Time and place

The 45th Women’s Beanpot tournament commences with the semifinals Jan. 16, hosted at Harvard’s Bright-Landry Hockey Center. The Boston College Eagles (12-7-3, 11-3-3 HE) and Boston University Terriers (9-10-2, 7-8-1 HE) will open the competition at 4 p.m., while the Northeastern Huskies (13-9-1, 8-7-1 HE) and the Harvard Crimson (3-14-1, 1-11-1 ECAC) claim the later slot at 7:30 p.m.

Competition then travels to TD Garden for the first time in history Jan. 23. The Women’s Beanpot consolation and finals rounds will take place at the major arena, with the consolation game at 5 p.m. and the championship at 8 p.m.

The semifinals will be livestreamed on ESPN+ and the consolation and championship games will be broadcast on NESN. 

Breaking down the teams

Boston College and Northeastern come into the tournament neck and neck. The No. 13 Eagles and the No. 14 Huskies, the tournament’s reigning champion, sit one notch apart in the national rankings and are the only ranked teams in the competition. However, BC leads Hockey East standings over Beanpot rivals Northeastern and BU. BC is 4-0-2 since Dec. 1 and took home the shootout victory in each of the tied games. 

BC’s last loss came Nov. 25 against the Huskies. Northeastern, who stands third in Hockey East and has bounced on and off the national rankings in recent weeks, has won every game against a Beanpot opponent this season — a two-game series against BU and the sole matchup with the Eagles. 

Northeastern has yet to face Harvard this season. In fact, this will be the first time the Huskies and the Crimson have met in nearly four years. The Huskies won the Feb. 4, 2020 Beanpot Semifinals 3-1 and will hope to once again dominate over the now-struggling team.

Harvard only has three wins this season — however, one of those wins came against a fellow Beanpot team: BU. The Crimson claimed a regulation victory 3-1, their biggest winning margin of the season. Although they do have that success against Hockey East, and are the one Eastern College Athletic Conference representative in the competition, facing Northeastern, the most successful Beanpot team with 18 titles, will be an uphill battle.

The Terriers also have a difficult climb ahead of them taking on the Eagles in the first round. The teams have already met once this season, with BC claiming the game 5-3. 

Players to watch

Scoring troubles haven’t just been an issue for Northeastern. No Beanpot team this year has a nationally high-profile scorer, with no player averaging more than one point per game. 

Northeastern graduate student forward Peyton Anderson and BC senior forward Gaby Roy are the only double-digit goal-scorers among the bunch, with 10 goals each. Anderson has had a hand in half of Northeastern’s goals against BU this season (2 goals, 2 assists) as well as a goal against BC, so whoever Northeastern faces in the second round has to be wary of her skill. Roy, on the other hand, has one goal against BU, but no other success over any Beanpot team this season. However, she did have a notable three-point performance against the College of the Holy Cross in her last game, so she enters the Beanpot Semifinals with that scoring boost under her belt.

Terriers senior forward Lacey Martin is also one to watch. Not only is she her team’s points leader (18), but she also had the primary assist in BU’s sole goal in last year’s 4-1 Beanpot Semifinals loss to Northeastern.

Northeastern and BC also each have a major playmaker in Huskies junior forward Skylar Irving (5 goals, 15 assists) and Eagles freshman forward Sammy Taber (7 goals, 17 assists). Taber is on a five-game point streak and doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon. 

On the back end, Northeastern holds the second-best defense in the country, after Clarkson University, with only 1.29 GAA. The other three teams in the Beanpot average around three goals allowed per game.

Northeastern’s defense is headed by graduate student and captain Megan Carter, who returned to the ice over the weekend in a series against Maine after missing the previous five straight games. The Huskies’ star defender, however, is sophomore Jules Constantinople. Constantinople has the most blocks of anyone taking the ice during Beanpot with 44 and has also contributed seven points (2 goals, 5 assists from the blue line).

Harvard junior defender Mia Biotti and freshman defender Maria Pape have also put forth a strong effort protecting their net with 39 blocks each. 

Between the pipes, Northeastern fifth-year goalie Gwyneth Philips is by far the most formidable netminder in the tournament. The reigning Goaltender of the Year, Philips holds a .952 save percentage on the season, which is good for fourth-best in the NCAA. In last year’s Beanpot, Philips won the Bertagna Award as the tournament’s best netminder. 

What to expect

With each team keeping play relatively clean this season, special teams will likely be few and far between. All four teams’ power play units are middle-of-the-pack, with around .200 success. However, this could change if they face each other’s penalty kill units in play. These have a much wider range of success, as Northeastern holds the nation’s second-most successful PK (.917) and Harvard has the lowest success rate protecting the net while down a player (.623).

Based on the teams’ struggles and success so far this season, Northeastern and BC have the best chance of facing each other in the finals. However, Beanpot brings an additional air of competition to the ice and stokes a decades-long rivalry between the four teams, so it’s still anyone’s game.