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

The winter break has come and gone, and most teams have already hit the ice for the second half. But after a few COVID postponements, Boston College Women’s Hockey is just now getting back into hockey season with this weekend’s series against the UConn Huskies.

The next couple months are going to be pretty nuts. Who’s going to be available for either team? Who knows! Buckle up, baby birds.

WHO

Friday
Boston College Eagles (10-8-0, 8-5-0 WHEA)
at UConn Huskies (15-5-2, 9-4-2 WHEA)

Saturday
UConn Huskies (15-5-2, 9-4-2 WHEA)
at Boston College Eagles (10-8-0, 8-5-0 WHEA)

WHAT

Hockey, hopefully, but you never can tell these days!

WHERE

Friday
Freitas Ice Forum
Storrs, CT

Saturday
Conte Forum
Chestnut Hill, MA

WHEN

Friday, January 14th, 2022
6:00pm EST

Saturday, January 15th, 2022
2:00pm EST

HOW TO WATCH

Both games will stream for free on CollegeSportsLive.com. Here is a direct link to Friday’s game, and here is a direct link to Saturday’s game.

LAST TIME OUT

The Eagles haven’t played in over a month. Boston College’s last game of the first half was, unfortunately, pretty typical for how things had been going for a few weeks. The Eagles lost 3-1 to Vermont, but most frustrating was the complete blowout on the shot chart with the Catamounts outshooting BC a whopping 47-16. The Catamounts put up 19 shots in the first period alone compared to BC’s 16 over the entire game.

UConn is having a great season and would probably be ranked right now were it not for them dropping a game to (admittedly not terrible) Vermont last weekend. The Huskies dominated game one last week by a score of 5-1 before falling 6-2 the following afternoon. Both games took place up in Burlington.

PROJECTIONS

KRACH (used for odds) has these two teams neck and neck, with the Eagles in 15th place and the Huskies just ahead in 14th. Using our handy-dandy calculator, the ratings give the Eagles a 43.89% chance of winning — that’s BC +128 with your local bookie. Those numbers work out to BC having about a 19.26% chance of a sweep.

The GRaNT rankings (used for point spread) have a somewhat bigger gap between these teams, with BC sitting at 19th and UConn in 15th. Our calculator projects a final score of 2.45 to 2.10, or something like a close 3-2 UConn victory or a 2-2 tie.

THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE

MICHAELA BOYLE SZN! The BC offense will get a nice 2nd half shot in the arm (HA get it? Get your booster, everyone) with the addition of graduate transfer Michaela Boyle to the roster. Boyle, from Reading, MA, has had a nice collegiate career at Clarkson and Robert Morris, and actually has a national championship ring from her freshman season with the Golden Knights. She comes in with a reputation for being a great shooter who knows how to find the net — and her addition to the lineup couldn’t come soon enough.

GAME TIME MEAL OF THE WEEK

Chicken Soup

Everyone is sick! Literally everyone! And also it’s freaking cold out. You have pretty much no other option this week. Eat chicken soup and stay far away from everyone.

GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK

Young Rising Sons — High

Is this the low, or is this the high?
Just let it go; enjoy the ride
Without the low there ain’t a high

“Just let it go; enjoy the ride...” If that’s not a lyric for the 2021-2022 BC Women’s Hockey season I don’t know what is. An NCAA tournament at-large spot is probably out of reach barring an absolutely bonkers second half of the season, but some hardware isn’t totally out of the picture if the team gets hot. Let’s just enjoy the rollercoaster and see where we end up.

PREDICTIONS

A lot of the games over the next month or so are going to be disproportionately dependent on how many players on each team are missing due to injury or COVID protocols, and it’s going to be pretty tough to predict results until we see line charts. Having said that, we’ll make our predictions anyway.

The (extended) winter break came at a good time to shake off the bad juju from the first half, so that’s good. What’s also good is that Michaela Boyle should make a nice difference to the lineup. Here’s the bad news: BC doesn’t win in Storrs even in the best of years, for whatever reason, and UConn is doing really well this year. I would be pretty impressed if the Eagles could pull off a sweep, but I’m not expecting it. UConn takes the win on Friday at home 4-2 before the Eagles flip the script for a 4-2 win at Conte on Saturday.