact From Our Opponent’s Wikipedia Page” for so many years now that at this point there’s nothing else in the wiki pages to use. So we’ll change it up, and this year we’ll talk about a women’s hockey memory from the last 15 years featuring our opponent from back when Joe Gravellese and I followed the program as students.

Would you believe that UConn was actually ranked in the top ten for a little while Back In My Day™? Hell, back in 2008 the Huskies were 2nd in the conference. In 2010 they actually got to the Hockey East final. Was it weird watching the Huskies play for hardware on NESN? It sure was! They wouldn’t get back there again until pulling a rabbit out of a hat in 2018 when they were one of the worst teams in the conference (a 7 seed!).

Anyway, while I don’t have a single positive memory of going to UConn to watch hockey because to this day, we always seem to lose at Freitas, I do remember walking out of there many times sputtering obscenities like I was one of the Wet Bandits getting conked in the head with a can of paint. We did have some good internet banter with a couple of their goalies while we were students, though, so that was fun. Christie Houser and Brittany Wilson were good eggs.

GAME TIME MEAL OF THE WEEK

Cheese Ravioli

I’m guessing you haven’t had a good ravioli in a while. I’m not talking Chef Boyardee (no disrespect), but a nice real bowl of ravioli. I almost never have it, but Mrs. Salzano’s mom cooks up a pot once in a while and every time I have it I wonder why I don’t put it in the weekly rotation.

You don’t even have to go crazy with home-made stuff. There are some impressive options in the Frozen Food aisle at your local Stop & Shop. Just top it off with your favorite tomato sauce and bam. Nice cold-weather dinner in like 7 minutes.

GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK

Electric Light Orchestra — Don’t Bring Me Down

You’re always talkin’ ‘bout your crazy nights
One of these days, you’re gonna get it right
Don’t bring me down
No, no, no, no, no

Look, Eagles, watching you all play hockey is one of the only things we can do for the next few months. Please no more unexpected sweeps to worse teams.

PREDICTION

Aaaaughhhhhhhhhhhh... That sweep last week was killer, man. We are better than Providence. We’re also better than UConn, and I’d be at the game in Storrs if the Huskies were giving out media credentials.

That’s probably a good thing, though, because BC always loses when I go to the game there. So since I won’t be there, odds are we’ll finally win. I’m going to predict a sweep again, but if we don’t, it’s the last time I’ll do it for a while. I think we reverse last week’s frustration with another pair of 3-2 games, this time with the Eagles in the win column.