10 Things to Know About Boston University

1) Boston comes into Saturday's game at 3-1-0 on the season. They slaughtered North Dakota 5-1 in the season opener, beat MSU 2-1 in a game where they outshot MSU 29-13, beat Merrimack, and then dropped a 2-1 decision at New Hampshire. Like Michigan, they won't play tomorrow night.

2) Nick Bonino leads the team in scoring with a 2-4--6 line in four games. I remember being really impressed with him last year when they came to yost. Six guys have at least three points thusfar, including defenseman Colby Cohen, who has 4 assists. Top returning scorer Colin Wilson has 1-2--3. He had 12-23--35 last year as a freshman, which was good for 9th amongst NCAA rookies.

3) Brett Bennett went back to the USHL and Karson Gillespie graduated, so they've got two freshman goalies and both are off to good starts. Kieran Millan is 2-0 with a 1.50 GAA and a .938, while Grant Rollheiser is 1-1 with a 1.51 and a .919. They've alternated games thusfar. It's Millan's turn in the rotation, so we'll probably see him.

4) They closed last season on a tear, winning 11 of their last 14 and just missing out on the NCAA Tournament, despite being one of the hottest teams in the country by the end of the season. Their slow start doomed them. They lost their two top scorers from a year ago, but still return a lot of good players. I expect they're going to be tough this year.

5) They were sixth in the country in offense (3.38 gpg) and 36th in defense (2.92 gpg) a year ago. The power play was pretty good at 20.5% (though they gave up 6 shorties, which would take their net power play down to 17.4) but the penalty kill was awful. They ranked 54th in the country at just 78.5% and only scored 2 shorties of their own.

6) Currently they're 20th in offense (3.25 goals per game), 8th in defense (1.50 gpg), 10% on the power play, and 87.5% on the PK (though they're 93.8% if you factor in their two shorties).

7) Michigan has won 3 in a row against the Terriers (including two last year) and leads the all-time series 13-8. Matt Rust had a pair of goals last year and Billy Sauer gave up 4 goals on 56 shots in the two games.

8) Colby Cohen is Jeremy Bloom's cousin. Speaking of family members, there are two sets of brothers on BU. Captain Matt Gilroy's younger brother Kevin is a freshman this year, and Vinny Saponari (from the NTDP) joins his older brother Victor. Matt Gilroy wears #97 in honor of his brother Timmy, who passed away in 1993, but wore #97 when he and Matt were on the same line in youth hockey.

9) If there's another program that recruits the NTDP as well as Michigan, it's BU who has seven players from the US National program.

10) The game won't be aired locally, but it is on CN8 in Boston and you can watch via PPV on BU's website for $7.95. Of course, the other option is to go to CN8's website, lie and say you're from the New England area (clicking the Connecticut link works for me), and then click "Watch Live" and you should be able to view the game on your computer. It worked for me last year when they aired one of the games from Yost. But you didn't hear that from me. ;-)