A week after squandering their spot atop the USCHO rankings by going 1-2-0 the Boston University Terriers did better this past weekend, grabbing three points in a home and home with the Warriors of Merrimack.  Meanwhlie, Lowell played a couple games at home and won both of them, first clubbing UConn 6-4 in a mid-week affair and then beating the Maine Black Bears in a surprisingly narrow 3-2 overtime victory.  While goaltending performance at Lowell has a lot to do with the defensemen and system under coach Norm Bazin, it’s worth mentioning that former Minuteman Kevin Boyle has one of the top winning percentages in the league with a 7-1-3 record so far for the River Hawks.  The Vermont Catamounts had the a weekend off and this Saturday will face Saint Lawrence.

Providence and Northeastern split an odd Wednesday-Saturday home and home this past week, despite Friar goaltender Jon Gilles only giving up three goals total in the two games.  Boston College took three points from New Hampshire, even though the Eagles continuing to struggle on the power play this season.  BC has only scored six power play goals total this season with half of them coming at the Minutemen’s expense unfortunately.  In addition to their loss at Lowell, the UConn Huskies also lost earlier in the week 1-0 to the Brown Bears.  Since their big games where they took three points from BU and BC earlier this season the Huskies are just 1-4-2 since.

With those results BU and Lowell are atop the Hockey East standings, with the River Hawks having a game in hand on the Terriers.  Vermont is just one point behind.  There’s a logjam in the middle with just five points separating 4th and 8th place.  UMass remains in last place, with the three teams ahead of them all holding two or more games in hand on the Minutemen.  These standings will remain as is until January.  While there are some matches between Hockey East opponents coming up, they’re all non-conference tilts.

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North Dakota is still #1 in this week’s USCHO rankings.   With their win and tie against Merrimack, BU moves up a spot to #2.  Lowell dropped to #8 despite winning both their games this past weekend.  Vermont didn’t play a game but moves into the top ten at #10.  Lots of Hockey East representation at the bottom of the rankings with BC at #16, Providence at #18, and Merrimack at #19.

USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll

December 08, 2014

It’s also probably time to start looking at Pairwise Rankings.  Well, not for UMass’ purposes of course.  Here are the Top 20 currently in the Pairwise.

As you can see Hockey East is currently in line to get four teams in, but their spots in the top 16 are shaky at best.

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BU’s Danny O’Regan was able to outshine teammate Jack Eichel’s four assist performance on Saturday with a hat trick and an assist, capturing Hockey East Player of the Week honors with his actions.  Notre Dame’s Robbie Russo, who I was very impressed with in the games against the Minutemen, grabbed the Defensive Player of the Week honors with his two goal, three assist performance in Amherst.  Lowell’s Michael Louria was named Rookie of the Week.

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Do you like Power Rankings?  Well here’s one from SBN College Hockey and another from Scott McLaughlin at WEEI.  I think you can probably guess where UMass falls in both of them.