BOSTON - After taking down No. 15 Boston College, 7-4, on the road Friday, the Boston University men's ice hockey team aims for a home-and-home sweep of its archrival when it hosts the Eagles on Saturday (Dec. 2) at Agganis Arena. Game time is set for 7 p.m.
BU will honor the 40th anniversary of its 1977-78 NCAA championship team, which defeated BC, 5-3, in the title game to cap a 30-2-0 season and hoist the third national championship trophy in school history.
Following Friday's win at Conte Forum, BU has now won four consecutive regular-season meetings with BC for the first time since winning 11 straight from Dec. 9, 1992, to March 4, 1995.
The Terriers have alternated wins and losses over their past six games and enter Saturday with a record of 7-8-1 overall and 5-4-1 in Hockey East play.
Sophomore goaltender Jake Oettinger is now 4-1-0 against BC with a 1.82 goals-against average and .943 save percentage and all five meetings came against his former USNTDP goaltending partner, Joseph Woll.
Seniors Brandon Hickey (2g, 4a) and juniors Bobo Carpenter (2g, 4a) and Jordan Greenway (1g, 5a) have all scored six career points against BC.
The Comm. Ave. rivals have met 275 times and the Terriers lead the series, 134-123-18 (.520). BU is just 4-11-2 (.294) in the 17 meetings at Agganis Arena.
BC, which had an eight-game unbeaten streak (7-0-1) come to an end on Friday, stands in first place in the Hockey East standings with 16 points (8-2-0), three points ahead of second-place Providence. The Eagles are winless in non-conference play (0-4-2).
Sophomore Julius Mattila (5g, 7a) and freshman Logan Hutsko (3g, 9a) are tied for the team lead in points with 12 each. Freshman Christopher Grando has added 11 points (5g, 6g) while seven others have at least eight points to create a balanced offensive attack.
Woll has earned 13 starts in goal this season for BC but classmate Ryan Edquist holds the edge in both save percentage (.939-.898) and goals-against average (2.02-2.83).
BU sophomore Patrick Harper is tops among Hockey East players in both points (19) and assists (13). He has 11 points (2g, 9a) over his past eight games.
Freshman Brady Tkachuk leads all Hockey East players in plus-minus (+11) and has a team-high 60 shots. Amongst NCAA freshmen, Tkachuk's rating and shot total both rank first. Fellow rookie Shane Bowers is second in the nation in shots among freshmen with 49.
