NCAA Frozen Four: Not much separating BU, Providence ahead of national title game

BOSTON -- Providence College and Boston University have met twice this season, but to use those two contests — which the teams split — as any sort of roadmap for predicting the outcome of Saturday night’s national championship (7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN/TSN2) is probably folly.

The fact of the matter is that those two games were played on Halloween and All Saints' Day, after which point BU was 4-1-0, and Providence 2-3-1. Needless to say, the two teams have come an awful long way since then.

Providence, right around that time, was just starting to come out of a dismal start to the season that's evidenced by the record but also backed up by goals-for, goals-against, and possession numbers basically across the board. The Friars were actually picked to be the No. 1 team in Hockey East this season, and finished one spot back of that because no one seemed to anticipate just how much of a positive impact Jack Eichel would have for the Terriers. BU finished with just 10 wins last season. The W they picked up at home against Merrimack on Dec. 6 matched that number, and they've added 18 since, while suffering just four more losses and two more draws.

The smart money would be on BU, the team with the better season-long offense (3.88 goals per game to Providence's 2.98), the only slightly worse season-long defense (2.27 allowed per game to Providence's 2.02), lethal power play (26.2 percent to just 15.1 percent), and huge talent advantage. But it really isn't that cut-and-dry.

In terms of possession numbers, BU holds only the slightest edge against Providence, at 55 percent to 54.7 percent for the entirety of the season. But apart from the Friars having to hack and slash their way through a cadre of NCHC opponents, which ranged from very good (Miami and Denver) to mediocre at best (Omaha), their possession numbers for the last month and a half or so have been mind-boggling, while BU's have simply been “dominant.”

Simply put, the highs of which Providence is capable in this regard — because they're a team that is coached to an almost fanatical level of discipline by Nate Leaman, who won't get as much credit as he deserves for this season because his team shot just 7.5 percent at 5-on-5 — were matched only once and very briefly by the Terriers. And that was against some pretty soft early competition.

And again, look at how bad Providence was early in the year, getting decent-but-not-great possession for quite a while, but then really starting to stand on other teams' throats. Their more recent troubles came because they played two of the other best possession teams in the nation, and then spent most of those games leading. They've been out-attempted overall in the NCAA tournament, but in score-close situations, their CF% is 57.4; which is to say they're taking care of business just as they have the last few months until the game is more or less out of reach. Which makes sense: They're Hulk Hogan-strong on the puck, but even the Hulkster can get caught when he understandably lets his guard down. 

Not to say BU isn't dominant in possession either, but it's perhaps not to the extent Providence is. By the same token, when games have been close, it's BU blowing past its NCAA tournament opponents with a 54.4 percent possession number. And look, were the Terriers' games closer than that? Yes, because they won in overtime, got a late power play game-winner, then held on extremely tight to edge North Dakota on Thursday. But you can pretty much always count on BU's top line to score when it matters.

Since Eichel was given Evan Rodrigues as a linemate on Jan. 10, the Terriers have outscored opponents 56-34 at even strength, never once being held off the scoresheet in this regard, but also running a power play of 31.2 percent. Hell, they've only been held to one ES goal four times in those 22 games.

So that's the concern for Providence, which is fairly seen as the more stalwart defensive team. Lately it hasn't been as easy as it was down the stretch, but again, high-quality opponents will do that, and Providence doesn't have the offensive firepower to continue exerting its will on opponents in a lot of situations, especially when it's establishing early leads.

And when people talk about Providence they also tend to forget that the Friars' offense is pretty good itself, even if there's no one standout player (Nick Saracino certainly paces the offense with 38 points in 39 games, but that number would be tied for fourth on BU). And that's reflected in the goals-for numbers at 5-on-5, but not to the extent many people would make it out to be. The only reason Providence hit that little bump in the road was they ran into an impossibly hot UNH goalie in the Hockey East playoffs. And to be fair, BU pummeled them the very next week. In their three NCAA games, the Friars have scored nine times at evens.

And as far as defense goes, Providence has certainly had the better of things the last few months, but these two teams have converged more recently. Both defenses are alarmingly stingy for opponents, and that probably portends a low-scoring final, but both are also so capable of scoring so many goals that any outcome is possible.

If the game comes down to special teams, the fact that BU's power play has been running at almost double Providence's efficiency basically all season says to me that it would be BU's game to lose. But Providence doesn't take a ton of penalties (certainly the Terriers take more) and has held opponents to just 13.9 percent on the power play. BU hasn't fared quite so well (17.7 percent against). 

“Anything can happen!” That is what I'm saying to you, and I'm sorry. But as much as I think Providence is an excellent team and has been for most of the year, I also find it almost impossible to believe that Jack Eichel won't just decide, “Okay then,” have a multiple-point night, and crown the most impressive freshman campaign in two decades. Jon Gillies is one of the best goalies in the country, and one of the best currently playing outside the North American professional ranks, and he could be that level of a difference-maker. But you gotta go with your gut and the research simultaneously. And both say, “narrow BU win.”

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist and also covers the NCAA for College Hockey News. His email is here and his Twitter is here. 

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