No. 1 Quinnipiac Bobcats vs. No. 6 Boston College Eagles
How they got here: The Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team is coming off a strong showing in the NCAA Regionals. The Bobcats defeated the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Tigers 4-0 and then faced the University of Massachusetts-Lowell Ricer Hawks the following day.
The Bobcats went on to defeat UMass-Lowell 4-1 to punch their ticket to their second Frozen Four in program history.
Boston College travels to Tampa for its NCAA-best 25th Frozen Four following an impressive showing in the regionals.
The Eagles took down their Boston rival Harvard by a score of 4-1 to advance to a show down with Minnesota-Duluth the following day.
Boston College battled with Minnesota-Duluth before escaping victorious by a final score of 3-2.
Head to head: This will be the first battle ever between the two teams from the New England.
However, the Bobcats are 5-1-1 this season against Hockey East competition, including a 4-1 victory over UMass-Lowell last week to send Quinnipiac to Tampa.
Brosh’s prediction: The Bobcats have faced every team’s best this season and have tackled that feat all but three times.
However, Quinnipiac’s battle against Boston College will be their largest yet.
Boston College is coached well, can strike offensively at ease with their playmakers, and are lead by dominant goaltending.
Luckily, the Bobcats also hold a similar resume.
For me, games this late in the season usually come down to special teams.
Luckily for the Bobcats, they are one of the best teams on the penalty kill and power play. That shouldn’t change Thursday evening.
Quinnipiac wins 3-2 in overtime.
Cloutier’s prediction: This game is as much of a toss-up as they come.
Two teams coming from great college hockey conferences to clash for a Frozen Four match up.
The difference between these two teams is Quinnipiac won their conference playoff championship.
I believe that makes them the more resilient team and will lead them to their second national championship appearance.
Bobcats win 4-2.
My hot take from this game comes in the form of the play of Thatcher Demko.
Arguably the best player on the Eagles comes into this game 27-7-4 with 10 shutouts and a 1.85 goals against average.
All of those stats from the Hobey Baker finalist are what makes my prediction the hottest of takes.
I believe Demko lays an egg on Thursday night and the Bobcats score two soft goals that has head coach Jerry York thinking about pulling Demko.
Do I think the Hobey Baker nomination is going to his head? No, I do not.
But I do know that hot streaks come to an end.
Brosh’s player(s) to watch: The Bobcats have relied heavily on their defenders to be part of their offense all year.
Connor Clifton and Chase Priskie continue to be a threat as a duo whenever they are on the ice.
Between them, they have come up with big plays offensively this postseason to get the Bobcats to where they are.
For the Bobcats to have success, they will need to rely on these two once again in the offensive zone to create pressure on Boston College goaltender Thatcher Demko.
Cloutier’s player(s) to watch: Without question the key players to watch for either of these teams is the goaltenders, but that is too obvious.
I believe the most important player on the ice for either team is Devon Toews.
The quarterback of the power play has the most minutes on the team and is arguably the best on his team in his defensive zone.
For Toews to be fully effective he needs to put some numbers up in the box score.
The player who head coach Rand Pecknold thought was snubbed from the ECAC First Team leads all ECAC Hockey defenseman in plus/minus and points per game.
Toews’ plus/minus is going to be the most pivotal statistic coming from this game other than the final score.
If the leading man in minutes on ice is positive in plus/minus, the Bobcats will win. If not, they will lose.
