THE ESSENTIALS

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THE US

Michigan managed to stay out of the box long enough for their 5v5 superiority to tell, but it was a hell of a thing getting there what with the third-period goal from Northeastern that tied the score at 2-2 and set the stage for Michigan's traditional 3-2 playoff OT loss. But one bad leg-lift from Cayden Primeau and Cooper Marody's five-hole shot with under five minutes left sent them through. Hooray plinko!

THE THEM

It's us? Sort of? Like Michigan, BU was idling a couple games under .500 for much of the year before a late breakout got them to the tourney. Like Michigan, there are several players of great interest to the NHL on the roster—BU has three first-round picks and certain top-ten pick Brady Tkachuk. But the comparisons start diverging there.

BU's upset of top-seeded Cornell is welcome news if you believe ranking systems like Pairwise and KRACH; it's less welcome if you want to compare NHL draft picks. BU continues to be the Kentucky of college hockey, stacked with five-star prospects (if anyone bothered to rank college hockey prospects) and beset by puzzling swings in performance. BU had to win the Hockey East playoff title to even get in; they would not have been an at-large and only made it up to 15th by winning said title.

BU is probably the most talented team in college hockey, and went 12-8-4 in conference play. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Some of this may just be bad luck. BU's possession numbers are on par with Michigan's but a 7.6 shooting percentage at even strength has held down their numbers substantially. NHL statheads look at shooting percentages in the same way Kenpom acolytes now talk about three-point percentage defense: mostly random and begging to return to the mean. But usually when they're talking about this they're talking about a specific player playing one season. In BU's case, they've had a team-wide low shooting percentage for all four years that College Hockey News has advanced stats on. It looks like a coaching issue. 7.6 is low even for percentage-challenged BU, though.

Jordan Greenway is one of 7 NTPD alums on the BU roster

As a result none of BU's top guys have gotten to a PPG except sophomore Dante Harper, who was knocked out for the year in early January. The remaining top guns are Tkachuk (8-22-30), Jordan Greenway(12-21-33), Bobo Carpenter(20-15-35), and Shane Bowers(17-15-32). From there it again drops off to guys scoring a half PPG or fewer. The forward corps has been somewhat disappointing.

BU's made up for it with a number of excellent offensive-minded D. They've gotten 30 goals from their blue line this year, a quarter of their total and the most in college hockey. Sophomores Dante Fabbro (a first round pick of Nashville) and Chad Krys (a second round pick of Chicago) are dangerous puck-movers to keep an eye on.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Michigan will have a disadvantage against just about any team in a penalty-filled game, but despite the buckets of talent BU possesses this game will be close-ish to even. BU's penalty kill isn't much better than Michigan's at 79%, 44th nationally. Their power play is good—15th—but not in Northeastern's class and just a few percentage points higher than Michigan's. Staying out of the box is job one for this team for as long as they get to keep playing; in this game it's not also jobs two and four.

GOALIE

BU's played first-round pick Jake Oettinger virtually the whole year; his Lavigne-esque .918 save percentage is also Lavigne-esque in that there's a huge gap between his even strength %, which is .932, and his PK %, which is .851.

THE KEYS

STAY OUT OF THE BOX. Just one of these this time.

Thunk BU's top line. Michigan's top line held Northeastern's big line to nine even strength shot attempts and got off 19 of their own in a shocking display of dominance. BU isn't quite as dependent on their top guys as Northeastern was, but that'll still go a long way towards a victory.

Quinn Hughes vs everybody. Hughes was the best player on the ice yesterday, and has been the best player on the ice for most of the past couple months. He has not yet turned this into boxscore numbers that match his impact. Now would be a good time for that.

PREDICTIONS

are stupid