BC Women’s Hockey vs. #6 Northeastern: Final Thoughts & Prediction

Okay folks, the soft part of the schedule is over, and it’s Big Game!!! time for Boston College Women’s Hockey. While the Eagles didn’t exactly blow away their opponents in the easy games to start the year, you can’t argue with 6-0-0, especially with all the chaos happening around them in the rankings.

Just look at this weekend’s opponent, Northeastern. The Huskies were a fluky overtime goal away from winning the national championship last season and returned more of their roster than just about any of the contenders, but stumbled out of the blocks with a weekend sweep at the hands of BU and PC a couple weeks back and tumbled in the rankings as a result.

If you would have told me that by the time we reached this home & home series that the Eagles would be ranked ahead of the Huskies, I would have told you you were nuts. But here we are.

WHO

Friday
No. 6 Northeastern Huskies (5-2-0, 4-2-0 WHEA)
at No. 4 Boston College Eagles (5-0-0, 3-0-0 WHEA)

Saturday
No. 4 Boston College Eagles (6-0-0, 4-0-0 WHEA)
at No. 6 Northeastern Huskies (5-2-0, 4-2-0 WHEA)

WHAT

One of the biggest heavyweight bouts of the season

WHERE

Friday
Conte Forum
Chestnut Hill, MA

Saturday
Matthews Arena
Boston, MA

WHEN

Friday, October 29th, 2021
6:00pm EDT

Saturday, October 30th, 2021
2:00pm EDT

HOW TO WATCH

Both games this weekend, like all league games not picked up by NESN, will be streamed for free at CollegeSportsLive.com. Here is a direct link to Friday’s game at home, and here is a direct link to Saturday’s game at Northeastern.

LAST TIME OUT

Northeastern righted the ship after their BU/PC disaster two weeks ago with a stress-free three-game week against the NEWHA’s St. Anselm and Hockey East bottom-dwellers Maine and Holy Cross, winning all three games by a combined score of 11-1.

Boston College just had one game last week, topping Maine at home by a score of 5-2.

PROJECTIONS

Once everyone’s played some games (looking at you, Ivies), this space will be used for KRACH and GRaNT projected odds and scores for the weekend games. But we don’t have enough results to use just yet, so watch for those in the coming weeks!

THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE

A Heavyweight Bout. The Eagles do play #3 Minnesota and #5 Colgate later this year in a Nashville tournament, but I would argue that this week against Northeastern is BC’s biggest of the entire season. The Huskies are better than #6 (they just are) and came into the year with some first place votes and a lot of hype for being a true national title favorite. The Eagles have done well to collect their wins to start the season, but very few things would be as important to the development of this season to showing that they are at the same level as Northeastern.

THE BIG QUESTION

Will The Real Northeastern Please Stand Up? Northeastern should be at least as good as they were last season, but little things here and there have made them seem much more human this year. Is Alina Mueller not fully healthy? Is the team just struggling to click for some reason? What’s the deal? We should learn a lot this weekend about the preseason Hockey East favorite.

GAME TIME MEAL OF THE WEEK

Backyard Cheeseburger

Yeah, it’s starting to get cold out now, but I still think a little bit of a chill in the air with the leaves falling is almost the ideal time to fire up the grill. You won’t do it as much with snow on the back deck in a couple months, so might as well use up the rest of the propane while you can.

My personal style of backyard burger is to cook up some mushrooms and onions while frying up the burgers, and then put a layer of cheese, a layer of mushrooms and onions, and another layer of cheese on top to melt it all together into one thick layer of cheesy goodness. Highly recommended.

GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK

Sia — Cheap Thrills

Come on, come on, turn the radio on
It’s Friday night, and it won’t be long
Gotta do my hair, put my make-up on
It’s Friday night, and it won’t be long

Football and men’s hockey crowds have been nuts this season. Students, you know these women’s hockey games are free, right?! Seriously, the game starts in like an hour, grab something to eat, run down to Conte, and watch the highest ranked team on campus in their biggest game of the year!

PREDICTIONS

If this season had started any way other than it has, I would have been pretty sure we’d be seeing a Northeastern sweep this weekend. But Northeastern just... hasn’t looked right so far. I still think the Huskies get at least a win, but I do think BC is able to get some points out of this. I like BC 2-1 in OT tonight at Conte before Northeastern avoids catastrophe with a 4-2 Husky win on Saturday at Matthews.