Johnny Gaudreau is looking to lead BC to its fifth straight Beanpot title. (John Quackenbos/BC Athletics)
For a long time, Boston University dominated the Beanpot. The Terriers won the 62-year-old tournament 29 times in its first 57 years. From 1990 to 2009, they won 15 out of 20. Their fans began to call it the BU Invitational, and they had good reason to.
The last four years have been a different story, though. Now it’s Boston College in the driver’s seat. The Eagles have won four straight Beanpots, a feat that’s only been accomplished two other times — BU won four straight from 1970 to 1973 and six straight from 1995 to 2000.
Entering this year’s tournament, BC (19-4-3) is once again the favorite. The Eagles are 11-0-1 in their last 12, they lead Hockey East by eight points, and they rank second in the Pairwise rankings that are used to determine the NCAA tournament field. They lead the country in scoring by a wide margin (they’re averaging 4.38 goals per game, while second-place Quinnipiac is at 3.68) and they rank sixth in scoring defense.
Leading the way offensively is the undersized but immensely talented Johnny Gaudreau. The 5-foot-8, 159-pound winger leads the nation in goals (23), points (51), points per game (1.96) and plus/minus (+32). Linemate Kevin Hayes (19g, 26a) ranks in the top three in all those categories, but his status for the Beanpot is in question after he left Friday night’s game against Providence with a hip pointer and did not return.
Hayes would be a big loss, but even if he can’t go, the Eagles will still be heavily favored when they take on archrival BU (8-14-3) in the second game of Monday’s opening round (8 p.m., WEEI 850 AM). The Terriers have struggled mightily in their first year under new coach David Quinn. They’re 1-8-2 since the start of December, and they currently sit in 10th place in Hockey East. They’re last in the conference in team defense and they have the third-worst shot differential per game in the country (-11.04).
If there’s a reason for the Terriers to be optimistic, it’s that they just played a competitive game against BC two weeks ago. After an even first, it looked like that game was going to turn into the blowout it was expected to be when the Eagles went up 3-1 and then 5-2. But the Terriers battled back, cut it to 5-4, and then had a few chances to tie the game before Gaudreau sealed it for BC with an empty-netter.
“If you’re going to have a chance against them, you’re going to have to make sure you’re getting in their face,’ Quinn said of playing BC. ‘I don’t mean running around with your head chopped off. I mean you need to be physical, but you also need to be responsible. You can’t be going out of your way to run people. You just need to win your subtle 1-on-1 battles with them over and over and over again.
“That’s hard to do no matter who you’re playing, but I think our guys realize that when we did that [in our last game against BC], we gave ourselves a chance. We’re going to have to do it a little more often Monday night.”
Monday’s first game (faceoff at 5 p.m.) pits Northeastern against Harvard, with the winner earning a chance to play for its first Beanpot title in 20-plus years. Harvard last won the tournament in 1993, while Northeastern hasn’t hoisted the ‘pot since 1988.
After finishing tied for eighth and then 10th in Hockey East in Jim Madigan‘s first two seasons behind the bench, Northeastern (15-8-3) is in the midst of a turnaround year that has it poised to make the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2009. Led by Kevin Roy (14g, 17a), the Huskies have the second-best offense in Hockey East. Roy, you may remember, scored five goals in last year’s Beanpot, including a hat trick in Northeastern’s opening-round win over BU.
The Huskies have the second-worst shot differential per game in Hockey East (-5.42), but they’ve been able to overcome it thanks to the outstanding goaltending of Clay Witt, who leads the country with a .943 save percentage. Hot goaltending can make all the difference in a short tournament like the Beanpot, so the senior netminder could give the Huskies a chance against BC should that end up being the final (which would be the safe bet if you’re picking these games).
“He just got a fresh start this year,” Madigan said of Witt, who was a backup the previous three seasons. “He just hadn’t had an opportunity to play for the most part. A lot of that had to with the fact that Northeastern had a goaltender [Chris Rawlings] who played 30 games a year, so Clay didn’t get that opportunity. This year he got the opportunity and he came in ready and wanting to assume that number one role. He’s a great athlete, he’s worked a lot on his game, and he’s played very well.”
The Crimson (6-11-3) will try to throw a wrench into Northeastern’s plans. They snapped a four-game losing streak with a 3-2 win over Princeton on Friday. Harvard has a pretty good goalie of its own in Raphael Girard, who leads the ECAC with a .931 save percentage. Just as Witt could give Northeastern a chance against BC, Girard could give the Crimson a chance against the Huskies.