Eagles Open 67th Beanpot Monday Against No. 19 Harvard

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – 20-time tournament champion Boston College meets No. 19 Harvard at TD Garden on Monday night (Feb. 4) to open the 67th annual Beanpot at 5 p.m., followed by Boston University and Northeastern at 8 p.m. Coming off back-to-back fourth place showings, BC is looking to reach the Beanpot Championship Game for the first time since winning the tournament in 2016 with a 1-0 overtime victory against BU. Both games on Monday will air live on NESN, and radio coverage starts at 4:45 p.m. on WEEI 850 AM.

SETTING THE SCENE
• BC took over sole possession of second place in Hockey East with a 5-3 road victory over UConn on Friday night, scoring five goals in a game for just the second time this season
• The Eagles are just 3-6-1 in the second half but trail league-leading UMass by only three points in Hockey East
• Harvard has won four straight and is 8-2-1 in its last 11 games, sweeping Clarkson (4-3 OT) and St. Lawrence (7-3) in ECAC play last weekend before beating Dartmouth 4-1 at home on Friday night
• The Crimson are now 8-5-2 in ECAC play and rank 12th in the Pairwise rankings

BEANPOT BREAKDOWN
• BC has won the Beanpot 20 times with 15 runners-up showings, 23 third-place finishes, and only eight last-place finishes
• Jerry York has has won nine Beanpot titles (2001, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016), surpassing the school record set by legendary BC skipper John "Snooks" Kelley; seven of those championships have come in the last 11 years
• York is 31-17 in the Beanpot and ranks second all-time among Beanpot coaches behind BU's Jack Parker (21 Beanpot trophies)
• Alex Tuch scored the overtime winning goal over BU on Feb. 8, 2016 in the tournament's first-ever 0-0 scoreless regulation finish
• BC looks to start a new winning streak in the Beanpot as the Eagles' five straight titles from 2010 to 2014 are a program record
• Boston College has been awarded 17 MVP trophies and 12 Eberly awards in Beanpot history; the most recent recipients of those trophies were Kevin Hayes (MVP) and Thatcher Demko (Eberly) in 2014

SERIES SWEEP IN HARTFORD
• Boston College held off a third period comeback from UConn on Friday night to secure a 5-3 Hockey East victory at the XL Center and sweep the regular season series from the Huskies 3-0-0
• Ben Finkelstein scored his first goal in a BC sweater and added two assists in the second period, while rookies Jack McBain (goal, two assists) and Oliver Wahlstrom (goal, assist) had multi-point performances
• Wahlstrom rifled a wrist shot into the upper right corner seven minutes into the first, followed by a power play redirection from McBain at 5:06 of the second
• Ruslan Iskhakov followed his own rebound less than four minutes later to put UConn on the board, but Ron Greco's first of the year restored the two-goal cushion at 14:33
• Finkelstein then located his own rebound during a two-man advantage late in the frame to put BC ahead 4-1
• The Huskies quickly drew one back at 1:06 of the third on Iskhakov's second of the night, and Wyatt Newpower's 5-on-3 one-timer cut the lead to one with 14 minutes remaining
• Joseph Woll (27 saves) made a pair of key stop with six minutes left to preserve the lead
• Boston College killed off a late UConn power play, including a brief 6-on-4 situation, and Aapeli Räsänen sealed the points on an empty-netter with 45 seconds left on the clock

SCOUTING THE CRIMSON
• Harvard has won four games in a row and is 8-2-1 in its last 11 contests
• The Crimson downed Dartmouth 4-1 at home on the Friday prior to the Beanpot
• Junior defenseman Adam Fox ranks fourth nationally in points per game as he leads the team in assists (20) and points (27)
• Senior Lewis Zerter-Gossage paces the squad with 12 goals in 20 games
• Senior netminder Michael Lackey has made 19 starts between the pipes with a 11-5-3 record, 2.13 GAA, and .927 SV% in 1,124 minutes
• Harvard leads the nation on the power play by nearly four percentage points (34.3%) and its combined special teams ranks seventh nationally (54.8%)
• Harvard alum Ted Donato '91 is in his 15th season as the head coach and led his alma mater to the 2017 ECAC title and eventually the Frozen Four in Chicago
• Last season, the Crimson went 15-14-4 and lost to Clarkson in overtime in the ECAC Semifinal in Lake Placid

SERIES HISTORY
• Entering the 128th all-time meeting of the series, Boston College owns a 28-14 advantage against Harvard in the Beanpot
• Last year, the teams combined for six goals in the third period of the Consolation Game and Seb Lloyd scored the game-winner for Harvard 2:43 into overtime
• Logan Hutsko netted a hat trick, accounting for three of the Eagles' four tallies
• Back in 2016, BC clipped Harvard 3-2 in the semifinal round en route to its 20th Beanpot championship as Alex Tuch scored the overtime game-winner against BU in the first-ever 1-0 game in tournament history
• Harvard won nine of the schools' first 17 Beanpot matchups starting in 1952, but BC has taken 12 of the last 13 contests against Harvard in the Beanpot
• Jerry York is 14-2 against Harvard in the Beanpot as 1998 and 2018 are his only two defeats; both were 5-4 overtime losses
• BC leads the overall series against Harvard 74-47-6

UP NEXT
• Boston College returns to Tsongas Center next Friday (Feb. 8) to face No. 17 UMass Lowell before the second round of the Beanpot next Monday, Feb. 11.

Eagles Open 67th Beanpot Monday Against No. 19 Harvard

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Players Mentioned

Ben Finkelstein

Ron Greco

Logan Hutsko

Jack McBain

Oliver Wahlstrom

Joseph Woll