Skip to page content
Loading page

Beanpot preview: Northeastern looking for second three-peat

Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
NCAA

It took Northeastern 67 tries to win the Beanpot six times.

Now, they might be able to accomplish the same feat in just seven.

No team waited longer than the Huskies to begin collecting championships in this historic tournament, as they waited from 1952 to 1980 to finally claim the trophy. A few years later, they won two in a row, and by the time the '80s were over, they had four. They waited another 30 years to win again.

But since that fifth win, back in 2018, things have been very different. The Huskies won it again in 2019, and then in 2020. There was no tournament in 2021 because Harvard didn't play that season due to COVID concerns, and while Boston University won the first tournament back, the Huskies have now won it another two years running.

As you might imagine, it's exceedingly rare for any team to win the Beanpot six times out of seven, and for Northeastern, with just nine trophies on its mantle, it's unheard of.

However, this is going to be the Huskies' toughest task yet.

They will open the tournament, which begins tonight, with the 8 p.m. game against Boston College, the No. 1 team in the nation. The two teams met earlier this season and split a weekend series, with each team winning at home.

Northeastern's unquestioned star both that weekend and for the season as a whole was goaltender Cameron Whitehead, a 2022 Vegas fourth-round pick who is running at .915 on the season. Back in late November, Whitehead stopped 59 of 64 and routinely had to make Grade-A saves — 27 of those shots were from the home-plate area, and the goals were almost all rebounds and odd-man rushes. In all, BC generated 7.9 expected goals in those games, so Whitehead only allowing five was a huge positive.

It's been a weird season for the Huskies overall. They started out winning just one out of their first 10 games, but nearly all of them were against elite teams (Denver, Maine, Providence, UNH, BC). Since they beat the Eagles on Nov. 23, they're 8-6-0, which isn't spectacular, but the schedule has softened up a bit and they are taking advantage.

Jack Williams, Cam Lund, and Dylan Hryckowian are all running north of a point a game, each with 11 or 12 goals, but no one else on the team has more than defenseman Vinny Borgesi's five. 

Beyond Whitehead, it must be said that Borgesi has been a monster again this season for the Huskies. He plays almost 28 minutes a night, and when he's been on the ice, Northeastern has outscored opponents 30-24 despite the fact that he's on their top PK unit. When he's off, they're outscored 28-46.

The Huskies' offence is tied for the 13th lowest-scoring in the country in goals per game (2.4), but they're scoring more goals lately, and they will of course be highly motivated to try for that second three-peat in seven tournaments.

That said, back when these two teams met before Thanksgiving, the Eagles weren't really rolling then in the same way they are now, either. You know all the names: Gabe Perreault, Ryan Leonard, James Hagens, Teddy Stiga, Jacob Fowler. These are some of the best players in the country and they're all on heaters right now. The Eagles have won seven in a row, and each of the last five have come against top-10 teams (Providence, BU, and UMass Lowell). Since returning from break, they've outscored opponents 26-10 — and five of those goals against came in the first game back against Merrimack. They also haven't allowed a 5-on-5 goal in these last seven games.

And if Northeastern somehow survives BC tonight, their path to another title goes through the winner of the early game: BU or Harvard.

Yes, the Terriers just got swept by BC this past weekend, but before that, they were on a four-game winning streak and looking incredibly dangerous. Even with some iffy results at times — including a 2-5-2 stretch in October and November — they have the second-most productive offence in the country (3.8 goals per game) and six different players are north of 20 points already this season. Without question, their biggest issue this season has been goaltending, with an .891 team save percentage, and while they've often been able to outscore that problem just often enough — they're 5-7-0 when allowing three goals or more in a game — they may have found a solution.

Mikhail Yegorov, a Devils second-round pick in 2024, enrolled at BU a few weeks ago after starting the season in the USHL. A combination of his team's chaotic season (three different head coaches and currently a 6-26-5 record) and, likely, the Terriers' goaltending woes led them to bring Yegorov in for the second half. And while his first start was marred by an unfortunate mistake before the game even started, he was phenomenal in a narrow loss to BC, stopping 23 of 24 and often making it look easy. On Friday, he saved 19 of 21 against UNH. If he lives up to that level of play, or anything close to it, the Terriers will be tough to beat in the last few months of the season, and that might start this evening against the Crimson.

Harvard hasn't really had a season to write home about: 7-11-2, but outscored just 57-50 with a minus-10 shot difference. Basically, they've lost a lot of narrow games and haven't been outplayed that often on the balance. However, they've only won one non-conference game all season (a 4-2 win against Merrimack in Belfast, Northern Ireland), and they've been outscored 20-13 in those, which can't leave them with a ton of confidence. That said, they've shown they're able to hang with BC in the last few weeks — a 3-1 road loss (the third goal was an ENG) where they were mostly able to keep up with the Eagles — and played the Terriers to a 2-2 exhibition draw back in October.

This is a bit of a rebuilding year for Harvard, but their top line has been productive, led by a pair of junior forwards. Joe Miller's the team leader in points with 4-11—15 in 19 appearances, and Casey Severo's 8-5—13. Freshman Mick Thompson has been a great rookie addition with them, putting up 6-8—14, including seven points in his last nine games. The Crimson have gone with a pretty even split of goalies this season, between Ben Charette (.920) and Aku Koskenvuo (.903), so it will be interesting to see who gets the nod tonight. Charette started on Friday in a home overtime loss against Princeton, stopping just 25 of 29.

Put another way, while no one would consider Northeastern or Harvard the favorites in their opening-night games, they both have the ability to make those games interesting. The thing they say, frankly too much, about the Beanpot is that the records coming into these games don't matter. It was only two years ago that we got the first-ever NU/Harvard final, after all. So while many neutrals may be rooting for another BC/BU final, just because of the drama and NHL-prospecty nature of those games, nothing is guaranteed.

And with Northeastern gunning for its sixth Beanpot in the last seven tries, the Huskies have proven that they're actually the team to beat.

Next Article