The Mass governor's race won't be the only contest going on in the Commonwealth on Tuesday night; the BC men's hockey team will be back in action. This time, the 4-2 Eagles will take on the River Hawks of UMass-Lowell at Conte Forum.
UML has proven themselves particularly bad this season, sitting on a 1-4-2 overall record (1-4 in Hockey East; their win was an OT triumph over Providence). In seven games, their opponents have outscored them 28-16. While they've scored five PP goals this year, they've allowed six, as well as two short-handed goals.
Most of UML's scoring appears to come in the third period and beyond, where they've scored nine times this season (for those who failed math, that's over half of their scoring). This would lead you to believe that they're slow starters; unfortunately for them, their opponents haven't been. UML opponents have scored 10 first-period goals on them, with nine in each of the other two. At least they're consistent.
The River Hawks have started two goalies almost equally this season: freshmen Doug Carr and Marc Boulanger. Carr is the better of the two, with a 90.2% save percentage in five games, as compared to Boulanger's 85.7% in four. We've identified UML's weakness, though scoring lately hasn't been one of BC's strongest suits. In their last three games, in which the Eagles went 1-2 (could have easily been 0-3 if not for a late comeback against Merrimack), they've averaged two goals per game.
Last season, BC had somewhat of a "Merrimack problem" with UML: win the home games, lose the road games. Luckily for us, this game is at home, and this game does seem like somewhat of a mismatch. I expect that BC will win and proceed to get ready for the big match with UNH on Friday (hopefully without overlooking UML first).
We're due for a 7-1 win.
ReplyDeleteThis would be the team to do it against -- UML gives up a lot of goals.
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