No. 5 Eagles and No. 7 Minutemen Meet in Battle for First Place

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – No. 5 Boston College closes its three-game regular season series against No. 7 UMass on Friday night (Jan. 31) in a battle for first place in Hockey East at the Mullins Center. Faceoff in Amherst is set for 7 p.m. The game can be viewed via CBS All-Access ($) and heard on both WEEI 850 AM and BCEagles.com.

WHAT'S AT STAKE
• The teams split a home-and-home series three weeks ago, giving the winner of Friday's rubber match a potential tiebreaker heading into the Hockey East playoffs in March
• Massachusetts currently leads the league by two points over the trio of BC, Providence and UMass Lowell
• The Eagles have two games in hand on the Minutemen, who have played the most games (16) in the league
• Boston College was swept at home by Maine last weekend in a pair of overtime games, but still enters the UMass matchup with a 13-3-0 record in its last 16 games

FIRST TWO MEETINGS
Jan. 10: UMass 3, Boston College 1
• Filip Lindberg made 41 saves as No. 10 UMass ended No. 4 Boston College's 10-game winning streak with a 3-1 Hockey East victory at Kelley Rink to open the weekend
• The Eagles suffered their first defeat since Nov. 1, a span of more than two months
• Jake Gaudet broke a 1-1 tie in the final four minutes of regulation, while John Leonard scored a pair of goals including an empty-netter with 32 seconds left to seal the points
• Alex Newhook scored the lone BC goal late in the first period for his seventh of the year, while classmate Spencer Knight stopped 21 of the 23 shots he faced in his first start since returning from the World Junior Championships
• Boston College out-shot Massachusetts 42-24 as Newhook closed the contest with a game-high seven shots

Jan. 11: Boston College 6, UMass 3
• Five players posted multi-point games as Boston College scored six goals on the top-ranked defense in Hockey East for a 6-3 victory in the series finale at the Mullins Center
• Ben Finkelstein registered his second three-point performance of the year, while Matt Boldy and Logan Hutsko each had multi-point games with a goal and an assist
• Julius Mattila (0-3-3) and Newhook (0-2-2) combined for five primary assists
• Rookie defenseman Marshall Warren's goal in the second period chased Lindberg from the game after his 41-save performance the night before
• BC won the special teams battle convincingly, going 3-for-5 on the power play and a perfect 4-for-4 a man down

SCOUTING THE MINUTEMEN
• Massachusetts scored just one goal last weekend against New Hampshire in a home-and-home series, battling back for a 1-1 tie on Saturday in Durham
• Amherst native John Leonard is tied for the Hockey East lead with 17 goals, while Mitchell Chaffee leads the team with 29 points, including 16 goals
• Sophomore Filip Lindberg (14 GS, 7-4-2, 1.85 GAA, .930 SV%) and junior Matt Murray (12 GS, 9-4-0, 1.76, .921) have split time between the pipes
• UMass is clicking at 11.8% on the power play and 84.7% on the penalty kill
• Greg Carvel is in his fourth season as the head coach in Amherst
• Carvel led UMass to its first Hockey East Regular Season Championship and its first NCAA Championship Game last season

SERIES HISTORY
• Boston College leads the overall series with UMass 65-16-3 and holds a 29-7-1 head-to-head advantage dating back to 2008
• BC entered last season with an eight-game winning streak against UMass but lost both regular season meetings to the Minutemen in February
• The No. 7 seed Eagles responded by shutting out the top-seeded Minutemen 3-0 at TD Garden in the Hockey East Semifinal
• The schools are ranked fifth and seventh not just in the national polls, but also in the most recent Pairwise rankings

NEW KID ON THE BLOCK
• Alex Newhook is tied for second among Hockey East freshmen in goals (9)
• The Colorado Avalanche first round pick is eighth among all NCAA rookies in scoring average with 19 points in 22 games and has at least one point in 12 of his last 16 contests
• He was named the Hockey East Rookie of the Week on Jan. 13 following a three-point weekend against UMass
• The Eagles are 10-3-0 this year when Newhook records a point

BOLD MOVE
• Matt Boldy had a team-high three assists during the two-game series against Maine last weekend
• He registered a career-high nine shots on goal on Saturday and finished the weekend with a team-best 15
• Among all NCAA freshmen, Boldy ranks second in shots on goal per game (3.36) behind his former USNTDP teammate Cole Caufield of Wisconsin
• The rookie is averaging a point per game over his last five with a pair of multi-point outings

UP NEXT
• The 68th Beanpot begins on Monday (Feb. 3) at TD Garden against Boston University at 8 p.m. on NESN
• The Eagles host UMass Lowell on the Heights at 7 p.m. later in the week on Friday, Feb. 7

No. 5 Eagles and No. 7 Minutemen Meet in Battle for First Place

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Players Mentioned

Matt Boldy

Ben Finkelstein

Logan Hutsko

Spencer Knight

Julius Mattila

Alex Newhook

Marshall Warren