PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND - MARCH 31: Ryan Leonard #9 of the Boston College Eagles celebrates his ... [+]
Greg Brown’s first season as Boston College’s men’s hockey coach didn’t go as anyone wanted. A year ago, the Eagles went 14-16-6 and missed the NCAA tournament for the fifth time in six seasons. It was BC’s worst stretch in more than 25 years.
Now in his second season, Brown has assembled a loaded team that’s reminiscent of the great BC squads of the past. The No. 1 seed Eagles have advanced to the Frozen Four, where on Thursday night they will face Michigan at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minn.
It is the first time BC has played in the national semifinals since 2016. This year’s team (33-5-1) is already tied with the 2001 and 2012 squads for the most victories in a season in program history, and the Eagles are doing so led by freshmen and sophomores.
Still, these aren’t any young players. Sophomore forward Cutter Gauthier was a first round pick (fifth overall) in the 2022 NHL draft, while freshmen forwards Will Smith (fourth overall), Ryan Leonard (eighth overall) and Gabe Perreault (23rd overall) were first round selections in last year’s NHL draft. Smith, Leonard and Perreault were line mates the past two seasons with the U.S. National Team Development Program (USNTDP).
How talented are those four? Smith leads NCAA Division I with 1.77 points per game, while Perreault is third (1.68), Gauthier is fourth (1.64) and Leonard is fifth (1.51). Boston University freshman forward Macklin Celebrini, the projected No. 1 overall pick in June’s draft who is averaging 1.73 points per game, is the only non-BC player in the top five.
With Brown at the helm, BC has once again emerged as a national power, a place the Eagles had become accustomed to under Jerry York, the winningest coach in NCAA hockey history who retired in April 2022.
Brown was a natural fit to replace York, who coached at BC for 28 seasons, made 12 Frozen Fours and won four national titles. Brown grew up in Massachusetts and played for three seasons from 1986 to 1990 for BC, where he was a two-time Hobey Baker award finalist for the nation’s best player. He missed the 1988 season so he could play for Team USA in the Olympics. He played in the 1992 Olympics, too.
After college, Brown spent 13 years playing professionally in the NHL, minor leagues and in Europe. When he retired, he accepted a job in 2004 as an assistant under York. Mike Cavanaugh, who is now the University of Connecticut’s head coach, was BC’s other assistant.
“They had everything running seamlessly and made the transition for me pretty easy,” Brown said. “There was plenty of time for me to figure out how to join their staff and adapt because they had everything accounted for.”
During Brown’s eight seasons as an assistant and six as associate head coach, he recruited numerous top players and helped the Eagles win three national titles. In 2018, he left BC to become an assistant with the New York Rangers under head coach David Quinn, whom Brown had known from his playing days.
“(The NHL) is the best league in the world,” Brown said. “You learn so much being there and you're working with the very best players in the world, so you gain a ton of knowledge and experience being there. It’s definitely helped my situation.”
In May 2021, the Rangers fired Quinn, Brown and the rest of the staff. Brown then became head coach of the Dubuque Fighting Saints of the United States Hockey League (USHL), the nation’s best junior league.
Brown spent a year in the USHL before BC hired him to replace York. It was a homecoming for Brown, whose brother and two children are also BC graduates. His brother, Doug, was an All-American at BC and longtime NHL player, while his nephews, Patrick and Christopher, were former BC captains.
Still, it took some time for Brown to adjust as the Eagles finished eighth of 11 teams in the Hockey East Conference last season and lost 10 of their final 16 games.
“Anytime you have a new coach, there's going to be a transition,” Brown said. “Even though I had coached with coach York for a long time, it's still a different voice, different terminology sometimes. The players have to get used to a new coach as well as me figuring out what their strengths are and where best to put them to have success.”
This year’s 27-man roster includes 11 freshmen, among them the three first-year stars that form one of the Eagles’ top lines. Smith and Leonard, both Massachusetts natives, had committed to BC before Brown’s hiring. Brown then convinced Perreault to continue playing alongside Smith and Leonard. Brown attempted to have them play in other lines during the first couple weeks of practice before deciding it was best to keep them together.
“They were so familiar with each other as a line with the national program, so their adjustment and chemistry was immediate when they got here,” Brown said.
Goalie Jacob Fowler, a third round pick in last year’s NHL draft, is another freshman who has made an immediate impact. He is sixth in Division 1 with a 92.4% save percentage and ninth with a 2.20 goals against average. Fowler’s 31 victories are the most in NCAA history for a freshman goalie. He is one of three finalists for the Mike Richter award for the nation’s top goalie.
“He has a great demeanor of calmness that just keeps the players in front of him calm,” Brown said. “He's never rattled and extremely steady every game. You'd never know watching him if we were up by four goals or down by four goals. He just is able to keep his calmness in every situation.”
With such a young roster, Brown wanted to have some veterans, so the Eagles added three graduate transfers in former Cornell forward Jack Malone, former Boston University forward Jamie Armstrong and former Lake Superior State defenseman Jacob Bengtsson, all of whom played at least three seasons of high-level college hockey before arriving at BC last fall.
“Those guys are invaluable as far as adding not only experience on the ice but just to have some stability and guys that have been through all situations to be able to help out in the locker room,” Brown said. “They've been great as far as helping the young guys adjust.”
BC entered the season ranked sixth in the preseason U.S. College Hockey Online poll. In their season opener, the Eagles defeated No. 2-ranked and reigning national champion Quinnipiac, 2-1, in overtime. Since then, they have been dominant, losing only five times and compiling a nation’s-best 2.36 average scoring margin. Quinnipiac is next (2.08), followed by Denver (1.88) and Boston University (1.72). The Eagles have the second-best scoring offense (4.59 goals per game) and fourth-best scoring defense (2.23 goals per game).
BC defeated Boston University, 6-2, in the Hockey East championship game last month. The Eagles then won their first round NCAA tournament game 6-1 over Michigan Tech before defeating Quinnipiac, 5-4, in overtime to advance to the Frozen Four.
On Thursday night, BC faces Michigan (23-14-3), which is in the national semifinals for the third consecutive season. Boston University and Denver meet in the first semifinal. The winners play for the NCAA championship on Saturday night.
The Eagles have won 14 consecutive games, the longest active streak in Division 1, so they should be considered the favorite to win their sixth national title. Still, anything can happen in the Frozen Four, an event where a hot goalie can carry a team.
Regardless of how it turns out, BC seems to have found the right fit with Brown, a former star player at the school who doesn’t take for granted his situation. This season, the Eagles averaged 6,895 fans per home game, a 36.8% increase from 5,042 fans last season in the 7,884-seat, on-campus Conte Forum.
“We have great support at Boston College from the alums, from the student body, from the administration,” he said. “Hockey is important here. The support is everything we could ask for.”
