Tuesday, March 06, 2007

We've Got BC In The Hockey East Playoffs

I guess it's better than playing BU. For those of you unfamiliar with the ways of college hockey (everyone) and Hockey East, in particular (everyone), the top 8 teams (out of 10) in Hockey East head for three game playoff series at the end of every season for their conference tourney, to decide the champion of the conference. I'm not positive, but I don't think the winner gets an automatic bid into the NCAA tourney (a la basketball. The NCAA hockey tourney, it should be noted, consists of just 16 teams, which boils down to the Frozen Four, and then, of course, the national championship game.) So even if, say, we pulled off a miracle and won this thing, we wouldn't be among the 16, I think. I'm sorta new to college hockey myself.

Anyway, as noted in the title, we've drawn Boston College for our first round weekend series. All three games will be played at Chestnut Hill, and, suffice it to say, we've got quite a task sitting before us. The Eagles were 22-11-1 overall on the year, and went 18-8-1 in Hockey East play. They boast Hockey East points leader Brian Boyle, a senior forward, junior goalie Cory Schneider, who's had a pretty solid season, and sophomore Benn Ferriero, who was seventh in the conference in scoring. As a point of reference, our top scorer, freshman Chad Costello, tied for 27th. BC is also playing some of their best hockey of the season, coming off a sweep of the 3rd ranked (nationally) New Hampshire Wildcats.


they're probably better than us. maybe.

Don't take this to mean Northeastern has no shot, though. Our freshman goalie Brad Thiessen has played as well as any other goalie in Hockey East at times, and the rest of our stable of producing freshmen (Costello, this week's HE Rookie of the Week Kyle Kraemer, defenseman Jim Driscoll, defenseman David Stratham, and forward Randy Guzior) have played rather well lately, playing a rather large role in our resurgence from our 2-8-2 start, finishing the season on a 11-8-3 run, a run that includes wins over BU, BC, and Maine, and ties against Vermont and BU again. On top of that, in our three meetings with BC this season, we've gone 1-1-1, which is to say we've played them as equally well as they've played us. We'll also rely heavily on the play of sophomore Joe Vitale and senior Brian Esner who have been doing particularly well as of late.


we tied and beat bc at matthews this year

The key to this series, for NU, anyway, would seem to be slowing down the aformentioned scoring prowess of Boyle. In the 5-2 loss at the beginning of the season, he managed 5 shots and posted a +3 on the night. In the subsequent two matchups he went for a 0 and -1. Thiessen will play a big role as well. In the loss, he allowed 5 goals, equal to that of what he allowed in the latter two matchups.


All things given, I'd say we have a shot. We've proven on more than one occasion this season that we can beat elite-level teams. Whether we can do that twice in the span of just three games remains to be seen, but I wouldn't count us out. We did, after all, pull out one of the more miraculous moments of the season when we tied BC, as evidenced by:





My Own Personal Hockey East Playoff Predictions


1. New Hampshire
8. Providence
winner: New Hampshire

4. UMass
5. Maine
winner: Maine

3. Boston University
6. Vermont
winner: Vermont

2. Boston College
7. Northeastern
winner: Boston College


1. New Hampshire
5. Maine
winner: Maine

2. Boston College
6. Vermont
winner: Boston College


2. Boston College
5. Maine
winner: Boston College

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