Time for the first Weekend Wrap-around of the season taking a look at what’s going on around the rest of Hockey East and in college hockey in general, as well as catch up on any other UMass news coming out of the weekend.
All the Hockey East teams either played exhibitions or intrasquad scrimmages this past weekend, so no league awards or updated standings today. It’s not worth recapping all the games that didn’t count over the weekend, but it was interesting to see how a couple teams did against the University of New Brunswick, a top team in the CIS. The UNB V-Reds kicked off their American tour by knocking off the AHL’s Portland Pirates 5-3. They then beat #1 Boston College 5-2. But the next night Lowell, my pick for 2nd in the league, beat them 3-2. It’s only exhibition, but based on one weekend it does appear that the River Hawks are prepared to battle for the league title.
There were no updated rankings, which seems a little strange since a ranked team (#20 Colgate) actually played real games. But here are the initial rankings release last week:
Preseason USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll
September 28, 2015
| Team | (First Place Votes) | Record | Points | Last Poll | |
| 1 | Boston College | (19) | 21-14-3 | 907 | 13 |
| 2 | Minnesota-Duluth | (12) | 21-16-3 | 836 | 6 |
| 3 | Boston University | ( 6) | 28- 8-5 | 820 | 2 |
| 4 | North Dakota | ( 1) | 29-10-3 | 766 | 3 |
| 5 | Denver | 24-14-2 | 739 | 5 | |
| 6 | Minnesota State | ( 1) | 29- 8-3 | 699 | 7 |
| 7 | Providence | ( 6) | 26-13-2 | 642 | 1 |
| 8 | Harvard | ( 1) | 21-13-3 | 592 | 11 |
| 9 | Minnesota | ( 1) | 23-13-3 | 530 | 12 |
| 10 | Nebraska-Omaha | 20-13-6 | 505 | 4 | |
| 11 | Miami | ( 1) | 25-14-1 | 461 | 8 |
| 12 | Yale | 18-10-5 | 432 | 15 | |
| 13 | Michigan | 22-15-0 | 417 | 20 | |
| 14 | Massachusetts-Lowell | ( 2) | 21-12-6 | 398 | 17 |
| 15 | Michigan Tech | 29-10-2 | 390 | 9 | |
| 16 | Bowling Green | 23-11-5 | 316 | 18 | |
| 17 | St. Cloud State | 20-19-1 | 236 | 10 | |
| 18 | Quinnipiac | 23-12-4 | 228 | 14 | |
| 19 | St. Lawrence | 20-14-3 | 156 | NR | |
| 20 | Colgate | 22-12-4 | 129 | 19 |
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After being shutout by UMass on Saturday Dalhousie travelled down I-91 to take on Sacred Heart yesterday afternoon. They ended up beating the Pioneers 5-3. Not sure what that means for when Sacred Heart travels to Amherst for the home opener, but we’ll see.
The Collegian has their recap of Saturday’s exhibition. Coach Micheletto said that the team “checked all the boxes”. Per that story Dennis Kravchenko and Brennan Baxandall, who missed the exhibition due to injury, are both day to day and have not been ruled out for this weekend’’. Also, Mick will decide on Thursday which goaltender gets the start in net on Friday.
Speaking of Mick it’s not a huge surprise to see him on this list of coaches entering the season on the hot seat put together by SBN College Hockey. I’ll get into more of this in my season preview on Wednesday, but with a .341 win percentage in three years and coming off a last place finish, Micheletto will have to figure out how to win with this young team if he wants to return for his fifth year.
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