2k19 Beanpot Tournament 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 tonight, and Monday the 11th of this month.
• Each team has their own radio broadcast listed here.
• The Semifinals and championship will be broadcast live on NESN.

Meet the Participants:

Defending Beanpot Champion Northeastern Huskies:

• National Ranking: #13
• Conference Ranking: 4th in Conference
• Scoring Leader: 22 points in 24 games
• Goaltender: Cayden Primeau, .921 SV%

After 30 years of heartbreak and toil, the Beanpot came back to Northeastern last year. Now, there’s a good chance Northeastern might get to keep it if they play to the level they have been. Brandon Hawkins, Tyler Madden, and Grant Jozefek have been playing out of their minds this year, and of course Cayden Primeau has remained a stalwart goaltender.

Of course, now would be as good a time as any to get their act together, as they’re coming into this tournament on a three game losing streak, and have been struggling to score consistently. Thankfully, the only ranked team they have to worry about is Harvard, and they don’t draw them tonight. They play BU instead.

Boston College Eagles:

• National Ranking: Out of top 20
• Conference Ranking: 2nd in Conference
• Scoring Leader: David Cotton, 24 points in 24 Games
• Goaltending: Joseph Woll, .921 SV%

The Eagles are snake oil salesmen.

They’re 2nd in conference because while they can get wins over Hockey East teams...They haven’t won a single non-conference game this year and are generally very bad when not at home. Compounding this is the fact that David Cotton, along with Julius Mattila and Logan Hutsko, are not getting any help whatsoever.

Basically, they have to hope Cotton’s line can produce, and that Woll can hold the fort, and the team to recognize this is technically a home game while also being an out of conference game to get anywhere.

And they drew Harvard. So have fun, guys!

Harvard University Crimson:

National Ranking: #17

Conference Ranking: Tied for 4th in Conference

Scoring Leader: Adam Fox, 27 points in 20 games

Goaltending: Michael Lackey, .927 SV%

Harvard’s had a tight ECAC to compete in. Clarkson’s wrecking house, Yale’s pretty damn good, Cornell seems unstoppable, and there’s the Crimson, right in the thick of it all thanks in part to one of Team USA’s many wunderkinds, Adam Fox. Right now they’re walking into the tourney on a 4 game win streak, including against teams like Clarkson. If momentum is where you place your bets, you’d be hard pressed to find a team better suited to it than the Rich Kids this year.

Boston University Terriers:

National Ranking: Out of top 20

Conference Ranking: Tied for 5th in Conference

Scoring Leader: Joel Farabee, 23 points in 24 games

Goaltending: Jake Oettinger, .920 SV%

Life has been recently quite rough for the Terriers as they’ve drawn ranked teams, and good ones at that, for their past four games, and while they have shown the potential to beat teams stronger than they, the reality is their near-.500 Record makes them a wildcard. Will they be able to pick themselves up and show they can be the world beaters they can sometimes show to be? Or will they buckle?

They’d better show it tonight against Northeastern, because that’s a test they’ve yet to definitively say they’ve had a leg up on with the exception of one game at home.

Schedule:

Tonight:

BC vs. Harvard is playing NOW

Northeastern vs. BU plays at 8pm

The 12th:

Losers of tonight play each other

Winners of tonight play each other

Go [Whoever you root for]!