No. 10 BC Opens Regular Season With Pair in Madison

MADISON, Wis. - Boston College begins the 97th season of Eagles hockey on Friday and Saturday night against the Wisconsin Badgers at the Kohl Center in a rematch of the 2006 and 2010 NCAA national championship games. Both faceoffs are scheduled for 8 p.m. (ET) in Madison. Friday's game will be televised on Fox Sports Wisconsin Plus, and both games can be accessed at BTN2Go.com via cable login or purchase. Fans can also listen to the action on WEEI 850-AM and BCEagles.com starting at 7:45 p.m. (Saturday's game may be delayed on WEEI due to the NLCS).

SETTING THE SCENE
• The reigning Hockey East regular season champions are coming off a 8-1 rout of Canadian power New Brunswick last Saturday night at Kelley Rink in their lone exhibition game
• Wisconsin blew out Victoria 8-2 at home on Sunday in its only preseason tune up
• The schools are meeting for the fourth consecutive season, including one matchup at Kelley Rink last October
• The Eagles are 3-2-0 the previous three years against the Badgers

SCOUTING WISCONSIN
• The Badgers went 14-19-4 overall last season and finished 8-13-3 in the Big Ten, falling in two games to Michigan in the Big Ten Quarterfinals
• Wisconsin closed the year on a six-game losing streak
• Sophomores Linus Weissbach (10-16-26) and Wyatt Kalynuk (3-22-25) are the squad's top returning scorers as forwards Ryan Wagner (15-18-33) graduated and Trent Frederic (17-15-32) signed with the Boston Bruins
• Jack Berry is the lone returner in net who saw playing time last season; he posted a 3.17 GAA and .894 SV% in 13 starts with a 5-7-1 record
• Tony Granato enters his third year as the head coach in Madison
• Granato led the Badgers to a 20-15-1 record in his first season at the helm after the program won just 12 of 70 games the previous two seasons
• He was selected to coach the 2018 U.S. Olympic Team in PyeongChang

SERIES HISTORY
• The Eagles and Badgers are meeting for the fourth consecutive season and will face off for the 27th meeting of the all-time series on Friday
• Boston College has won seven of the last nine matchups, but dropped a 5-2 decision last season at Conte Forum on Oct. 13
• Graham McPhee and Christopher Grando tallied the BC goals that night
• The schools have met in a pair of NCAA championship games, 2006 and 2010
• Wisconsin won the first matchup 2-1 in Milwaukee, but Boston College shut out the Badgers 5-0 at Ford Field in Detroit to capture its then-fourth national title
• BC has averaged 6.6 goals per game in its last five wins against UW
• The teams split a Friday-Sunday series at the Kohl Center two years ago as Christopher Brown registered a hat trick during a 8-5 win on Sunday
• Also scoring that weekend were JD Dudek, David Cotton, and Julius Mattila

COME ON BACK
• The Eagles' final roster features 26 players, including 21 returners who accounted for 95-percent of the team's 2017-18 scoring, all but four goals from last year, and every minute played between the pipes
• Boston College and Colorado College were the only two teams in Division I last year without a senior as Kevin Lohan was a graduate student for BC
• Entering the new campaign, those programs are the only two who return their top-6 forwards (points), top-6 defensemen (GP), and top goalie (percentage of time played) from last season
• Boston College ranks either second or third nationally among Division I programs in returning goals, returning points, and percentage returning in both categories

FINELY TUNED
• The BC offense erupted last Saturday as the Eagles cruised past New Brunswick 8-1, beating the 2016 and 2017 CIS champions for the fifth time in six meetings
• Oliver Wahlstrom and Christopher Brown each netted a pair of goals as five Eagles recorded multi-point outings
• Reigning Hockey East Rookie of the Year Logan Hutsko led all scorers with three assists
• Boston College went 3-for-5 on the power play
• Joseph Woll (8 saves), Ryan Edquist (10 saves), and Ian Milosz (10 saves) each played a period in net
• Graham McPhee, Christopher Grando, Aapeli Räsänen, and David Cotton also lit the lamp in the win

ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WOLL
• Junior Joseph Woll was one of 20 goalies named to the watch list for the 2019 Mike Richter Award, which annually honors the most outstanding goaltender in NCAA Division I men's hockey
• The winner of the sixth annual award will be announced at the 2019 NCAA Men's Frozen Four in Buffalo
• A third round pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2016, he was named the Team MVP as a sophomore last year, winning the Norman F. Dailey Award, and received Hockey East Third Team All-Star honors
• The St. Louis native went 15-6-0 with a 2.26 goals against average and a .922 save percentage in 21 Hockey East contests, leading the Eagles to their 16th regular season title in school history
• Six of the 20 goaltenders selected to the watch list are from Hockey East

FIRST OF MANY?
• Rookie forward Oliver Wahlstrom was named the Pro Ambitions Hockey East Rookie of the Week on Monday following his unofficial collegiate debut
• Wahlstrom scored a pair of goals in the first period, including one on the power play, and closed the night with four shots on goal
• The New York Islanders selected Wahlstrom with the 11th overall pick at the 2018 NHL Draft in June, making him the second-highest NHL draft choice in the Jerry York era behind Noah Hanifin
• Last year, he skated for the U.S. Under-18 National Team, posting 48 goals and 46 assists for 94 points in 62 games with the best plus-minus in the USHL

PLENTY OF TWENTY
• Boston College has won 20 games in a season nine years in a row, which marks the second-longest active streak in college hockey behind Denver (17)
• BC was third last year before North Dakota's streak of 16 straight 20-win seasons came to an end
• The current streak is the longest in Eagles history and includes a pair of 30-win seasons (2010-12)

TALE OF TWO HALVES
• After ranking ninth in Hockey East scoring as a team during the first half of last season (2.72 goals per game), the Eagles were second after winter break (3.11) behind only Northeastern
• Following the Beanpot, BC ranked fifth nationally by scoring 3.71 goals per game

ALL SHAPES AND SIZES
• BC is the second-youngest team in college hockey behind BU with an average age of 20 years, 253 days
• The Eagles have the sixth-tallest roster in the nation with an average height of 6'0.58"; only Maine has a taller team in Hockey East
• This year's veteran Boston College squad is tied for the most juniors and seniors in college hockey (16) with Dartmouth, Mercyhurst, Merrimack, Ohio State, Omaha, and Yale

No. 10 BC Opens Regular Season With Pair in Madison

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Players Mentioned

Christopher Brown

David Cotton

JD Dudek

Ryan Edquist

Chris Grando

Logan Hutsko

Kevin Lohan

Julius Mattila

Graham McPhee

Ian Milosz

Aapeli Räsänen

Oliver Wahlstrom

Joseph Woll