BC and BU Renew Rivalry in Battle of Comm Ave

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – For the 278th and 279th times in series history, rivals Boston College and Boston University will square off in a home-and-home Hockey East series this weekend, beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Friday night (Nov. 30) at Agganis Arena on NESN. The teams conclude the weekend at Kelley Rink on Saturday (Dec. 1) at 7 p.m. in a game which will air on ESPN3. Both games can also be heard live on WEEI 850 AM.

SETTING THE SCENE
• The Eagles have played just a single game each of the last two weekends, while the Terriers return to the U.S. after last weekend's annual Friendship Four in Belfast, Northern Ireland
• At 3-1-1 in conference play, BC has at least one game in hand on every squad in Hockey East, including two on UMass Lowell and Merrimack, three on BU, and four on UConn, whom the Eagles face twice next week
• Boston College saw its four-game unbeaten streak (3-0-1) come to an end last Friday against Bentley, a streak which was the sixth-longest nationally and the second-longest in Hockey East
• This weekend is a rematch of the most recent Hockey East Semifinal, which ended BC's 2017-18 season

LAST YEAR'S MEETINGS
• BC and BU split the regular season series 1-1-0 last season, but the eventual league champion Terriers edged the Eagles 4-3 in overtime in the league semifinal at TD Garden
• Boston College scored the first two goals in all three matchups, taking a 2-0 lead in the first period of both regular season meetings, and out-scored BU 5-0 overall in the opening frame
• In the schools' first meeting of the season, Aapeli Räsänen scored just 92 seconds into the game at Kelley Rink before BU netted six of the contest's next seven goals in a 7-4 victory
• The Eagles never trailed in the road matchup at Agganis, collecting first period goals from Connor Moore and David Cotton, as Joseph Woll made 36 saves including 29 in the final 40 minutes for a 4-1 win
• Christopher Brown gave BC a 3-2 lead in the Hockey East Semifinal with 5:19 left in the third period, but Drew Melanson answered less than a minute later and Patrick Curry ended the Eagles' season at 15:40 of overtime

SCOUTING THE TERRIERS
• Boston University competed in the annual Friendship Four last weekend in Northern Ireland, beating UConn 3-2 before losing 2-1 to Union in the title game
• Junior defenseman Dante Fabbro leads the team with nine assists and 12 points, while senior forward Bobo Carpenter has tallied a team-high six goals
• Junior netminder Jake Oettinger has started 10 games in net and carries a 4-6-1 record, 2.89 goals against average and .914 save percentage in 622 minutes
• BU is clicking at 17.6% on the power play thus far and 77.1% on the penalty kill
• Former Terrier Albie O'Connell '99 is in his first year as head coach after taking over for David Quinn, who accepted the head coaching position with the New York Rangers
• Last year, the Terriers won the 2018 Hockey East Championship with a 2-0 win over Providence at TD Garden after edging BC in overtime in the semifinal
• BU went on to edge out Cornell 3-1 to reach the NCAA Northeast Regional Final in Worcester before falling to Michigan 6-3

SERIES HISTORY
• BC and BU first met on Feb. 6, 1918 as part of Boston College's first varsity season
• Boston University has won five of the last seven meetings but the longtime rivals are an even 5-5-1 in the last 11 matchups
• Boston College is 3-1-1 in its last five trips down Commonwealth Avenue to Agganis Arena and 12-4-2 since it opened in 2005
• Between the Eagles (11) and Terriers (10), the two programs have claimed 21 of the previous 34 Hockey East Tournament titles
• Jerry York is 45-44-8 against Boston University as head coach of the program
• York was 8-6-1 against Quinn during his tenure at BU and will face O'Connell for the first time this weekend as a head coach

RON-STOPPABLE
• Junior forward Ron Greco has scored seven career goals, three of which came against BU in a single weekend during last year's regular season series against the Terriers
• Greco turned in his first career multi-goal effort with a pair of tallies in a home loss, including BC's second goal of the opening 2:16, then lit the lamp for an insurance goal the following night at Agganis Arena
• The Philadelphia native scored two games later against UConn for a total of four goals in four games

WHAT'S YOUR SPECIALTY
• Boston College ranks 11th in the country in combined special teams at 54.4%
• The Eagles are tied for 20th nationally on the penalty kill (84.1%) despite allowing two power play goals to Bentley
• During its recent four-game unbeaten streak, Boston College was 18-for-19 on the kill
• BC enters the weekend as the third-least penalized team in the league with just 10.4 PIM per game
• The Eagles are still in search of their first shorthanded goal, while BU is tied for the NCAA lead with four

UP NEXT
• BC closes the first half of the season next week with a home-and-home series against UConn on Thursday at the XL Center in Hartford and Friday back at Kelley Rink in Chestnut Hill

BC and BU Renew Rivalry in Battle of Comm Ave

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Players Mentioned

Christopher Brown

David Cotton

Ron Greco

Connor Moore

Aapeli Räsänen

Joseph Woll