Column: Don't Sleep On Vermont Tomorrow

Boston College might be the best hockey team in the country right now. In their past 14 games, the Eagles are 11-2-1. They've outscored their opponents 60-28. Heading into tomorrow night's Hockey East semifinal match-up with eighth-seeded Vermont, the Eagles are heavy favorites to win the league title.

Don't sleep on Vermont for a second, though.

Although they barely even qualified for the league tournament, the Catamounts were only three points away from third place. They're a dangerous team. Just ask New Hampshire, the Hockey East regular season champions. The Wildcats, who were undefeated at home against league opponents heading into last weekend's quarterfinal series with Vermont, lost two of three to the Catamounts in Durham. Now UNH is sitting on the wrong side of the bubble for the 16-team NCAA tournament, which begins next week.

Vermont, though, just moved on to the right side of the bubble. Beating UNH in the quarterfinals allowed the Catamounts to leapfrog the Wildcats in the all-important PairWise Rankings, which determine seeding for the NCAA tournament. Two automatic qualifiers are currently ranked outside the top 16, leaving 14 as the cutoff for the tournament. Vermont is ranked No. 14, and UNH is No. 15. A loss to BC in the semifinals could drop the Catamounts out of contention for a tournament berth.

Vermont desperately needs to win tomorrow to keep its NCAA tournament dreams alive. The Catamounts actually took the season series from BC, splitting the games played at Kelley Rink and winning the season opener in Burlington. But the Eagle team they'll face in the semifinals has grown since then. The BC goaltending situation was completely unsettled at the beginning of the season, with John Muse recovering from hip surgery and Chris Venti and Parker Milner competing for the right to split playing time with him. Head coach Jerry York found the proper balance between Muse and Milner later in the season, and the Eagles became the hardest team to score upon in Hockey East. Since Muse and Milner have split time so evenly, they're both fresh heading into the most important stretch of the season.

At the other end of the ice, the Eagles have been scoring at will over the past six weeks. They've scored at least five times in half those games, including three seven-goal efforts. The Brian Gibbons-Joe Whitney-Cam Atkinson line has been getting a lot of pub for putting up points, but others have picked up the scoring burden lately. Barry Almeida scored three goals and had an assist in the quarterfinal series against Massachusetts, while Steven Whitney added a goal and three assists. Matt Lombardi also scored a critical goal to give BC some separation in the second game. If the Eagles can continue to score from several different lines, they're going to be almost impossible for the Catamounts to slow down.

If any team can slow down the Eagles, though, it's the Catamounts. They play a tough, defensive brand of hockey designed to knock speedy opponents like BC off their game. Goaltender Rob Madore, who was fourth in Hockey East in goals-against average this season, recovered from a humiliating 7-4 loss on Friday night to post back-to-back shutouts against the Wildcats. Madore seems to be rounding into his best form of the season, so the Eagles will have to be especially creative to beat him.

The Eagles can't afford to be caught off guard for this game. They're currently in a three-way tie with North Dakota and St. Cloud State for the final No. 1 seed in the tournament, which would virtually guarantee them a spot in the Worcester regional, just under an hour away. A loss would put that all up in the air. So much is on the line Friday night. Don't miss it.