BU-Acadia/Season Hockey Preview

Hockey season begins for fake this weekend when BU takes on Acadia in an exhibition game this Saturday afternoon at 4:00 pm. Last season the Terriers introduced their high scoring offense to St. Thomas with a 12-1 beatdown. The Terriers hope to start off this season the same way as they take on some 24 year old dusters from Canada. The lineup Saturday night will not be indicative of what it looks like a week later when the Terriers travel to beautiful Schenectady NY for their season opener against the Union Dutchmen. Acadia is 3-0 so far in their season games against Moncton and Brock. Those don't sound like real teams so I'm not too concerned about them being even close to the level an average NCAA hockey team. Also, Acadia has 16 players on their roster who played in the CHL which basically means that 16 of their players will have little to no interest in playing any form of defense.

This should not be a big test for the BU offense who return three 30 point scorers(Grizz, Oksanen, and O'Regan) from a season ago. Robbie Baillargeon also scored 30 points two years ago before mono set him back last year. The three returning 30 point scorers is tied for the most of any team in HE with Lowell. Providence and Northeastern return two while BC and Merrimack return 0. BU is the only one of those teams to return their entire defensive corps while also adding a future first round pick in Charlie MacAvoy. Needless to say BU has a wagon for this coming season despite BC being the sexy preseason pick to win the league. Bracco, Wood, Dudek and Co may be decent freshmen at the bad end of Comm Ave but they are not Jack Eichel so I am not sure why people are acting like they will turn a mediocre team who lost their top two D around to a league champion. Lowell can't stop anyone either and Providence has serious questions in net with the departure of the devil himself Jon Gillies. This is BU's league to lose this year and anyone who pretends otherwise probably drank lead paint as a child.



Now, for projected lineups for the season opener, I see the following.

Greenway-O'Regan-Baillargeon
Oksanen-JFK-Greer
Olsson-Lane- Cloonan
Phelps-Moran- Carpenter

Carpenter, Phelps or Cloonan could easily get sat in favor of Roberto who as a junior will definitely have no issue with any hostile crowd at Union.

Roberto, Kelley, Lawrence

Hickey-MacAvoy
Fortunato-MacLeod
Somerby- Diffley

Best defense in the country bar none. BU's 7th D is better than every other's team's 5th D. That is fact not opinion.

Grzelcyk(knee), Switzer

LaCouvee
Maguire
Prawdzik

LaCouvee probably gets the nod early on because he isn't coming off an injury like Maguire but I would be comfortable with either goalie stealing the job and running with it for the season whether that is right from the get go or later in the season.

Agreed AJ! Let's get this shit started

We're Feastin' This Year, Don't Sleep On Us. #RoadToTampa @ TD Garden https://t.co/PovPOpQP8t

— AJ Greer (@ajgreer_10) September 30, 2015