Hockey East midseason reports: Boston College

The BC Eagles’ defining task in Part II of their 2009-10 season: make sure the other skate doesn’t drop.

Black-and-white paper never lies, and BC is plainly in first place in the Hockey East standings with a 4-4-4 record. They have spelled that difference by grittily filling up on valuable shootout points, having prevailed in all four of their one-on-one periods so far. And they have done it all without the input of would-be senior sizzler Kelli Stack and with no more than 16 skaters available per night.

But all seven of their chasers have at least one game in hand, particularly almighty New Hampshire, which has consumed a mere eight of its 21 conference contests and only trails by three points. And even though a nice packet of freshmen from every position have made a sound impact alongside senior nucleus Allie Thunstrom, the Eagles will have to free their second wing from behind their backs and give themselves a major statistical face-lift if they are to earn hosting rights for the WHEA playoffs.

For starters, they are dead last in the way of offense with a 1.74 goal-per-game median and similarly have a second-worst 9.2 percent connectivity rate on the power play. Just before they hit the break, rookies Blake Bolden and Ashley Motherwell notched their tenth respective points, finally giving Thunstrom a little company in the double-digit club. Everyone else –particularly sophomores Mary Restuccia and Danielle Welch- has been tad slow to follow up.

Even more poignantly, as a team, the Eagles have shot at the opposing net with a league-worst 6.9 percent connectivity rate and have averaged a fairly light 25.2 shots on goal per game. Translation: they need more shots in terms of both quantity and quality.

On the backline, the budding two-way connoisseur Bolden and fellow rookie –a stay-at-home guard in Dru Burns- are the only two individuals without a negative plus/minus, both bearing an even rating. Bolden’s all-around output –three goals, seven assists, 60 shots- has made for a pleasant surprise, but the fact that she is second on the team in terms of registered stabs and tied for second in the way of scoring just redirects the glare on the strike force.

Of course, owing to their struggles around the enemy cage, they all are indebted to another radiant rookie in goaltender Corinne Boyles. Taxed with the void left by the celestial Molly Schaus –bound for Vancouver along with Stack and the rest of the U.S. Olympians in February- Boyles, herself an international veteran at the U18 level, has charged up a 4-3-5 transcript and stopped all six shootout attempts she has faced. Her stats are not the most sparkling in the league’s goaltending sorority, but her impact on the team’s progress cannot be understressed.

And now, with one honorable mention vote in the last national poll released before the holidays, which brought their name back to relevance after they were rapidly dislodged from the Top 10 on opening weekend, BC still has a little time to make its case for another at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. They will have five more nonconference games against ECAC mid-to-heavyweights –Yale, St. Lawrence, Dartmouth, and Harvard- plus the second week of the Beanpot to spruce up an iffy 1-3-3 interleague record. There isn’t a whole lot of margin for error at this point, but anything they can extract from that competition will be helpful.

As far as the Hockey East pennant race goes, there is less room for error if the Eagles want to stamp a high seed, which would naturally embolden their national outlook as well. Right now, only seven points separate them from seventh-place Connecticut, and all nine of their remaining league games will feature adversaries from within that narrow window, including a home-and-home card with UNH on the final weekend.

In all likelihood, the components of the playoff bracket all promise to jumble like lottery balls until everything freezes on February 21. But if BC can perk up its puckslingers and make a more complete team out of itself, it will have done everything within its control to ensure an optimistic journey.