Boston College at New Hampshire: Back to Hockey East

Boston College may have lost their home opener to Denver on Friday night, but now they’ve got a quick turnaround to worry about as they’re heading up to Durham, NH. Waiting for the Eagles will be the New Hampshire Wildcats, Hockey East rivals who are going back for their own home opener.

Even though the Eagles fell, they still sit at 2-1-0 and have generally looked pretty good in their first three games when you put it all together. New Hampshire, however, is another story entirely. The Wildcats are 0-2-0, but it’s worse than that: they’ve been outscored 9-0 in their first two games. Their first loss was at BU, a 5-0 defeat on Saturday, October 8. Just last night, while the Eagles were losing to the Pioneers, New Hampshire was busy losing a game at Northeastern, 4-0. So not only have the Wildcats gone 0-2 to start the season, and they’ve been shut out in both of their first two games, they’re also 0-2 in Hockey East play right off the bat.

For the Eagles, this will be their first Hockey East tilt of the year after having played a competitive first three games out of conference. Denver was able to effectively neutralize BC’s high-flying offense on Friday night, holding a team which had scored 11 goals in their first two games to just two goals yesterday. It will be up to New Hampshire to do the same thing, clearly, but also to find their own offense; the Wildcats have taken 62 shots-on-goal so far this season and none of them have gone in the net.

The Northeastern loss last night was particularly ugly for UNH goalie Matt Di Girolamo, who got the hook later in the game after going behind 4-0. Di Girolamo, who was spelled by Jeff Wyer, gave up 4 goals on 18 shots, but reports I’ve read seem to insist the Wildcat defense was highly culpable as well.

This will be an interesting test for the Eagles to see if they can bounce back, but for New Hampshire, one would think this is one they have to have for their collective psyche. Going to 0-3, all in losing conference games, would really be a major downer to open their season.

The game is at 7pm. There is no TV for it, but there is a “listen” link at BCEagles.com.