CHN Staff Report
Hockey East’s collective struggles from a national NPI perspective were on display this weekend, though a few teams have risen up the ranks as we reach the midway point.
Weekend sweeps by Connecticut (over Merrimack) and Boston College (over Massachusetts-Lowell) have brought those teams to 19 and 15, respectively, in the NPI as of Saturday night.
And Northeastern continues to hold steady after a 3-2 overtime win against Massachusetts. Dylan Hryckowian scored the game winner. The game featured two goalies both recently returning from injury.
Northeastern’s Lawton Zacher has been a revelation this year after transferring from Brown, with a save percentage around .940, helping lead a Huskies team into the top 10. But he was out the last few weeks, and finally returned Saturday. His understudy, however, Quentin Sigurdson, has held the fort to the tune of a .936 save percentage, allowing Northeastern not to miss a beat.
UMass goaltender Michael Hrabel has been back a few games now from his injury, and has struggled to return to form. He was lifted in a loss last week to Army after alllowing five goals on 14 shots. No. 2 Jackson Irving has been putting up pretty good games in his absence, but the reeling Minutemen need Hrabel back at the top of his game in order to get back in good form. The OT loss leaves UMass at 8-9-0.
“I was very, very happy with the way our team played tonight,” said UMass coach Greg Carvel. “I thought we controlled the second half of the game then some strange events there. Nick VanTassell breaks his stick on the penalty kill and then Francesco Dell’Elce loses a tire. Those two things, to me, decided the game, but I was very happy with the way our guys played.”
Northeastern, by the way, will play its last-ever game at Matthews Arena next weekend. The venerable old building, which has seen a lot in its 100 years, is being torn down to make way for a new facility.
Boston College has won eight of nine, and is at 10-5-1.
“We’ve done it in a lot of different ways,” BC coach Greg Brown said. “It hasn’t been one line carrying us. We’re getting contributions from a lot of people. … All the aspects of our game are building.”
Dean Letourneau scored his ninth goal of the season. The 6-foot-7 forward is a first-round draft pick of Boston, but had zero goals as a freshman in 39 games. Now, he has scored in three straight games, and has six points in that span.
“We could see what was coming,” Brown said. “The jump from Canadian prep school to college is a huge jump, and he made it. And last year was a growing year. And this year he came in strong physically, and he’s ready for whatever comes his way, the pace of the game, and the strength to hold people off. So now you’re seeing his hands be able to show you the offensive side. We saw glimpses of it in practice last year but now you’re seeing it in games.”
Another good surprise has been freshman goalie Louka Cloutier. A fifth-round pick of Colorado, he doesn’t have the fanfare of the guy he replaced, Jacob Fowler, but he’s held up with a .918 save percentage.
“He’s really been able to answer the bell, and you can see his confidence grow as his comfort level on and off the ice grows,” Brown said.
UConn is currently in first place by points, with BC second. But Northeastern has the best winning percentage.
Collectively, Hockey East has struggled to in some non-league games, which has brought everyone’s NPI down a few pegs. And when you add in the fact that Hockey East teams are generally beating each other up, with no one running away from the pack, it means a lot of teams that had high hopes are middling along in the national ratings.
Two examples of that are Boston University and Maine. BU has struggled defensively this season, but had hopes of pulling it together with a good run of games against Northeastern, Cornell and last night against Vermont. But Saturday, the Terriers gave one back, losing to Vermont on a late goal, 3-2. That drops the Terriers to 8-8-1.
“A couple costly mistakes. You gotta get to at least overtime,” BU coach Jay Pandolfo said. “Lost coverage around the net. I think we turned one over in the neutral zone. It’s been that way this year for us, making mistakes you just can’t make.”
Mikhail Yegorov has not played as consistently at a high level as he did last season in net for BU, when he came in mid-season and helped stabilize a team for a Frozen Four run. He allowed three goals in 20 shots Saturday, including the game winner with 21 seconds left.
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“We let two guys inside of us at the net, and we didn’t get back to the net to help to recover that rebound,” Pandolfo said. “That was the major breakdown. We’ve seen this happen to us too often. Very similar to the game at Northeastern. You probably out-chance them, have a lot of possession in their zone, but you make mistakes at the wrong time.”
Maine’s Albin Boija has been in a similar boat to Yegorov and Hrabel, and so has his team. Maine made the NCAAs last season, with a lot of help from Boija, but this year has been more of a struggle, and he sat after allowing seven goals in a loss to Boston College a few weeks ago. Freshman Mathis Rousseau stepped in, having played two non-descript games earlier in the season, and shut out Boston College, then allowed just one goal Friday night. Unfortunately for Maine, it didn’t score at all, and lost 1-0 despite allowing just 14 shots.
Saturday was more of them same — Boija started and allowed three goals on 14 shots in the first two periods. Rousseau closed it out, but Maine couldn’t recover and lost 3-2. the Black Bears’ record stands at 8-7-1, and is No. 39 in NPI.
It was New Hampshire’s first sweep at Alfond Arena since 2008. And it was the 100th win for coach Mike Souza.