NCAA Beanpot PRIMER: Everything you need to know

Just the facts:

• The big four D1 College Hockey Schools compete for a silver Beanpot and for bragging rights. This gets your school’s jersey immortalized at TD Garden for the entire year, and the Beanpot banner that hangs above the Garden’s ice/parquette will be updated to reflect the winner. It takes place on Monday the 5th, and Monday the 12th of this month.
• Each team has it’s own radio broadcast team listed here.
• The Semifinals and championship will be broadcast live on NESN.

Meet the Participants:

Defending Beanpot Champion Harvard University Crimson:

• National Ranking: Out of top 20
• Conference Ranking: 4th in Conference
• Scoring Leader: Ryan Donato, with 30 points in 22 games
• Goaltending: Merrick Madsen, .920 SV%

An outlier in this tournament in that it is a school outside of Hockey East, Harvard comes into the Beanpot with a lot of questions. Namely, they play well defensively...but recently they’ve had trouble finishing off their opponents in regulation, with 5 of their last 9 going to overtime, and three of those 5 ended in tie games. They play BU in the first round and will have to conjure up some scoring in order to move on and defend their Beanpot-shaped crown.

Boston University Terriers:

• National Ranking: Out of top 20
• Conference Ranking: 4th in Conference
• Scoring Leader: Bobo Carpenter, with 27 points in 27 games
• Goaltending: Jake Oettinger, .908 SV%

BU has been going through some rough times.

Barely above .500, miserable at home, Oettinger’s SV% has cratered, and in general it looks like the Terriers are a team based on the strength of their offense, rather than a complete effort and especially not because of anything resembling defense. Thankfully, their first round matchup should be a fun little jaunt to see if they can hold their own against a strong Harvard squad.

Northeastern University Huskies:

• National Ranking: 11th
• Conference Ranking: 2nd in conference
• Scoring Leader: Adam Gaudette with 39 points in 27 games
• Goaltending: Cayden Primeau, .921 SV%

If ever there was a year for Northeastern to finally break their streak of not having a Beanpot since 1988, the 30 year anniversary of that Beanpot is the year. The Huskies have been an unstoppable force at home, They’re scoring at an incredible rate, and they look to be the favorite and arguably the strongest team in a Beanpot full of problem squads. Their January put them up against fierce competition, and they’ve edged in and out of the national top 10 all through the month. They face one of their toughest challenges in Conference leader Boston College.

Boston College Eagles:

• National Ranking: 16th
• Conference Ranking: 1st in Conference
• Leading Scorer: Julius Mattila, with 20 points in 27 games
• Goaltending: Joeseph Woll, .901 SV%

For all the good they’ve got going on with a deep roster (it takes you almost two lines and d-pairs to get point totals in the single digits), they are a team hemorraghing goals. Whatever Woll was supposed to be, he’s clearly not the answer in goal this year. Hell, their last game before showing up had them surrender 5 goals to Connecticut. Connecticut does not have a winning record, nor a positive goal differential. That is dire. They come into the tournament facing Northeastern, whose sure to make the semifinal an utter nightmare for them if they don’t get their act together early.

Schedule:

Monday the 5th:

BC vs. Northeastern - 5pm

BU vs. Harvard - 8pm

Monday the 12th:

Consolation Game: Loser of game 1 vs. Loser of game 2

Beanpot Final: Winner of game 1 vs. Winner of game 2