Anticipation

Very soon the first PWR rankings will be released and the talk of national championships shall begin again. Last year, Quinnipiac took the initial number 1 ranking and then failed to even make the tournament in one of the worst second-halfs I've seen in years. Early guess is that Yale will be the initial number one sporting a robust 10-1-0 record its hard to argue against. For BC, their fortunes should be high as well. Despite have 5 losses, only one of those is at home and they currently have 2 road victories over a highly ranked Denver team and 2 victories against highly-ranked Maine as well. Early season road wins against a top-tier opponent can carry serious PWR weight, just ask Vermont.

I like what I'm starting to see in this BC squad. It appears that the loss to Vermont a couple weeks ago may have awoken the beast. They have now won 5 of their last six and those 5 wins were by a combined 28-8 (including the 5 goals allowed chaos on Friday night). The reuniting of Whitney-Gibbons-Atkinson has paid immediate dividends as Gibbons boasts a six game point streak and Atkinson has a 5 game streak. When Kevin Hayes rejoins the line-up after Christmas that should give BC two top lines capable of scoring multiple goals every night. If Hayes-Hayes-Kreider clicks the way one would expect two first round and one second round NHL draft pick to click this could be the deepest scoring BC team since 2001 (Lephart-Eaves-Gionta and Kobasew-Kolanos-Voce). It should be a great second-half to the year.