MEN'S HOCKEY NOTEBOOK
For the third straight season and the fourth time in the last five years, Vermont travels to Conte Forum to face Boston College in the best-of-three Hockey East Quarterfinals this weekend. Games 1 and 2 on Friday (March 10) and Saturday (March 11) begin at 7 p.m., while Game 3 on Sunday (March 12) would start at 5 p.m. if necessary. 
 
Live video of the series is available on a pay-per-view basis through HockeyEastOnline.TV. Single games are $9.95 and a tournament package is available for $59.95. Pre-game radio coverage begins 30 minutes prior to each game on WVMT 620-AM and UVMathletics.com/Listen with Alastair Ingram on the call. 

This year's quarterfinal pits the 6-seed UVM against the 3-seed BC, which earned a three-way share of the 2017 Hockey East regular season title. The last two quarterfinal series have each gone three games with the Cats winning in 2015 and the Eagles taking Game 3 in overtime last year. 

HOCKEY EAST QUARTERFINAL SCHEDULE
Game 1: Friday, March 10, 7 p.m.
Game 2: Saturday, March 11, 7 p.m.
Game 3: Sunday, March 11, 5 p.m. (if necessary)

RELATED LINKS
Video ($) | Audio | Live Stats | Tickets
Game Notes (.pdf) | CaTV Preview

SETTING THE SCENE
UVM is coming off a dominant two-game sweep of 11-seed Maine by the combined score of 10-1 last weekend in the Hockey East First Round at Gutterson Fieldhouse. Vermont and BC have split a total of 10 meetings (4-4-2) over the last three years in Chestnut Hill, and each squad has earned a quarterfinal victory in the decisive Game 3. The Catamounts enter the playoff series 15th in the Pairwise Rankings for the NCAA Tournament, while the Eagles are tied for 18th. 

CATS COAST IN FIRST ROUND | Highlights: Game 1 | Game 2
Liam Coughlin scored a pair of goals in the first 10 minutes and Stefanos Lekkas posted a 31-save shutout as 6-seed UVM blanked 11-seed Maine 5-0 to open the Hockey East First Round on Friday. 12 different players tallied at least one point for the Catamounts, who blocked 18 Maine shots (one shy of tying a season-high) and went 3-for-3 on the penalty kill to preserve Lekkas' second shutout.

Vermont followed with a 5-1 win on Saturday in Game 2 as Lekkas turned aside 36 Black Bear shots for the team's 20th win of the year. Brendan Bradley, Mario Puskarich, Brian Bowen, and Rob Hamilton all registered multi-point games in the victory. The Catamounts went 3-for-5 on the power play, one shy of tying a season-high for single game power play goals.

SCOUTING THE EAGLES
3-seed Boston College finished in a three-way tie for the regular season crown, but the Eagles enter the weekend on a seven-game winless streak (0-5-2) and haven't won since before the Beanpot. Senior Matthew Gaudreau leads the team with 24 assists and 31 points on the year, while fellow senior Austin Cangelosi leads the team with 17 goals and paces the entire league at 65% on faceoffs.

Freshman Joseph Woll has started 30 of the team's 36 games in net with a 2.66 goals against average and .912 save percentage. The all-time winningest coach in college hockey history Jerry York (1,030 career wins) is in his 23rd year at Boston College. BC lost to Quinnipiac in last year's NCAA national semifinal.

SERIES HISTORY
Friday marks the 65th all-time meeting in the series and the 11th meeting at Kelley Rink in the last three seasons. Since the start of the 2014-15 season, Vermont is 4-4-2 in its 10 games against the Eagles in Chestnut Hill. BC's Ryan Fitzgerald won last year's series in the decisive Game 3 with a deflected wrist shot midway through the first overtime. In 2015, Jarrid Privitera scored the lone goal three minutes into the third period of Game 3 to send UVM to TD Garden.

THE LEKKAS FILE
Stefanos Lekkas won his seventh Hockey East weekly award of the season as the Defensive Player of the Week on Monday. In his playoff debut, Lekkas stopped 67 of the 68 shots he faced during a sweep of Maine last weekend for a .985 save percentage. The 18 wins for Lekkas this season are the most by a Catamount goaltender since Tim Thomas '97 as a senior 20 years ago (22). Lekkas' win total surpasses the program's previous rookie record set by Joe Fallon '08 during the 2004-05 season (17).

CLASS OF 2017
Vermont's senior class now has sole possession of third place all-time in the Division I era of the program in wins by a class with 77. After surpassing the Class of 1989 for third with its pair of victories over Maine in the Hockey East First Round, the class is just one win from moving into a tie for second all-time with the Class of 1998. The 10 members of the Class of 2017 have also surpassed the Class of 2009, which went to the NCAA Frozen Four as seniors. Led by future NHL standouts Martin St. Louis, Eric Perrin, and Tim Thomas, the Class of 1997 is the winningest class with 83 victories.

PLENTY OF 20 
UVM has won at least 20 games in three of the last four seasons. It marks the first time that Vermont has accomplished the feat since winning 20+ games three straight years from 1972-75. Those teams in the 1970's won 77 games in a three-year stretch and moved into Division I for the final season of the run in 1974-75. The Catamounts' 57 wins over the last three years have matched the highest total since a 57-win stretch from 2006-09.

WHO'S NEXT
The winner of the quarterfinal series advances to TD Garden for the Hockey East Semifinal next Friday (March 17) in Boston. 

Handy Toyota is the presenting sponsor of the 2016-17 men's hockey season