It’s not just that Northeastern always struggles in the Beanpot. It’s not just that Harvard’s RPI is worse than Alabama-Huntsville’s. And it’s definitely not just that Boston College has completely dominated BU this season. But BC’s going to win this year’s Beanpot. And may well go on to win a few more tournaments before Tax Day, too.
Because a lot of us are pretty unfamiliar with Harvard, let’s address the Crimson first. They’re...well, they’re terrible. They’re 51 out of 58 teams in the RPI - and that’s after jumping four spots from last week (they’re not actually below UAH anymore, but that’s a better lede). They allow 3 goals per game, good for a five-way tie for 34th in the country, but don’t rank in the top 40 offensively. They kill penalties at an 82.9% rate - 24th nationally, but aren’t able to muster any offense on the man-advantage. Danny Biega, a sophomore defenseman, leads the team in scoring with 14 points. By comparison, 53 Hockey Easters have 14 or more points - 21 of them will be taking part in Monday’s festivities.
The Crimson don’t have one player in the top 30 in the ECAC when it comes to power play production. They’re dead last in the conference in team offense, and eighth out of twelve in team defense. They only average 11.6 PIM per game, but that’s their most redeeming statistic. They play a lot of safe hockey, and the other three teams in this tournament eat up teams who play safe hockey. Well, maybe not Northeastern.
Speaking of the Huskies, they followed up a fantastic January in which they went 5-1-1 with an uninspired performance against Merrimack in which they blew a 2-0 lead, spent too much time in the box and woke up only when Tyler McNeely went beast mode on Stephane Da Costa and Jordan Heywood, caving in Heywood’s face before getting the gate. In spite of everything, they still had the chance to escape with a point before Joe Cucci registered a hat trick with a knucklepuck that Chris Rawlings never had a shot at with only 28 seconds remaining in overtime.
Whether Greg Cronin’s bunch can recover from such a disheartening effort to upend a team it shut out just two weeks earlier remains to be seen. But Cronin admitted after the game that he wasn’t concerned with the Beanpot after the loss. “We didn’t play together,” was his initial comment in the postgame session. “Before we can worry about the Beanpot, we need to start playing together.”
On paper, the Northeastern-Harvard game is a mismatch - a team that plays great defense against a team that plays no offense. Rawlings has had a stellar year in net, never allowing more than four goals in a game while posting a 2.22 goals against and a .930 save percentage, good for third and second in Hockey East respectively and 17th and 7th nationally. Rawlings is also tied for second nationally in shutouts with four, one of those coming against Harvard two weeks ago.
But on the ice, Northeastern figures to be a frustrated team. And if history means anything with this Northeastern team, that frustration will result in an offensive outburst or a complete implosion that cripples the rest of their season. In this writer’s unbiased opinion, it won’t be the latter.
The nightcap is usually a game reserved for the tournament’s second Monday, but there’s more on the line in the season’s fourth meeting between BU and BC than just a berth in the championship game. The Eagles have outscored the Terriers 17-9 this season, including a 9-5 win in the series’ first game at Agganis Arena in early December. BU’s struggle this season hasn’t been to score goals, it’s been defending their own end in front of Kieran Millan, who’s in the bottom half of the conference in GAA and save percentage, yet is fourth in wins. It speaks to the Terriers’ ability to score when they need to, but it they know that they’re facing a team that can score at will, too.
And BC doesn’t just do it with their forwards, either. While the Terriers have received a lot of contributions from David Warsofsky and Adam Clendening, BC has seen Brian Dumoulin, Philip Samuelsson, and Patrick Wey create space for their forwards and get pucks behind opposing netminders at a vapid pace since the calendar turned to 2011. The difference? While Warsofsky and Clendening are always eager to jump into the play, BC’s defensemen play defense, too.
It’s the biggest reason why John Muse is having a career season, leading the league in goals against (1.98) and save percentage (.934) and ranking in the top ten nationally in both categories, as well as shutouts. And Muse, it goes without saying, will be the biggest factor in how BC plays the next nine weeks. He’ll also be the reason that the Eagles add another feather in their Beanpot hat.
Without further ado, ten players to watch Monday night:
For obvious reasons, the goaltenders are going to be big names at the Beanpot. But Kieran Millan (1) is the real one to watch, because since his defense stopped blocking shots for him, he’s had to win games on his own. Since BU’s D will have their hands full with the fast-paced attack of BC’s Joe Whitney, Cam Atkinson, Brian Gibbons, Paul Carey and Jimmy Hayes, he’ll have to do it again here. If he does, BU may record its first win in four games against BC this season and should have the inside track to their 30th Beanpot title, doubling up Boston College.
Don’t expect BC to make it easy for him, though. Along with their five highest-scoring forwards, Chris Kreider (2) has continued his ascent into Boston College lore with his hard-nosed play, eye for finding the puck and ability to outwork opponents in the corners and in the neutral zone. His 16 points on the season don’t seem like much, but he’s scored them at the most opportune times. Since returning from World Juniors, he and Brian Dumoulin (3) have done nothing but punish opposing defenses, and the confidence they acquired in Buffalo has been remarkably evident on the ice.
BU will counter with David Warsofsky (4) and Chris Connolly (5), whose renewed leadership has re-invigorated the Terriers in 2011, making them once again an NCAA tournament-caliber team. They’ll need Alex Chiasson and Charlie Coyle to keep up their hard work and point-per-game pace, but how well the Terriers perform will depend on how well they unite and play together - that onus falls on the shoulders of the team’s two assistant captains.
It’s not all red and white and maroon and gold, though. Pay close attention to the work of Jamie Oleksiak (6) for Northeastern. Oleksiak, the Huskies’ only draft-eligible player, has been touted as a first-round pick, and rightly so. But - despite being the team’s best defenseman - he’s had a rough January, and is due for a strong performance. Don’t be surprised if it comes against an offensively inept team like Harvard.
Chris Rawlings (7) has benefitted greatly from the improved play of Oleksiak and Notheastern’s two other freshman defensemen, Luke Eibler and Anthony Bitetto, but Rawlings himself has been the real revelation in the Huskies’ defensive zone. If he continues his strong play, Northeastern’s got as much a chance at winning the whole thing as does anyone else. But they won’t be able to do it with goaltending alone, and they’ll need Wade MacLeod (8) to keep up his blistering pace - he’s in the midst of a nine-game Hockey East point streak - to get some rubber to the net and make sure that Northeastern gets on the board.
As for Harvard, they just need to make sure that they stay afloat. They’ll rely on Kevin Richter (9) and Danny Biega (10) to do so, because...frankly, that’s all they have.
Because a lot of us are pretty unfamiliar with Harvard, let’s address the Crimson first. They’re...well, they’re terrible. They’re 51 out of 58 teams in the RPI - and that’s after jumping four spots from last week (they’re not actually below UAH anymore, but that’s a better lede). They allow 3 goals per game, good for a five-way tie for 34th in the country, but don’t rank in the top 40 offensively. They kill penalties at an 82.9% rate - 24th nationally, but aren’t able to muster any offense on the man-advantage. Danny Biega, a sophomore defenseman, leads the team in scoring with 14 points. By comparison, 53 Hockey Easters have 14 or more points - 21 of them will be taking part in Monday’s festivities.
The Crimson don’t have one player in the top 30 in the ECAC when it comes to power play production. They’re dead last in the conference in team offense, and eighth out of twelve in team defense. They only average 11.6 PIM per game, but that’s their most redeeming statistic. They play a lot of safe hockey, and the other three teams in this tournament eat up teams who play safe hockey. Well, maybe not Northeastern.
Speaking of the Huskies, they followed up a fantastic January in which they went 5-1-1 with an uninspired performance against Merrimack in which they blew a 2-0 lead, spent too much time in the box and woke up only when Tyler McNeely went beast mode on Stephane Da Costa and Jordan Heywood, caving in Heywood’s face before getting the gate. In spite of everything, they still had the chance to escape with a point before Joe Cucci registered a hat trick with a knucklepuck that Chris Rawlings never had a shot at with only 28 seconds remaining in overtime.
Whether Greg Cronin’s bunch can recover from such a disheartening effort to upend a team it shut out just two weeks earlier remains to be seen. But Cronin admitted after the game that he wasn’t concerned with the Beanpot after the loss. “We didn’t play together,” was his initial comment in the postgame session. “Before we can worry about the Beanpot, we need to start playing together.”
On paper, the Northeastern-Harvard game is a mismatch - a team that plays great defense against a team that plays no offense. Rawlings has had a stellar year in net, never allowing more than four goals in a game while posting a 2.22 goals against and a .930 save percentage, good for third and second in Hockey East respectively and 17th and 7th nationally. Rawlings is also tied for second nationally in shutouts with four, one of those coming against Harvard two weeks ago.
But on the ice, Northeastern figures to be a frustrated team. And if history means anything with this Northeastern team, that frustration will result in an offensive outburst or a complete implosion that cripples the rest of their season. In this writer’s unbiased opinion, it won’t be the latter.
The nightcap is usually a game reserved for the tournament’s second Monday, but there’s more on the line in the season’s fourth meeting between BU and BC than just a berth in the championship game. The Eagles have outscored the Terriers 17-9 this season, including a 9-5 win in the series’ first game at Agganis Arena in early December. BU’s struggle this season hasn’t been to score goals, it’s been defending their own end in front of Kieran Millan, who’s in the bottom half of the conference in GAA and save percentage, yet is fourth in wins. It speaks to the Terriers’ ability to score when they need to, but it they know that they’re facing a team that can score at will, too.
And BC doesn’t just do it with their forwards, either. While the Terriers have received a lot of contributions from David Warsofsky and Adam Clendening, BC has seen Brian Dumoulin, Philip Samuelsson, and Patrick Wey create space for their forwards and get pucks behind opposing netminders at a vapid pace since the calendar turned to 2011. The difference? While Warsofsky and Clendening are always eager to jump into the play, BC’s defensemen play defense, too.
It’s the biggest reason why John Muse is having a career season, leading the league in goals against (1.98) and save percentage (.934) and ranking in the top ten nationally in both categories, as well as shutouts. And Muse, it goes without saying, will be the biggest factor in how BC plays the next nine weeks. He’ll also be the reason that the Eagles add another feather in their Beanpot hat.
Without further ado, ten players to watch Monday night:
For obvious reasons, the goaltenders are going to be big names at the Beanpot. But Kieran Millan (1) is the real one to watch, because since his defense stopped blocking shots for him, he’s had to win games on his own. Since BU’s D will have their hands full with the fast-paced attack of BC’s Joe Whitney, Cam Atkinson, Brian Gibbons, Paul Carey and Jimmy Hayes, he’ll have to do it again here. If he does, BU may record its first win in four games against BC this season and should have the inside track to their 30th Beanpot title, doubling up Boston College.
Don’t expect BC to make it easy for him, though. Along with their five highest-scoring forwards, Chris Kreider (2) has continued his ascent into Boston College lore with his hard-nosed play, eye for finding the puck and ability to outwork opponents in the corners and in the neutral zone. His 16 points on the season don’t seem like much, but he’s scored them at the most opportune times. Since returning from World Juniors, he and Brian Dumoulin (3) have done nothing but punish opposing defenses, and the confidence they acquired in Buffalo has been remarkably evident on the ice.
BU will counter with David Warsofsky (4) and Chris Connolly (5), whose renewed leadership has re-invigorated the Terriers in 2011, making them once again an NCAA tournament-caliber team. They’ll need Alex Chiasson and Charlie Coyle to keep up their hard work and point-per-game pace, but how well the Terriers perform will depend on how well they unite and play together - that onus falls on the shoulders of the team’s two assistant captains.
It’s not all red and white and maroon and gold, though. Pay close attention to the work of Jamie Oleksiak (6) for Northeastern. Oleksiak, the Huskies’ only draft-eligible player, has been touted as a first-round pick, and rightly so. But - despite being the team’s best defenseman - he’s had a rough January, and is due for a strong performance. Don’t be surprised if it comes against an offensively inept team like Harvard.
Chris Rawlings (7) has benefitted greatly from the improved play of Oleksiak and Notheastern’s two other freshman defensemen, Luke Eibler and Anthony Bitetto, but Rawlings himself has been the real revelation in the Huskies’ defensive zone. If he continues his strong play, Northeastern’s got as much a chance at winning the whole thing as does anyone else. But they won’t be able to do it with goaltending alone, and they’ll need Wade MacLeod (8) to keep up his blistering pace - he’s in the midst of a nine-game Hockey East point streak - to get some rubber to the net and make sure that Northeastern gets on the board.
As for Harvard, they just need to make sure that they stay afloat. They’ll rely on Kevin Richter (9) and Danny Biega (10) to do so, because...frankly, that’s all they have.
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