We’re already a month into the college hockey season, and Week 4 did not disappoint. This week, I’ll be going through the action-packed weekend and some of the first month’s key takeaways.
Merrimack has been making noise this year, and they started their weekend doing so again. The Warriors took down No. 6 Quinnipiac, with sophomore Nick Pierre plotting two goals in a statement victory.
There is still room for improvement for Merrimack, though, as they followed that up with a 5-2 loss to LIU. The game saw 15 minor penalties and a major penalty between both teams, with unusual throwing equipment minor for LIU’s Blake Langos.
New Hampshire took on the same two teams as Merrimack, just on opposite days. Felix Gagnon scored the overtime winner on Friday for the Wildcats, but they’d be shut out by Quinnipiac on Saturday.
UMass Lowell took care of business in Mercyhurst, sweeping the weekend with scores of 4-0 and 4-3.
Lowell’s counterpart team, UMass Amherst, had a trickier weekend, heading to Omaha and finding a series split with the Mavericks.
UMass forward Jack Musa scored two goals in the series, bringing him up to six in the first seven games of the season, and helping him take a three-point lead in the Hockey East points race.
Hockey East welcomed No. 7 Denver to Boston to take on Boston College Friday and Northeastern Saturday.
Denver routed the Eagles in a 7-3 win, with no Pioneer scoring more than one goal. BC’s slow start to the year only continues to grow.
Although on Saturday, Denver couldn’t keep up the scoring. Despite outshooting Northeastern 35-14, the Pioneers couldn’t even squeak one past Husky netminder Lawton Zacher, who’s been stellar this year.
A transfer from Brown, Zacher has been the main reason the Huskies are 3-1, and just barely missing the polls this week.
Providence visited St. Thomas this weekend, drawing 2-2 in game one and dominating game two for a 7-4 victory.
Maine hosted Colgate, and things didn’t exactly go their way. The Black Bears dropped game one 3-2 and only won game two after falling 2-0 early, before rallying back to win on a Max Scott overtime goal.
Albin Boija, Maine’s star goalie last year, has had a rough start, barely hovering over a .900 save percentage. Maine has been one of the best teams in the nation in terms of shots against, but Boija hasn’t looked like himself all year. It’s still very early, but a situation worth keeping an eye on.
Hockey East only had one conference matchup this weekend, and it was between two heavyweights in No. 4 Boston University and No. 9 UConn, in a home-and-home weekend contest starting in Boston.
Game one quickly got out of control for both netminders, but it was an especially rough day for BU’s Mikhail Yegorov. Yegorov let in 6 goals on 26 shots, and he would eventually be pulled for Max Lacroix.
UConn would take game one in a statement 8-4 victory in Agganis arena, with Ethan Whitcomb and Kaden Shahan both recording three assists.
Game two was a very different tale, with a lot less scoring. While both teams played mostly even overall, the Terriers played just enough better to take the game 3-1 and earn a series split.
BU’s Owen McLaughlin scored three goals on the weekend, totaling four points across both games.
The top of Hockey East’s goaltending has been shaky to start the year. As mentioned before, Yegorov and Boija have struggled a bit and UConn’s Tyler Muszelik hasn’t been playing at his best potential either.
Any one of those three getting back on track could change their team’s dynamic entirely, potentially propelling one of them to the top of the nation.
Goaltending elsewhere hasn’t faltered, as Vermont’s Aiden Wright and Merrimack’s Max Lundgren have shined through the first month of the campaign.
Merrimack earned two votes in the polls this week, so Lundgren’s efforts may start to be recognized by the college hockey world a lot more soon.
Six Hockey East teams are on the polls this week, with BU leading at No. 5 nationally.
BU, BC and Maine have been falling in the polls the past few weeks, so the early trends point to UConn as the favorite to win Hockey East. While the Huskies have split all three series, they’ve only played currently ranked teams, and they’ve had mostly big wins and only close losses. But the door is wide open.
This week, Northeastern and Boston College will play an intra-Boston home-and-home series and Providence and Lowell play a home-and-home series, as well.
Vermont will head west to New Hampshire for a set, and UConn will host Harvard and Merrimack.
But most importantly, BU will travel to Maine for a two-game series between two heavyweights, marking the second straight week BU is tested by Hockey East’s best.
UMass is the only team not playing intraconference, as they’ll be hosting Cornell.
With conference play starting to heat up, Hockey East contests should get real interesting, real quick.