Jonathan Quick became just the third UMass hockey player to win an Olympic medal on Sunday.  Quick joins Justin McCarthy and John Lyons from the 1924 United States team as silver medalists.  Tommy Pöck played for Team Austria in 2002.

Quick only dressed in one game and did not play a minute, but Brian Burke did not put him on the team to try to lead the team to the gold.  Besides, Ryan Miller nearly did that himself.  No, Quick was on the team with 2014 and 2018 in mind.  If he’s able to secure a spot on those teams he’ll already have the experience of the Olympics behind him and all the hoopla that goes with it.  Hopefully if he’s able to make those squads it’ll be with the expectation of playing time and he can concentrate on taking on the best of the world rather than being overwhelmed by the spectacle itself.

Congratulations to Jon.

You can see him and his teammates during the medal ceremony in this photo gallery from NBC.  Here are Jon’s thoughts on the Olympics thanks to the LA Kings website.

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Both Conor Sheary and Mike Pereira have been named New England Prep All-Stars as voted on by the league’s coaches.

Sheary had a great ending to his regular season, scoring four goals for Cushing in a 10-3 win over Rivers.  He finished 6th in the prep league in scoring with 28 goals and 40 assists in 29 games.  Pereira finished 11th in the league in scoring with 25 goals and 33 assists.  Sheary’s Cushing team is the #1 seed in their prep level’s tournament while Pereira’s Avon Old Farms is the #7 seed in the higher level.

Eric Filiou finished his regular season.  He ended up with 12 goals and 15 assists in 45 games, 0.6 points per game.  Though he missed games with mono, this is still well down from his 0.8 PPG the year before and the 1.2 PPG he put up the year before.  Filiou’s Penticton Vees are the #2 seed for the Interior Conference in the BCHL playoffs and currently lead their opening series 2-0.

Joel Hanley’s team is in playoff mode as well.  Hanley missed a good chunk of the regular season with a broken leg but his 5 goals and 15 assists in 23 games was still ahead of his per game pace of the year before.  He has a goal and an assists through 8 playoff games.

UMass’ three EJHL recruits will all be in action this weekend in Foxboro as the playoffs start.  Shane Walsh ended up tied for 8th in the league in scoring with 22 goals and 37 assists in 45 games.  Peter DeAngelo had 15 goals and 15 assists on the season in 45 games.  Defenseman Colin Shea scored 6 goals and 23 assists in 44 games. 

Kevin Boyle was back in action this past weekend for the AJHL’s New Jersey Rockets with mixed results.  In the first game he only gave up one goal on 30 shots but the next night gave up 5 on 15.  Boyle ends the regular season with a goals against of 2.71 and save percentage of .913.  Probably not the AJHL debut he was hoping for.  I think it’s likely the coaching staff has him play an additional year of juniors before coming to UMass.

I wrote about Danny Federico a while ago from the time I went to see Shea and the Junior Bruins, impressed by his play.  He’s heading to Quinnipiac to play hockey.  It’s unknown if UMass was looking at him.

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Last week I blogged about Petie Von Rosenvinge, the Junior Bruin goaltender who accepted a lacrosse scholarship at UMass.  According to this article, if he can he’s going to try to walk-on to the hockey team like Matt Gedman did last year.

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Here’s my shot at UMass’ playoff scenarios.  If I’ve screwed them up (a good possibility) please leave a comment with your understanding of the different outcomes.

If UMass is swept or ties one game:
See you at the Reverse Raffle!

If UMass splits they need:
Providence to sweep Merrimack OR
Lowell to sweep Vermont

If UMass wins and ties they need:
Providence to sweep Merrimack OR
Lowell to sweep Vermont OR
Vermont to sweep Lowell OR
BU to sweep Northeastern OR
Northeastern to sweep BU OR
Lowell to beat and tie UVM OR
Providence to beat and tie Merrimack

If UMass sweeps:
This is where it gets pretty complicated.  I believe the only way they cannot make it under this scenario is if UVM took 3 points from Lowell, BU and Northeastern split, and Merrimack took 3 points from Providence.  In that case there would be a five way tie at 30 points and UMass would only own the tie-breaker against Lowell, thus making them the first team eliminated in the tie-breakers.

Playoffstatus.com puts UMass’ chances as follows:
6th place – 5%
7th place – 8%
8th place – 16%
9th place – 71%