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Boston College men's hockey (2-5-2, 1-2-1 Hockey East) is now winless in its last three conference games after a devastating collapse at Conte Forum on Friday night against Vermont. The Eagles squandered a 4-2 lead with four minutes remaining in the third period and ultimately fell in a shootout to the Catamounts, with former Eagle Michael Hagens scoring the decisive goal. The previous night, BC dropped the series opener 5-2 in embarrassing fashion.
For Boston College and head coach Greg Brown, the combination of the 2025-26 season and this poor, slow start to 2026-27 has drawn unwanted attention to the program. Coupled with the fact that last week saw the Eagles drop out of the USCHO top-20 poll for the first time since Brown's inaugural season in 2022-23, questions and conversations are beginning to arise regarding Brown's future as BC's skipper.
Is Brown really on the hot seat? The short answer is yes. But here's the long answer.
Since taking over in 2022, Brown has compiled an overall record of 95-45-10 and a Hockey East record of 59-29-8. In 2023-24, Brown received the Spencer Penrose Award and won Hockey East Coach of the Year honors after BC finished as the Hockey East regular-season champion, Hockey East Tournament champion, and national runner-up after falling 2-0 to Denver in the title game. Brown also added a Hockey East regular-season title in 2024-25 and most recently a Beanpot title last year. Sporting an effective winning percentage of 66.7 percent, 65.6 in Hockey East, and a decent haul of silverware, Brown's resume seems to pass the eye test.
However, critics of Brown will point out that he inherited perhaps one of the most talented collegiate hockey rosters of all time during his two seasons between 2023 and 2025. And once these players left, a noticeable drop-off occurred even though Brown still retained some of the best recruiting classes in the country.
During BC's 2024 Frozen Four run, Brown had four players combine for 256 total points, including a goaltender who was twice nominated for the Mike Richter Award in Jacob Fowler. Will Smith (71), Cutter Gauthier (65), Gabe Perrault (60), and Ryan Leonard (60) found themselves all within the top seven in points nationally, and both Gauthier and Smith were Hobey Baker Award top-10 finalists, with Gauthier advancing to the top three.
After Smith and Gauthier's departures to the NHL, Brown retained Leonard, Perrault, and Fowler but still saw a substantial difference in performance during the 2024-25 campaign, especially in BC's NCAA Tournament games. Falling 3-1 to Denver as the No. 1 seed in the nation that year, BC has struggled to return to the same heights it once soared to.
Outside of that stretch, where he arguably fielded one of the greatest college hockey rosters ever assembled, Brown has consistently fallen below expectations for what a Boston College hockey team should be.
There have been multiple issues with Brown's coaching approach since the fateful loss to Denver in 2025. Most notably, Brown seems to struggle with selecting lines and sticking with them once he has them 'set.' This season, one of BC's top lines against Alaska Fairbanks consisted of Dean Letourneau, Matias Vanhanen, and Oscar Hemming. Then, in the St. Cloud State series, Letourneau skated with senior captain Will Vote and Teddy Stiga. This past weekend, in the Vermont series, Letourneau was paired with Oscar Hemming and Will Vote on night one, and then Casey Mutryn in favor of Vote on night two. With the constant line changing and shifting, it is next to impossible for BC's forward lines to mesh and form chemistry, as they seem to be shuffled and altered every other night by Brown and his staff.
For reference, Vermont's top line, assembled by head coach Steve Wiedler, is composed of alternate captain Colin Kessler (3G, 2A), Canadiens draft pick Cédrick Guindon (2G, 4A), and junior Ethan Burroughs (3G, 4A). Kessler, Guindon, and Burroughs are all top four in team points, trailing only former Eagle Michael Hagens. This first line for Vermont has played all eight games in the regular season together, while the rest of the Catamounts' lines also remain largely unchanged.
Brown's inability to win when it matters has also added to the criticism he receives from supporters of the program. Sporting a combined record of 33-18-1 in late-season games occurring after the Beanpot, Brown seems to have a history of late-season faltering besides the 2023-24 anomaly. Going 1-for-4 in Beanpot runs, despite it being a four-team tournament, has also been a point of contention. Additionally, supporters felt let down after BC's disappointing 2024-25 postseason run after capturing the Hockey East regular-season title. The loss in the 2024 National Championship was far and away the worst of it all, though.
The best way to put Brown's situation is this: Boston College is not just any other program, and Brown knows this well as a former player and captain. The Eagles are five-time national champions with 25 Frozen Four appearances, 14 conference titles, and two Hobey Baker Award winners. The standards in Chestnut Hill are just different, plain and simple. Mediocre runs in the Hockey East tournament and NCAAs will not cut it for a head coach at Boston College. Neither will a win percentage of .555 and .388 in two of your four seasons, or falling out of the USCHO Poll before the calendar flips to November.
With a record of 22-20-3 since the start of 2025-26, it seems at least plausible that athletic-department leadership is considering a change, because this is not the state of the program that fans would have expected five years into Brown's tenure.