Boston College 2024-25 TV * JG * MG

[Skate79]

Went to last night's game. Hagens was by far the best player on the ice. He can really motor and has some slick moves. It was an up-and-down game for the better part of two periods until you guys wore down the Green in the third period.

What's the deal with Letourneau? Invisible, and that's hard to do for a guy who is 6'7" with a long stick reach. Looks like a stiff to me. Another Bruins draft failure.

 

[PullTheGoalie]

Skahan is injured. As for Letourneau, I promised myself not to pass judgment on him for awhile. He is making a big jump, going Prep to NCAA without time in the USHL. It's not easy.

 

[Cross Check]

As for Letourneau, I promised myself not to pass judgment on him for awhile. He is making a big jump, going Prep to NCAA without time in the USHL. It's not easy.

Plus really big guys like him seem to develop slowly, almost like they have to grow into their body. Boyle didn't click in until halfway through his sophomore year.

 

[Carmine Scarpaglia]

Gotta hand it to these guys they have the ability to keep winning games late. Not a good policy in general but the coaches will need to figure that out. Dartmouth may very well be a legit good team.

Hard to understate what a massive advantage BC has in the PWR right now. Great record against a ridiculous schedule, and only one loss out of conference (these opponents keep piling up Ws). Quality win bonus is huge. Hard to imagine they won’t be in the top 2-3 when all
is said and done. 1 seed in Manchester looking very likely at this point and it’s not even Dec 1st yet. Crazy.

Perreault had absurd assists. Hagens and Stiga are heating up. Gustafsson was great late. Also great to see Posma get another big goal… not officially the GWG but it was for all intents and purposes. Of course BC did get very lucky when Dartmouth subsequently scored and then hit the post.

Weird schedule ahead but if anyone is attending these next two home
gsmes on weeknights please don’t forget to bring toys for the toy drive - super important.

 

[DNAEagle]

Too early to judge any of the Freshmen, last year's group was the exception, not the rule. Remember Boldy and Newhook, they didn't really make much of an impact until the first part of their second season. Hard to know what kind of an impact he will have but he is definitely not one and done. Good crowd last night,
took them awhile to get going, BC had trouble with the trap, could not make clean entries into the Ozone and when they did sticks and bodies were in the way.
Third period the Green did not have any legs left and they were chasing BC all over the ice. Still it was a game that could have gone the other way if Dartmouth scored their third period goal much earlier. Surprised that they pulled their goalie so early particularly when they were on the PP. The Powell penalty at the end was not good, with all his experience and leadership he knows better and certainly uncharacteristic of him. Big one against UCONN of Wednesday, I am guessing that BC has been waiting for this one. Expect a physical game from both teams.

 

[BCeagle]

38% from the faceoff dot. If they don't fix this they won't be sniffing a single postseason trophy.

Blow up the lines to get at least two solid lines going; it's a one-line team right now and that almost never works out come tournament time. Move Letourneau off the 2nd PP unit - I don't feel like at this point we need to do anything to please Don Sweeney, everyone hates him anyway.

On another note, Nolan Joyce was quite good on D tonight so shoutout to him. Posma also made a smart play to throw the puck into the crease from behind the goal line on the Leonard goal.

The PP will work itself out IMO but it's bad right now. Can't expect Leonard and Perreault to win every game for you.

You can't score if you don't get any pucks on net. They usually wait for the perfect setup and is there a rule you can only shoot 5-10 feet in front of the net ??? Too many times they over do the passing and end up with no SOG. Depending on one line is an easy strategy for opposing teams to stop the one line out there and that will not win you the big games in a one and done against good teams. Another observable problem is only playing in spurts. Five minutes here and there or another horrible second period. They appear to wait the last 10 minutes or 5 minutes to start playing and shooting for some reason. Dartmouth was close to pulling off a win up 2-1 going into the 3rd period.

They don't look like a top 5 team at times with the recent losses to UConn and NU

 

[BCeagle]

Fowler saved them tonight, otherwise this would have been the 2nd loss to UConn. Again turnovers and problems playing a 60 minute game

 

[DNAEagle]

Fowler made a several excellent stops, in the first Uconn was freeing the wing and getting behind the defense, happened at least three times. In the third they were camped out in the OZone and had great chances, just missing or hitting 7th player, the pipes. Uconn always plays BC tough and last night was another example of that. The first half is almost over, it has been a very tough schedule, next game, away at Lowell with one day of rest. Yikes.

 

[Nick Papagiorgio]

Hagens and Stiga are heating up. Not sure why the team can't get going before the 3rd period. Hard to fathom such a bad PP.

Jellvik and Vote have gone cold. Terrible play by Jellvik to roam over to the other side of the ice on the SHG; the puck carrier was covered and I know he's not a defenseman but you have to have some awareness that there was a guy charging down his own side of the ice. Most of the time they are looking for an opening and will dump/change if it's not there, no reason to give them that opening. Then you have the absurd play by Fortescue. I worry he'll get supplemental discipline and that #8 is not going to available this weekend and we'll be left with 5 Dmen for Friday if Skahan and Gustafsson are hurt. Gotta be smarter.

Love what Posma and Berard are doing. Berard was a great pickup.

Weird schedule here this week and need to finish the semester strong with the Friday/Monday series vs. UML. I don't have high hopes for Friday.

Work in progress but the gap in RPI (and thus PWR) is sizeable due to record/SOS/non-conf record. After the Holidays they're going to need to figure out the PP and start to gel better or they'll be in trouble in March.

Always nice to get a win against such a stupid program like Yukon.

 

[BC/HE]

Maybe they should go back to two defensemen on the PP instead of going with a 4th forward. BC has solid blueliners that can rotate the puck well on the PP and will not give up play defensively. I think that Hockey East is very loaded into the middle of the conference and that BC basically will have only played games against the top third of college hockey with one exception, AIC, in the first half of the season. The worries by fans here are not realistic as the schedule has been by far the most difficult of any team. Look at Michigan State who thankfully are voted #1. Other than the BC series at home they have only played one team in the top half of college hockey, Ohio State, which was beaten twice by Princeton last weekend.

 

[DNAEagle]

The first half of the schedule has been tough but they have done pretty well. At least this year they aren't playing games over the holidays when their best players are playing in the US Juniors. They don't get back at it until Jan 10 th and then they are playing some of the lower level conference teams and of course BU. As always those will be good games and a measuring stick for both teams.

 

[BC/HE]

Considering BC played a man short for 15 minutes of the game and they were down to only 4 defensemen, including the #7 and #8 defensemen on the team, it has to be considered not a bad tie. With Michigan State and Denver both losing look for BC to be possibly #1 in the polls as well as the PWR this week unless Minnesota or Western Michigan make big jumps.

 

[Nick Papagiorgio]

A tie and a regulation win is a great result given the circumstances on defense. Really have to give credit to Teddy Stiga for stepping up and playing D. I didn't catch the entire game but he was damn good while I watched the first half of the game. Getting an early lead was huge as was getting a 2-goal lead, which they then relinquished in mere seconds but proved to be critical. You had to go back 5 games to find a 2-goal lead for BC without an ENG. The first period was really telling to me as BC looked super focused, in good position, and really won their fair share of battles. First time in a long time it felt like they really looked great in the first 20 minutes.

Time to rest up for the second half. Typically the freshmen really start to blossom in the second semester so let's see if we can get some of these guys to catch fire and the team can gel.

BC will carry a sizeable PWR lead into the break. Regarding BC's RPI and the huge boost BC has with the bonus points, the gap between BC and MN at #2 is about as large as the gap between #2 MN and #7 PC. Pretty wild.

 

[Cross Check]

For whatever nitpicks we may have as BC fans, I think we have to be thrilled with how the season has gone thus far. 12-3-1 against by far the toughest schedule with the youngest team. First in the pairwise by a good margin with a satchel of quality wins in the bag already. Giving up only one power play goal in 16 games. Should come back healthy after the break and it would reasonable to expect continued improvement from the Freshmen in the second half. They are in a great place.

 

[DNAEagle]

AMen to all of that Cross check. I am expecting more excitement from Hagens the Younger and Stiga in 2025. Need to stay healthy.

 

[BC/HE]

Still waiting for the final WJC roster. It should be finalized soon as camp just finished, and the players are on to Ottawa. Roster to be cut from 29 to 25. Different this year is that the whole 25 man roster will be available instead of 23. In the past once 23 players were utilized a player had to be declared ineligible by injury or illness for the remainder of the tournament for the 24th or 25th player to be activated. While a team dresses 20 skaters and 2 goalies the other 3 players can be rotated in freely for other games now. Also, final game is Sunday January 5th and BC doesn't play until Friday January 10th so there will be no immediate turn around for the returning players as in the past.

 

[jstadts]

I have watched BC alot this year. I feel the last thing BC needs is their key players playing more games and enduring more wear and tear over the break.The key guys are being physically abused every game. With an inexplicably poor power play and no real grit as a team I fear the abuse will continue and lead to season ending injuries.

 

[BC/HE]

I have watched BC alot this year. I feel the last thing BC needs is their key players playing more games and enduring more wear and tear over the break.The key guys are being physically abused every game. With an inexplicably poor power play and no real grit as a team I fear the abuse will continue and lead to season ending injuries.

I agree that the league has allowed too much aggression against BC's key players and hopefully they do something about it. However, the vast majority of WJC players come back even better than before so the extra time will be beneficial barring any injuries. The time off before playing again is the natural cycle of weekend to weekend so that wear from the WJC should be worn off by then. Oftentimes players come back from overseas and jump into games only a day or two later. Not the case this time.

 

[jstadts]

I agree that the league has allowed too much aggression against BC's key players and hopefully they do something about it. However, the vast majority of WJC players come back even better than before so the extra time will be beneficial barring any injuries. The time off before playing again is the natural cycle of weekend to weekend so that wear from the WJC should be worn off by then. Oftentimes players come back from overseas and jump into games only a day or two later. Not the case this time.

I think the best solution for the cheap shots is to fix the power play.When you can punish them on the power play the cheap shots will slow down. I am old enough to remember the awesome teams Harvard had in the late 80s. When you tried to play rough they killed you on the power play.They also brought in some muscle named kevan Melrose that would straighten an opponent out pretty quick if you wanted to play dirty.Hope you are right and the tourney is good for the players. I personally don`t think it`s what the doctor orderd.

 

[BC/HE]

All 6 BC players made the final WJC roster of 14 forwards (Leonard, Perreault, Hagens, Stiga) 8 defensemen (Fortescue, Minnetian) and 3 goalies.