Boston College Hockey Ranking Falls to 17th in USCHO Poll

Despite another productive weekend for the Eagles, the Boston College hockey ranking again took a slight hit.

In Monday’s USCHO poll, the Eagles fell one spot to 17th nationally, once again tying their low mark of the season. They have been in this position once before, on December 1 when they were at 7-7-0.

Since that time, Boston College has gone 5-0-2, but the polls show no increase. It likewise did not show a gain this week for their hated rivals and next opponent, the Boston University Terriers. BU remains at number two, having been passed by the Minnesota State Mavericks for the top spot nationally.

North Dakota, once in front of the Terriers, drops to third while possible future Beanpot opponent Harvard is fourth and Minnesota-Duluth is in fifth place.

Another Hockey East rival, the UMass-Lowell River Hawks, are even at six this week while Bowling Green, Nebraska-Omaha, Miami, and the Vermont Catamounts finish the top ten.

An October opponent of the Eagles, Denver, falls to number 13, while another, Providence, stays steady at 14. The Minnesota Gophers, once the nation’s top team, have descended rapidly to 16. Finally, past opponent Michigan is back in the rankings at 19 and future Hockey East foe Merrimack is in at 20.

While the Boston College hockey ranking remains a source of disappointment, the PairWise Rankings are not much better. Boston College is currently 20th, four spots below the absolute cutoff line for a theoretical NCAA Tournament at-large bid. This is actually a drop of one from last week, due to an RPI drop generated by playing Northeastern.

As for the women, their ranking is what it has been for the last two months: first, unanimously. With a record of 20-0-1 and a wide goal differential, Boston College is the best team in the nation by a mile and that probably will not change for some time.

Boston College Eagles

A slight deviation in our Boston College hockey ranking such as this is not necessarily worth any panic, as the Eagles have seldom played top teams since this 5-0-2 stretch began. That is about to change very shortly with the Eagles playing #2 Boston University on Friday. If the Eagles win, they are going to get a nice bounce. If they lose, it will not matter as they will not be ranked and they will have blown a golden opportunity to make major Hockey East and PairWise inroads.

Boston College has done enough in beating the teams behind them in the standings. Now they need to grab a big win and start pulling themselves back to the top. As we have seen in these USCHO rankings and in the PairWise, beating teams like Dartmouth and Northeastern is only going to help them tread water at best. If the Eagles have any intention of going where they originally planned to go at the start of this season, it starts with a win over the Terriers.