Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Meg Kelly
With Beanpot Complete, BC Moves Forward To UMass
February 14, 2024 | Men's Hockey, #ForBoston Files
Beating Harvard puts mid-February's disappointment behind the team as Hockey East's finale awaits.
Bostonians know the importance of playing the late game on the second Monday in February. The statement alone is a commonality among locals who grew up with the Beanpot tournament running through their blood, but even newcomers to the area and students or visitors who never watched a hockey game before immersing in one of Massachusetts' hallowed traditions quickly adapted to understanding that the consolation game sounds like a spat word to the four schools who annually battle for Boston's college hockey prize.
The real prize comes to the trophy-receiving winner of the late game. Nobody who plays in the early game raises a banner or sees their school's name plastered to the TD Garden rafters for a year, and the annual non-conference game often falls at a time when a long, grinding season is raising its stakes towards the final weeks of a postseason hunt.
The circumstances surrounding the consolation game make it a potential pratfall to teams harboring national championship aspirations, but having beaten New Hampshire in the lone conference game over the interim weekend, head coach Greg Brown's top-ranked Eagles could use its 5-0 win over Harvard to approach a home-and-home against UMass with a rejuvenated outlook that avoided falling off the proverbial cliff.
"We talked about having a better start than we had [against Boston University]," Brown said after the Eagles' 6-1 win over the Wildcats. "We had to get off the blocks with intensity and ready to go. We were disappointed in how we started [the Beanpot semifinal], and we were much better at that [on Saturday]."
Both the UNH win and the victory over the Crimson illustrated how BC had to rejuvenate its team after a six-point sweep over the Terriers paved a road through a 6-1 win over UMass-Lowell. Combined with the two-game sweep over Merrimack, the month of January produced 36 goals through that February 2 game at the Tsongas Center, and removing the 4-3 loss at Providence showed the dominance of a team that outscored opponents by more than double, with the 5.5 goals per game elevating the team into the lofty company of teams averaging well over four goals per game.
The outburst matched a defense that lowered its per-game average to 2.2 goals - fourth-best behind three teams under two goals per game - and simultaneously asserted the Eagles as the proverbial best team in the nation. Having cruised past Merrimack by doubling up the Warriors with a 12-6 aggregate solidified the spot as the No. 1 team, but the sweep over BU ended an argument to entrench other teams, including second-ranked North Dakota, as a potential top-ranked side.
That wave of excitement is what made the loss to BU in the Beanpot sting so badly, and though third period goals from Gentry Shamburger and Gabe Perrault brought BC back to within a goal with nine minutes remaining, the Terriers still led BC from pillar to post after Macklin Celebrini scored two goals in two-plus minutes in the first period. Perrault was able to stem the bleeding with a power play goal of his own in the second period, but BU pummeled its way to the win in a game that allowed the team to play for a Beanpot championship.
"We had to," said Brown about keeping the team's focus. "There's no other way to do it. There is still a lot of season left, a lot of big games left hopefully, so we felt the sting of being disappointed from losing that one and it was onto the next. We wanted the Beanpot trophy, but the next trophy in line is trying for the regular season title."
As it turns out, the BU loss in the Beanpot was probably the best possible scenario aside from sweeping the three games over the Terriers. It emotionally stung to lose the city championship and a prized possession that's eluded BC since 2016, but it didn't cost the team any ground in the Hockey East standings. The Eagles remained one point behind BU with a game in hand after the weekend results, and the neutral site loss didn't give the Terriers quality points in the Pairwise Rankings for winning on the road (road wins have a weighting factor of 1.2 where neutral site games are weighted to 1.0 and home wins are weighted 0.8).Â
BU still retained bonus points for beating the No. 1 team in the nation, but BC didn't lose anything by playing Harvard, a team that would have lowered the overall Pairwise RPI just by showing up on the ice. Caveats built into the overall rankings omit games where winning lowers the RPI, so the game on Monday did nothing to injure the Eagles' overall chances.
"You want to give yourself the best chance to win in the national tournament and earn as high a seed as possible," Brown said, "so we know it's very important [to succeed in every game]. There are 34 games in the regular season, and none of them are unimportant. We know that, and even though both Harvard and us would like to play in the night game, we still have to give all of our effort in [every game]."
BC retained the No. 1 overall ranking in the national polls this week before goalie Jan Korec started his first career game and posted his first career shutout with the 5-0 win over the Crimson, but this weekend arguably opens the door for the key stretch that could end with another trip - and another game against BU or Northeastern - at TD Garden. The UMass team that lost a shootout to Cornell and an overtime game to Clarkson is now blazing hot after its weekend split with Maine and its sweep over Connecticut, but the Eagles have been blazing hot against the Minutemen - even in years when UMass pressured for top-ranked status.
The Eagles haven't lost to UMass since its national championship season in 2020-2021, and each of last year's four battles went to the Eagles with a 7-3 win and 3-1 win dotting the weekend after the Beanpot finals. That win in 2020-2021 is the only win by UMass in the head-to-head matchup in the post-COVID era, but it's worth noting that the Minutemen won three-of-four matchups across the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 seasons to break a losing streak dating back to January, 2013.
Friday's matchup between No. 11 UMass and No. 1 Boston College is scheduled for a 7 p.m. puck drop with television coverage available via the ESPN+ premium streaming subscription. The series then shifts to Conte Forum on Sunday for a 1 p.m. start with streaming coverage available through ESPN+. Both games can also be heard on the Boston College Sports Network from Learfield broadcast locally in Boston on WEEI 850 AM.
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The real prize comes to the trophy-receiving winner of the late game. Nobody who plays in the early game raises a banner or sees their school's name plastered to the TD Garden rafters for a year, and the annual non-conference game often falls at a time when a long, grinding season is raising its stakes towards the final weeks of a postseason hunt.
The circumstances surrounding the consolation game make it a potential pratfall to teams harboring national championship aspirations, but having beaten New Hampshire in the lone conference game over the interim weekend, head coach Greg Brown's top-ranked Eagles could use its 5-0 win over Harvard to approach a home-and-home against UMass with a rejuvenated outlook that avoided falling off the proverbial cliff.
"We talked about having a better start than we had [against Boston University]," Brown said after the Eagles' 6-1 win over the Wildcats. "We had to get off the blocks with intensity and ready to go. We were disappointed in how we started [the Beanpot semifinal], and we were much better at that [on Saturday]."
Both the UNH win and the victory over the Crimson illustrated how BC had to rejuvenate its team after a six-point sweep over the Terriers paved a road through a 6-1 win over UMass-Lowell. Combined with the two-game sweep over Merrimack, the month of January produced 36 goals through that February 2 game at the Tsongas Center, and removing the 4-3 loss at Providence showed the dominance of a team that outscored opponents by more than double, with the 5.5 goals per game elevating the team into the lofty company of teams averaging well over four goals per game.
The outburst matched a defense that lowered its per-game average to 2.2 goals - fourth-best behind three teams under two goals per game - and simultaneously asserted the Eagles as the proverbial best team in the nation. Having cruised past Merrimack by doubling up the Warriors with a 12-6 aggregate solidified the spot as the No. 1 team, but the sweep over BU ended an argument to entrench other teams, including second-ranked North Dakota, as a potential top-ranked side.
That wave of excitement is what made the loss to BU in the Beanpot sting so badly, and though third period goals from Gentry Shamburger and Gabe Perrault brought BC back to within a goal with nine minutes remaining, the Terriers still led BC from pillar to post after Macklin Celebrini scored two goals in two-plus minutes in the first period. Perrault was able to stem the bleeding with a power play goal of his own in the second period, but BU pummeled its way to the win in a game that allowed the team to play for a Beanpot championship.
"We had to," said Brown about keeping the team's focus. "There's no other way to do it. There is still a lot of season left, a lot of big games left hopefully, so we felt the sting of being disappointed from losing that one and it was onto the next. We wanted the Beanpot trophy, but the next trophy in line is trying for the regular season title."
As it turns out, the BU loss in the Beanpot was probably the best possible scenario aside from sweeping the three games over the Terriers. It emotionally stung to lose the city championship and a prized possession that's eluded BC since 2016, but it didn't cost the team any ground in the Hockey East standings. The Eagles remained one point behind BU with a game in hand after the weekend results, and the neutral site loss didn't give the Terriers quality points in the Pairwise Rankings for winning on the road (road wins have a weighting factor of 1.2 where neutral site games are weighted to 1.0 and home wins are weighted 0.8).Â
BU still retained bonus points for beating the No. 1 team in the nation, but BC didn't lose anything by playing Harvard, a team that would have lowered the overall Pairwise RPI just by showing up on the ice. Caveats built into the overall rankings omit games where winning lowers the RPI, so the game on Monday did nothing to injure the Eagles' overall chances.
"You want to give yourself the best chance to win in the national tournament and earn as high a seed as possible," Brown said, "so we know it's very important [to succeed in every game]. There are 34 games in the regular season, and none of them are unimportant. We know that, and even though both Harvard and us would like to play in the night game, we still have to give all of our effort in [every game]."
BC retained the No. 1 overall ranking in the national polls this week before goalie Jan Korec started his first career game and posted his first career shutout with the 5-0 win over the Crimson, but this weekend arguably opens the door for the key stretch that could end with another trip - and another game against BU or Northeastern - at TD Garden. The UMass team that lost a shootout to Cornell and an overtime game to Clarkson is now blazing hot after its weekend split with Maine and its sweep over Connecticut, but the Eagles have been blazing hot against the Minutemen - even in years when UMass pressured for top-ranked status.
The Eagles haven't lost to UMass since its national championship season in 2020-2021, and each of last year's four battles went to the Eagles with a 7-3 win and 3-1 win dotting the weekend after the Beanpot finals. That win in 2020-2021 is the only win by UMass in the head-to-head matchup in the post-COVID era, but it's worth noting that the Minutemen won three-of-four matchups across the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 seasons to break a losing streak dating back to January, 2013.
Friday's matchup between No. 11 UMass and No. 1 Boston College is scheduled for a 7 p.m. puck drop with television coverage available via the ESPN+ premium streaming subscription. The series then shifts to Conte Forum on Sunday for a 1 p.m. start with streaming coverage available through ESPN+. Both games can also be heard on the Boston College Sports Network from Learfield broadcast locally in Boston on WEEI 850 AM.
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