The hockey world’s eyes will be glued to the Conte Forum this weekend as the #5 Maine Black Bears lock horns with the #2 Boston College Eagles in a mouthwatering clash between two of the country’s best teams.

The Black Bears will be shipping down to Chestnut Hill brimming with confidence and swagger. Maine is riding a momentous seven-game unbeaten streak to open their campaign after back-to-back home blowouts for a combined 11-0 score over Merrimack last weekend.

But standing in their way is arguably the most talented team in college hockey.

Boston College, last season’s Hockey East Tournament Champions and National Championship finalists, have picked up this campaign right where they left off — surging to a 5-1-0 record with wins over AIC, Western Michigan, a road-sweep out West last weekend over then #10 ranked St. Cloud State, and a season-opening split with #4 Michigan State in East Lansing.

While the two teams have jumped out to similarly strong starts, the DNA of the two programs could not be more different.

Boston College, five-time National Champions, four of which have come since Maine’s 1999 win, has a roster stacked head-to-toe with elite-caliber talent. BC’s squad boasts the fifth-most NHL Draft picks in all of college hockey, with 12 Eagles drafted, three of which were in the first round.

Maine, on the other hand, only has one drafted player, Taylor Makar, who was a seventh-round pick.

But perhaps BC’s best player hasn’t been drafted. Not yet, at least.

Freshman forward James Hagens only turned 18 five days before Friday’s game and is widely expected to be the first overall pick of the entire draft this Spring.

Boston College is one of the premier destinations for the most highly-touted players destined to go straight into the NHL after college. Receiving the most promising talent in their program year after year, BC is by far the youngest team in college hockey, with an average age of 20.1. The second-youngest team is an average of twelve months older.

Meanwhile, Maine is quite the opposite.

With an average age of 22.6 years, the Black Bears are mainly players who have mostly been overlooked their entire careers. While BC’s roster is overflowing with players who have been scouted as NHL-bound talent from a very young age, Maine’s lineup is stocked full of players who have had to fight tooth and nail for everything they’ve earned in their hockey careers so far.

“We are a bunch of underachievers that have turned ourselves into a decent team, and some of these individuals have turned themselves into really good players at this level; they’ve had to work for it,” Maine Head Coach Ben Barr said recently on College Hockey News’ Insider Podcast.

But isn’t this stark contrast just so perfectly fitting for the communities each represents?

The flashy bright lights of big-city Beantown compared to the steely pragmatism, quietly hard-working and steadfast nature of Mainers.

“You get the roster sheet every night and go, oh well, these guys have five first-round draft picks, they’re going to be fine. That’s not how we’re built, and we love it that way,” Barr said.

“[Our guys are] not blue chip recruits that have been great since they’ve been ten years old; they are the opposite of that,” Barr reiterated after Tuesday’s practice.

The two teams also play in a contrasting style that is representative of their cities and states.

Boston College is an offensive juggernaut. As skilled and fast as any team in the nation, BC’s attacking firepower is conjured through puck-wizardry and intricate precision. Smoothly savvy with the puck on their tape, BC’s elite forwards can pounce on every mistake and surgically cut up even the best defenses with ruthless precision in the blink of an eye.

“They are really fast and really skilled. They work together really well. If you’re in the offensive zone, and you roll up the wall, and you make a bad play in the middle of the ice, it’s going to be a scoring chance. If you make a bad play on a breakout, it’s going to be a scoring chance,” Barr warned. “They are a transition-oriented team.”

Contrasting this wheeling-and-dealing style of offense is Maine’s equally successful muck-and-grind game. The Black Bears are at their best when they can get pucks deep into their offensive zone and utilize their punishing pressure cooker forecheck to win it back before their lunch-pail effort eventually works pucks onto the net.

“We make plays on the rush too, it’s not like we don’t,” Barr explained. “[But] with our team, we’re more of a get it in and go to work in the offensive zone [team].”

Personnel-wise, the high-flying Eagles have one of the most dangerous and highly-touted forward lines in all of college hockey. Centering the trio is #10 James Hagens, the freshman phenom expected to go first overall in the NHL Draft. To the right of Hagens is 2023 first-round draft pick #34 Gabe Perrault. The highly skilled and cerebral sophomore already has five goals and five assists this season. Also with ten points this year is the line’s left-winger #9, Ryan Leonard, who was drafted eighth overall in 2023. Barr knows Leonard well, having coached his brother John at UMass.

“I’ve watched Ryan Leonard play since he was like ten because he’s from Amherst, Mass, and his brother played for us at UMass. He’s a great two-way player; he can make plays, he’s heavy, and he’s competitive,” Barr said. “Those are all going to be 60, 70 point guys all on one line, which is scary stuff. You don’t see a lot of lines like that in college hockey.”

But Maine’s under-the-radar-forwards certainly have more than enough firepower to hold their own against BC’s endless weapons arsenal.

Senior forward and this week’s co-Hockey East Player of the Week, Harrison Scott, is tied for second in the nation with the most points this season (15) and leads the country in points per game with 2.14.

Sophomore forward Charlie Russell has had an immense impact on  Maine’s game. His eleventh-best in the nation 1.57 points per game only tells the surface-level story of his major impact in games for the Black Bears. Highly skilled with the puck on his tape, Russell has always been a dynamic player with a ton of pop to his game, but Barr and his coaching staff, especially Assistant Coach Jason Fortier, have worked with Russell on simplifying his game in order to get more efficiency and productivity out of the first-year Black Bear.

“He has a lot of ability. His habits and his details have gotten a lot better in a short period of time, which is why he has been really effective. He was a really complicated player with stickhandling, kind of a complicated player when having the puck. Simplifying things allows him to get more pucks to the net and be in the right places instead of skating a million miles an hour all over the place,” Barr explained.

Lately, it has been on the power play where Maine’s offense has been firing smoothest. Maine’s five power-play goals last weekend shot their conversion percentage on the man advantage up to an excellent 26.5%, which ranks as the tenth-best in the country. The top PP unit consists of Thomas Freel — with a nation-leading six power play tallies — at the net front, Scott and Makar on the wings, Russell in the bumper position in the slot, and Brandon Holt quarterbacking the play at the point.

Of Maine’s ten power play goals scored this season, nine of them have come from this top unit, while just one came from Maine’s second power play unit of Nolan Renwick, Ross Mitton, Owen Fowler, Josh Nadeau, and Frank Djurasveic.

With Boston College possessing the nation’s best penalty kill, going a perfect 13 for 13 on the PK this year, Maine will need this second unit to get into gear. This weekend will be the power play’s true test.

“We’re going to have to get two units going; that will be the challenge for us going forward, finding the chemistry on that second unit,” Barr said. 

While BC’s offense usually gets the plaudits, it has been their stubborn defensive play that has been most significant to their success this year.

Defensively, the two teams are as statistically evenly matched as they come.

Both boast some of the stingiest defensive numbers in the country, with Maine and BC tied for a  nation-leading, minuscule 1.3 average goals conceded this season. The Black Bears limit their opponents to an average of just 22.3 shots, while the Eagles hold their opposition to 23.5 shots.

The Black Bears’ Albin Boija has the nation’s fourth-best goals-against average (1.28) so far after his back-to-back shutouts last week marked the first time Maine hadn’t allowed a goal in a weekend series since 2002.

Meanwhile, last season’s First Team All-American, Hockey East Goaltender of the Year, and NCAA record-breaker for most wins ever in a season for a freshman, Jacob Fowler, sits with the sixth-best GAA (1.34). A product of the United States National Team Development Program, Fowler has played in tons of big games, both at the international level representing the United States and collegiately last year, and won’t be at all fazed by competing in one of the marquee matchups of the entire college hockey season this weekend.

“He’s just really steady, moves well, [and is] extremely poised in the net,” Barr said about Fowler.

Barr is confident that his team will be able to generate their fair share of scoring chances against Fowler this weekend by sticking to their game, but executing in those big moments will be critical to Maine’s success.

“I think if we play heavy and hold on to pucks and move our feet, we’ll get scoring chances, then the question is, can you get it past Fowler?” Barr said.

While the Black Bears will have their work cut out for them scoring-wise, it will be paramount for them not to try and force a play that isn’t there, as BC’s elite offense will be waiting to jump on any Maine mistakes with merciless execution. Taking good care of the puck by keeping it out of dangerous areas of the ice against the boards and as far away from Maine’s net as possible will be critical.

If Maine tries to have an open-ice, back-and-forth track meet with Boston College, it is sure to be a long weekend for the Black Bears. But if they can keep the game against the boards, use their superior physicality and work ethic to grind down the high-flying Eagles, and not allow them to play with their rapid speed, the weekend could bode well for Maine.

“Puck possession is going to be a good piece to the game,” Barr explained. “You can’t turn a lot of pucks over. It’s the same story, but holding in pucks, putting pucks in places where you can go forecheck it or retrieve it or whatever the case may be [will be especially important against BC] because they can get an odd man rush so quickly and they transition so quickly that it takes a split second or one poor decision and all of a sudden, it’s a grade-a-scoring chance.”

Taking good care of the puck also limits the time the opposition will have with the puck on their sticks, which, when facing a team as skilled as BC, is enormous. The less the Eagles can dance around the ice with the puck in their possession, the better Maine’s chances of limiting their offense will be.

“When you are playing a team with as much skill as they have, they want to have the puck. The more that you can limit their touches, their possession, the better your chances are going to be,” Barr explained on Wednesday’s Black Bear Coaches Show. “Holding on to pucks, having the composure to make plays in tight spaces, and staying on our feet when we are getting checked.”

But Barr and Maine know that no matter how well they take care of the puck or how much their defense can limit BC’s offense, the Eagles are too skilled not to generate their fair share of scoring opportunities. Maine will be relying on their goaltender, Albin Boija, to stand on his head and bail out his team whenever needed.

Boija will have to be at his best. In fact, it will be necessary for every Black Bear to play at their highest level if Maine is to pick up anything from this weekend. Every forward line will need to produce, while all of the defensemen will be asked to step up. A key strength to Maine’s success this year has been its depth, but, according to Barr, it still has room for improvement.

That improvement will be much needed this weekend. It’s all hands on deck.

“I think we’re getting closer. We are probably still one or two or three guys every game from having the A-game from everybody. Maybe that’s wishful thinking that you are going to get that every night, but the closer we get to it, the better we are going to be as a program,” Barr said.

For Maine, this weekend is shaping up to be about a lot more than six Hockey East points up for grabs. It’s being used as a measuring stick for Maine’s progression as a team and as a program.

The win and tie against BC at the Alfond this time last year was a monumental leap forward for Maine. At that point, BC was #1 in the country, and Maine’s performance turned out to be a pivotal step in their climb up the college hockey ladder.

It was Maine’s announcement to the rest of the country that the Black Bears were well and truly back as a force with which to be reckoned, and that the Alfond was to be feared.

“That was a fun weekend, obviously. It kind of springboarded our season after that,” Barr remembered.

Now, Maine has the opportunity to take the next step forward as a program. To win on the road against college hockey’s best.

The most challenging step.

“We understand what we’re going into. Playing arguably the most talented team in college hockey at their rink for two games, and that’s going to be a great challenge for us. We have to view it as another opportunity for us to get better as a program. It’s one thing to have success up here in the last few years at our rink. It’s a different thing to be able to do it on the road. We know how difficult that is going to be,” Barr said. “We have to be able to go and do that on the road and have success on the road if we want to take that level of success for our program. We haven’t gotten there yet as a program in the three-plus years we’ve been working on this thing, but these are the opportunities that you play for.”

Maine knows they will need to be much improved compared to their games against BC last year, as they will be playing without their ultimate advantage, the Alfond. Last year, the Black Bears were 8-8-0 on the road compared to 13-2-2 at home. While they have won and tied with Northeastern away from home this season, they haven’t yet shown that they can play to their full ability away from their home comforts.

Now, they have that opportunity. They just have to take it. 

“We know they have a good crowd. They're going to use that to their advantage as well. We're a team that still is finding our way on the road,” Lynden Breen said. “So we just have to prove that this weekend. It's going to be a big opportunity for us.”

This weekend, we will see a fascinating battle between contrasting styles of hockey play out.

Speed versus power, intricacy against intensity, skill versus heart, youth against maturity.

But the Black Bears aren’t worried about what BC can do. They are simply focused on themselves, making sure they do what they do best and not worrying about things they cannot control.

“It doesn’t really matter for us who we are playing, as long as we focus on our process. We are super excited going into [this] week and ready for the next challenge, next opponent, and showing the country who we are,” Harrison Scott said.

To be the best, you have to beat the best.

At the very least, a split on the road to the #2 team in the country would be an excellent result for Maine.

Are the Black Bears ready to take the next leap in their Journey North?

They certainly think so.