Beanpot 2026: First Round Recap + Second Round Preview

For the 47th time in history, the Beanpot will be hoisted in the air Tuesday night, as the four programs head back to TD Garden for the championship round once again. While the opening round didn’t disappoint, with both semifinals finishing with 2-1 final scores, it’s looking like the second round could be even better. 

Let’s talk through how we got here, and what we can expect from the championship and consolation games in Boston.

First up in the semifinals was Harvard/Boston College, where the Eagles' skid continued even as they played one of their better games in the last month. Over the course of 60 minutes of regulation BC did some of what I thought they’d need to do in order to win. They outshot Harvard 41-34, forced the Crimson to step in front of pucks as well, and put the pressure on, hard. 

Harvard, however, took advantage of their moments, scored two outstanding goals, and came away with the win. After a long few minutes of heavy pressure from BC to open the third period, the Crimson went back down to the other end of the ice, where Kaley MacDonald went top corner over Grace Campbell to lead her team to the championship game. 

Then came the second semifinal, which saw fireworks in the first 10 minutes, sustained pressure for the remaining 50 of regulation, and finished with a fun overtime frame in which BU eliminated the three-time reigning champions. 

For the entirety of the game's 63 minutes, the Terriers and Huskies skated in lockstep with one another. When it seemed as though one was increasing the pressure of the game, there were the goaltenders — NU’s Lisa Jönsson and BU’s Mari Pietersen — to keep their teams in it. 

Terrier captain Maeve Carey played the hero for her squad, scoring exactly three minutes into OT to send BU to the championship game for a third straight year. The best tidbit about the OT winner was who assisted on it: both Healey sisters, Sydney and Keira. And it came on the power play, which BU has struggled with the most all season. 

If we’re looking at both games as a part of a larger collective, what’s funny is how much of a discrepancy there was in one statistic in both games in favor of the winning teams: their performance in the faceoff dot. 

I’ve often said that winning faceoffs can be the driving factor in a game — in depth analysis, I know — but nowhere was that thought more proven than in the first round games. 

In game one, on 67 draws, Harvard came away with 41 wins to BC’s 26. While 15 more wins may not seem like too many, in the grand scheme of things the Crimson won over 60% of the draws, and it helped them dictate the pace of play at various moments through the course of the game. 

Then in game two we had the largest margin of faceoff wins I think I’ve ever seen in my life. BU is the ninth-best faceoff team in the country, and they showed that in spades when they won 77% of the faceoffs taken in their game against Northeastern. 

Yes, the Huskies only won 11 of 48 faceoffs in the semifinal, and none of those came in the integral overtime period. 

Do I think BU’s win is solely because of them winning in the faceoff circle? No, I do not. The Terriers played a tough game and capitalized in the moment they needed to most — on a power play opportunity in sudden death overtime. I said last week BU had a chance to break their stretch of nearly two months without a goal on the advantage, and they took that chance and ran with it. 

In the upcoming championship, don’t expect one team to run away with the faceoff wins as they did in the opening games. While BU may be ninth-best in the NCAA at a 55.2 win percentage, Harvard is just three spots behind them in 12th at 52.9%. It is going to be a battle between the two programs, which opens the door for even more competition in an already high intensity championship game. 

What will come first, however, is the consolation game. Northeastern and Boston College have met twice already this season, with the Huskies getting the better of the Eagles in each matchup. The Huskies didn’t run away with the games in December by any stretch of the word, although they did secure six Hockey East points over the then-in-second Eagles. 

Something that bodes well for BC is their six-game skid came to a close over the weekend, as they had a dominant performance over Providence in an 8-2 drubbing. The Eagles desperately needed a spark offensively going into the rest of the season, and they found it against the Friars. Running into the Northeastern defense is tricky. However, the jump from Friday’s matchup might be the difference after they struggled to score against the Huskies in their previous matchups. 

On the opposite side, NU didn't have as strong of an offensive weekend as one may have hoped. Sophomore Éloïse Caron scored twice in Northeastern’s 2-1 win over UNH on Saturday, though the Huskies were still unable to capitalize on the variety of chances they had — a trend that’s persisted throughout the first four games of 2026. 

Then we have the main draw: the championship game, where Harvard and BU face off for the second time in two and a half weeks. Though, this game will be played a bit closer to home, as the first was the Friendship Series championship in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In that game the Terriers beat the Crimson 3-2, thanks to a Neely Nicholson game-winner halfway through the third period.

Both teams are coming off a… not-so-great weekend. The Terriers’ struggles in conference continued as they fell 4-2 to Holy Cross on home ice in their lone game of the weekend. After conceding three goals on 17 shots against, Pietersen was pulled from her cage, giving her the second half of the game off — and some much needed rest before Tuesday’s championship game. 

Harvard, on the flip side, had a challenging pair of games, as they headed on the road to take on both No. 9 Princeton and No. 6 Quinnipiac, and where they lost 3-1 and 4-1 respectively. 

Sophomore Ainsley Tuffy, who had a superb showing against BC in the semifinals, made another 34 saves in the losing effort against Princeton on Friday. Like Pietersen, she also got some needed respite on Saturday, when Izzy Whynot made her first start since November. 

From all expectations, I’d prepare to see Pietersen in net for BU and Tuffy for Harvard — just like we saw in Belfast. In that last meeting, Pietersen turned aside 27 of Harvard’s 29 shots, while Tuffy stopped 25 of BU’s 28. It will be a huge game for both of the netminders, and it’ll be thrilling to see who is able to meet the moment. 

Overall, the two teams are matched fairly evenly, at least offensively. Harvard does have the slight edge in overall metrics, with a 2.3 goals per game average to BU’s 2.0.

Additionally, Harvard on the defensive end has had more success than BU, though the Terriers have looked more and more solid the further we get into the season on the other side of the puck. Their loss to Holy Cross was the first time their opponent has scored more than three goals in a game since Nov. 13th, a stretch of 10 contests where BU conceded 16 total goals. Harvard, in the same 10 game/two month stretch, had allowed 24. 

To me, the contest gets more intriguing the more I look into it. Closely matched teams raise the stakes in this tournament, stakes already high with the trophy on the line. Harvard is looking to avenge the loss just two weeks ago, while BU is searching for just their third Beanpot title ever. One of them will come out on top and get to celebrate at center ice with the trophy. 

It’s just a matter of which. 

Northeastern and Boston College take the ice first in the consolation game at 4:30 PM EST at TD Garden. Following that, Harvard and Boston University will compete in the championship game, tentatively scheduled for 7:30 PM EST. 

Both games are available to stream on ESPN+ and on NESN in New England.