BC Hockey vs. Notre Dame Preview: Looking At The Numbers

With the continuation of Trophy Season tonight in form of the best-of-3 Hockey East quarterfinal series against the Irish, here's look at some trends and stats for BC and Notre Dame.

If you would like to talk about basketball, you're more than welcome to visit this article.

Overall

Records:

BC 25-5-4.... Notre Dame 21-12-2: Notre Dame has had a rough go of it in Hockey East, but is 12-3-0 in non-conference games.

KRACH ranking (explanation):

BC #2 (588.2).... Notre Dame #9 (250.0)

Strength of Schedule:

BC #5.... Notre Dame #8..... Hockey East baby.

Goal Differential:

BC +71 (#1 in Hockey East), Notre Dame +34 (#2 in Hockey East). Thanks to BC's prolific offense, they far outpace everyone in the league in goal differential. Notre Dame, despite being 8th in the conference standings, sits 2nd on the strength of their Hockey East-leading 70 GA.

Shot Margin:

BC: +2.97/gm, #20
ND: +7.51/gm, #3

Trends:

It's tough to put BC on a "trend," given that they haven't played a hockey game in two weeks. But last time out, the Irish ended BC's 19 game unbeaten streak, handing BC a tough overtime loss at Conte Forum to end the regular season. Notre Dame has rattled off a 6-0-1 record in their last 7 games, although half of those wins came against BU, so....

Offense

Team scoring:

Boston College ranks #1 nationally in team offense, with a staggering 4.18 goals per game. The next highest team, St. Cloud State, is 0.5 goals behind at 3.68. To put that gap in perspective, another .5 back, 3.18, would bring you to #16 overall, Northeastern. That's quite a gap.

Notre Dame, for all we complain about their lack of offense, is roughly middle of the pack, ranked 25th at 2.97 goals per game.

Shots:

BC averages 32.03 shots per game -- #23 nationally -- and, as you probably would have figured based on the scoring number, leads the nation in shooting percentage by a solid margin (13.04%). High shooting percentage can either be a sign of good fortune or extremely talented shooters... in BC's case, it seems to be the latter, as the Eagles' style punishes with a lethal and efficient transition offense, rather than lots of long possessions with a barrage of shots on goal.

Notre Dame's 33.46 shots per game are good for #14 on the national leaderboard and a shooting percentage of 8.88%, toward the middle of the pack in D-1.

Trends:

Notre dame hasn't scored more than 3 goals against a Hockey East opponent since Dcember 6th against UMass, a 5-3 win.

BC's scoring has slowed down a bit recently, scoring above their 4.18 GPG pace in just 2 of their last 11 games.

Defense

Scoring against:

With a team goals-against-average of 2.09, BC is #5 nationally in team defense, up substantially from the early part of the season -- a common trend of Jerry York's most successful teams. During BC's 19 game winning streak to the 2012 title, BC stayed at or below the magic number of 2 goals allowed per game in every game during that stretch.

The BC defense allows an average of 29.06 shots against per game, which is #20, toward the middle of D-1.

The Irish have built their success off of great defense, ranking #5 nationally in goals against average at exactly 2.00 goals allowed per game. In terms of shots, ND is t-4th at 25.94, a sign that Summerhays' success of late may have more to do with the defense in front of him than with him.

Trends:

BC has allowed 2 goals or fewer in 8 of its last 10 games. Not to be outdone, Notre Dame has allowed 2 goals or fewer in *each* of its last 8 games.

Special Teams

Power Play:

BC 23.8% -- #5
ND 18.1% -- #28

Since January 10th, Boston College has -- I kid you not -- the nation's top power play by a substantial margin, scoring at an incredible 34.5%. St. Cloud is 2nd in that timeframe at 29.4%.

Penalty Kill

BC 91.4.% - #2
ND 86.5% - #6

BC is 0.1% behind Quinnipiac for the top PK in the nation.

Penalties Drawn

BC 122 -- 52nd -- Imagine what BC's offense would be like lately if they had more PP chances.
PC 177 -- t-3rd -- Because Notre Dame, probably.

Penalties Taken

BC 150 -- 32nd
ND 155 -- t-23rd

Goaltending

Save percentage:

Thatcher Demko, BC: .935 (#5 nationally)
Steven Summerhays, ND: .929 (#9)

Goals-against average:

Demko: 1.75 (#1 nationally)
Summerhays: 1.88 (#6)

Thatcher Demko has rapidly climbed near the top of just about every goaltending category -- another trait of York's most successful teams as we head into trophy season.