HOLY DISASTER, BATMAN! Last week’s trip down to Nashville for the Smashville Showcase went about as badly as anyone could have imagined. BC was swept by #6 Colgate and Mercyhurst, and while the scores weren’t that bad, the way the games played out certainly was. The Eagles gave up a whopping 109 shots on the weekend, including 57 to Colgate alone, and never held a lead.
Fortunately, Boston College gets Maine this weekend and the Black Bears are a lot weaker than the teams that played down south last week. This is a good opportunity for the Eagles to get back into the win column.
WHO
Boston College Eagles (8-7-0, 6-4-0 WHEA)
at Maine Black Bears (6-10-1, 4-5-1 WHEA)
WHAT
Hopefully a get-right weekend for BC
WHERE
Alfond Arena
Orono, ME
WHEN
Friday, December 3rd, 2021
2:00pm EST
Saturday, December 4th, 2021
2:00pm EST
HOW TO WATCH
Both games this weekend will be streamed for free at CollegeSportsLive.com. You can find a link to both games right here.
LAST TIME OUT
PAIN. Boston College got blitzed out of the building last week in the Smashville Showcase, falling 2-1 to #6 Colgate and 4-2 to Mercyhurst in which the Eagles were comically outshot in both games.
Maine hosted #8 Clarkson for a pair and didn’t fare all that well on the weekend either, losing 4-1 and 5-2 to the Golden Knights in their two games.
PROJECTIONS
KRACH (used for odds) has the Eagles in 17th place after last week’s disaster, with Maine a bit further down in 25th. Using our handy-dandy calculator, that gives the Eagles a 63.51% chance of winning — that’s BC -174 with your local bookie. Extrapolating a bit with those odds gives BC a roughly 40% chance to sweep the weekend.
The GRaNT rankings have slightly more separation between the two teams, with BC sitting at 16th and Maine down in 26th. Our calculator projects a final score of 2.70 to 1.91, or something like a 3-2 BC victory.
THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE
Back On Track. BC hasn’t been .500 all year since they were 0-0-0, and they’ll need to sweep the Black Bears to keep it that way. Maine isn’t quite as awful as they seemed they would be when the season started (a 3-0-1 stretch against UConn, BU, and Providence a few weeks back might make you raise an eyebrow), but they are still one of the lower-ranked teams in Hockey East. BC can, should, and frankly needs to win these games.
THE BIG QUESTION
What Is Defense? OH MY GOD how is it even possible to give up 57 shots in a game?? Poor Abbey Levy left Minnesota State where she would routinely finish games with more welts than a golf ball, only to transfer to Boston College where the same thing is happening again! As great as it is to have an elite goaltender behind the defense, it would be nice to see some kind of improvement on the blue line this week.
GAME TIME MEAL OF THE WEEK
Poutine
Back in January 2009, a few of us went up to New Brunswick to watch the men’s team play UNB in a couple exhibition games. On the way back, we stopped in Orono to watch UNH play Maine, and when we stopped at a Burger King along the border, someone actually came in and asked at the counter “do you all got any poutine?” Maine Burger Kings do not, it turns out, have any poutine, so you’re going to need to make some of your own.
GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK
The Beatles — Get Back
Get back
Get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Time to get back on track this weekend. There’s still a lot of season left, and with an expanded tournament, a second half hot streak might be enough to get back into NCAA contention. Maybe.
You gotta start somewhere.
PREDICTIONS
I’m a little surprised to see Maine playing as well as they have been over the last few weeks, because they had a rough start to the season. They barely scraped by LIU and actually lost (!!) to Saint Anselm on their way to a 2-7-0 start to the year. One of those losses was a 5-2 defeat at the hands of Boston College.
I’m not sure if BC will be quite that in-control of both games, but I do think the Eagles have at least one great effort in them this weekend. I think BC gets the sweep, getting a nice 4-0 win on Friday before pulling out a 3-2 squeaker on Saturday afternoon.