As I mentioned in my weekend recap, Shane Walsh, with some help from Henry Dill and Steven Iacobellis, led the team to just its second home win of the season on Friday. Walsh was involved in all three goals in the 3-2 win, scoring one goal shorthanded and then later scoring the gamewinner with just a few minutes left on the clock. For his heroics he was named the Hockey East Player of the Week today. It’s the first time Walsh has won a weekly league award.
Maine’s Matt Morris was named Defensive Player of the Week for shutting out the Minutemen on Saturday. Morris made 29 saves in his first career shutout. Some unheralded Terrier named Jack Eichel was Rookie of the week.
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Unfortunately before doing the usual weekend wrap-up post there’s other UMass hockey news. Senior forward Emerson Auvenshine was suspended indefinitely by the team after being arrested over the weekend. Auvenshine was charged today with assault and battery, breaking and entering, and destruction of property. As I reported last week, Auvenshine’s season and UMass career was likely already over after undergoing knee surgery recently.
It’s never fun to pass along info like that but it is something affecting the team. Obviously since he was already out it’s not going to make a difference to the lineup. But it is something that could create distractions for a locker room that already has a lot on their mind given the season’s results. Who knows how the story will ultimately play out, but it’s just another negative aspect to a disheartening season.
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The big news around Hockey East this past weekend was UConn’s shutout of #6 Lowell 2-0 in Hartford. That’s another signature win for the Huskies in their first season in the league after defeating Boston College and Vermont earlier in the year.
| Conference | Overall | ||||||||||
| GP | W-L-T | PTS | GF-GA | GP | W-L-T | GF-GA | |||||
| 1 | Boston University | 10 | 7-1-2 | 16 | 38-19 | 19 | 12-3-4 | 66-36 | |||
| Mass.-Lowell | 10 | 7-1-2 | 16 | 37-18 | 21 | 14-4-3 | 78-50 | ||||
| 3 | Vermont | 11 | 7-3-1 | 15 | 37-20 | 21 | 15-5-1 | 65-35 | |||
| 4 | Boston College | 11 | 5-4-2 | 12 | 29-24 | 21 | 12-7-2 | 64-49 | |||
| Providence | 10 | 6-4-0 | 12 | 18-13 | 22 | 14-7-1 | 57-45 | ||||
| 6 | Notre Dame | 8 | 4-2-2 | 10 | 23-20 | 22 | 9-11-2 | 62-62 | |||
| 7 | Connecticut | 9 | 4-4-1 | 9 | 21-23 | 21 | 7-10-4 | 43-53 | |||
| Merrimack | 9 | 4-4-1 | 9 | 19-18 | 19 | 11-6-2 | 48-37 | ||||
| 9 | Northeastern | 12 | 3-7-2 | 8 | 23-39 | 21 | 7-11-3 | 49-64 | |||
| 10 | Maine | 8 | 2-6-0 | 4 | 19-28 | 22 | 7-14-1 | 55-72 | |||
| 11 | New Hampshire | 7 | 1-5-1 | 3 | 12-22 | 19 | 6-11-2 | 52-53 | |||
| 12 | Massachusetts | 11 | 1-10-0 | 2 | 25-57 | 21 | 6-15-0 | 55-89 | |||
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Another new top team in the USCHO polls this week. This time it’s Minnesota State taking the #1 spot for the first time in program history. The Mavericks have just four losses on the season.
Boston University stays put in the #2 spot. Despite the loss to UConn, Lowell sticks at #6. Vermont moved up a couple spots to #10 while Providence’s ranking is unchanged at #14. Boston College drops a spot to #17 while Merrimack stays in the poll at #20.
USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll
January 12, 2015
| Team | (First Place Votes) | Record | Points | Last Poll | |
| 1 | Minnesota State | (20) | 16- 4-1 | 937 | 4 |
| 2 | Boston University | (12) | 12- 3-4 | 916 | 2 |
| 3 | North Dakota | ( 9) | 14- 5-2 | 907 | 1 |
| 4 | Harvard | ( 5) | 10- 2-2 | 832 | 3 |
| 5 | Minnesota-Duluth | ( 4) | 13- 7-0 | 807 | 7 |
| 6 | Massachusetts-Lowell | 14- 4-3 | 668 | 6 | |
| 7 | Bowling Green | 13- 3-4 | 642 | 11 | |
| 8 | Nebraska-Omaha | 14- 5-3 | 639 | 13 | |
| 9 | Miami | 14- 8-0 | 602 | 5 | |
| 10 | Vermont | 15- 5-1 | 575 | 12 | |
| 11 | Michigan Tech | 15- 6-1 | 496 | 8 | |
| 12 | Quinnipiac | 15- 6-1 | 400 | 15 | |
| 13 | Denver | 11- 7-1 | 333 | 10 | |
| 14 | Providence | 14- 7-1 | 330 | 14 | |
| 15 | Colgate | 13- 6-1 | 312 | 17 | |
| 16 | Minnesota | 10- 7-1 | 311 | 9 | |
| 17 | Boston College | 12- 7-2 | 253 | 16 | |
| 18 | Yale | 9- 4-2 | 203 | 19 | |
| 19 | Michigan | 12- 7-0 | 137 | NR | |
| 20 | Merrimack | 11- 6-2 | 132 | 18 | |
| Others receiving votes: Robert Morris 33, Northern Michigan 15, St. Cloud State 7, Union 7, Mercyhurst 2, Penn State 2, Bentley 1, Western Michigan 1. | |||||
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Hockey East has four teams in the top 16 in the Pairwise. Unfortunately for UMass Maine’s split was enough for them to jump ahead of the Minutemen. That puts UMass with the lowest Pairwise in the league.
| Rk | Team | PCWs | RPI | Rk | QWB-† | W-L-T | Win % | Wgtd Win % – ‡ |
| 1 | Minnesota State | 58 | .6175 | 1 | .0099 | 16-4-1 | .7857 | .7905 |
| 2 | Minnesota-Duluth | 57 | .5943 | 2 | .0119 | 13-7-0 | .6500 | .6602 |
| 3 | Harvard | 56 | .5943 | 3 | .0070 | 10-2-2 | .7857 | .7867 |
| 4 | Nebraska-Omaha | 55 | .5920 | 4 | .0069 | 14-5-3 | .7045 | .6972 |
| 5 | Bowling Green | 54 | .5883 | 5 | .0032 | 13-3-4 | .7500 | .7548 |
| 6 | North Dakota | 53 | .5824 | 6 | .0068 | 14-5-2 | .7143 | .6981 |
| 7 | Miami | 52 | .5775 | 7 | .0078 | 14-8-0 | .6364 | .6442 |
| 8 | Boston University | 51 | .5737 | 8 | .0030 | 12-3-4 | .7368 | .7347 |
| 9 | Vermont | 50 | .5691 | 9 | .0010 | 15-5-1 | .7381 | .7670 |
| 10 | Mass.-Lowell | 49 | .5689 | 10 | .0019 | 14-4-3 | .7381 | .7184 |
| 11 | Yale | 48 | .5625 | 11 | .0104 | 9-4-2 | .6667 | .6645 |
| 12 | Providence | 47 | .5604 | 12 | .0070 | 14-7-1 | .6591 | .6545 |
| 13 | Colgate | 46 | .5575 | 13 | .0000 | 13-6-1 | .6750 | .6869 |
| 14 | Michigan Tech | 45 | .5561 | 14 | .0015 | 15-6-1 | .7045 | .7009 |
| 15 | Quinnipiac | 43 | .5550 | 15 | .0014 | 15-6-1 | .7045 | .6916 |
| 16 | Minnesota | 43 | .5533 | 16 | .0028 | 10-7-1 | .5833 | .5976 |
| 17 | Denver | 42 | .5471 | 17 | .0047 | 11-7-1 | .6053 | .5909 |
| 18 | Merrimack | 41 | .5447 | 18 | .0023 | 11-6-2 | .6316 | .6264 |
| 19 | Michigan | 40 | .5404 | 19 | .0045 | 12-7-0 | .6316 | .6190 |
| 20 | Boston College | 39 | .5389 | 20 | .0007 | 12-7-2 | .6190 | .6311 |
| 49 | Massachusetts | 10 | .4400 | 48 | .0011 | 6-15-0 | .2857 | .2818 |
Fear The Triangle - UMass Hockey Blog 