There were only two Hockey East games on the schedule this past weekend as most of the league’s teams played against non-conference opponents as the Massachusetts hockey did or were idle. But the two league games there were ended up being pretty entertaining and and perhaps a little surprising.
On Thursday it appeared Boston College was cruising to a victory at home against Notre Dame when they grabbed a 3-1 lead in the third period. But the Irish, fresh off their sweep of UMass, would score three goals, including two in the final five minutes, to upset the Eagles. After sweeping Lowell the week before UConn was able to tie a ranked Merrimack squad on Friday in the other Hockey East game of the weekend.
In non-conference action top ranked Providence beat crosstown rival Brown 4-1 in the first of the Mayor’s Cup games. Boston University had a fairly successful weekend in southern Connecticut. After narrowly losing at Yale 3-2 on Friday, they handed Quinnipiac their first loss of the season in a convincing 4-1 win. Vermont travelled across Lake Champlain for a split against Saint Lawrence. And in the last game of the weekend New Hampshire doubled up Dartmouth 6-3 in the meeting of the two Granite State schools.
For scoring the game-winning goal against BC with just 22 seconds left Irish defenseman Dennis Gilbert was named Hockey East Player of the Week. Vermont goaltender Packy Munson (maybe my new favorite name in Hockey East) was named Rookie of the Week after getting a shutout in his debut while BU’s Sean Maguire was named Defensive Player of the Week for backstopping the Terriers to a victory over Quinnipiac.
With no more league games until the new year, UMass enters the winter break in a three-way tie for 7th place with Vermont and New Hampshire. The Wildcats have three games in hand on the Minutemen.
| Conference | Overall | ||||||||||
| GP | W-L-T | PTS | GF-GA | GP | W-L-T | GF-GA | |||||
| 1 | Mass.-Lowell | 11 | 6-2-3 | 15 | 28-17 | 17 | 10-3-4 | 48-30 | |||
| 2 | Notre Dame | 9 | 6-1-2 | 14 | 30-17 | 17 | 9-4-4 | 55-44 | |||
| 3 | Boston College | 8 | 6-1-1 | 13 | 33-14 | 16 | 13-2-1 | 69-26 | |||
| 4 | Boston University | 9 | 4-3-2 | 10 | 29-27 | 18 | 9-6-3 | 58-50 | |||
| Providence | 6 | 4-0-2 | 10 | 18-7 | 15 | 12-0-3 | 58-27 | ||||
| 6 | Merrimack | 10 | 2-3-5 | 9 | 20-24 | 15 | 6-4-5 | 38-33 | |||
| 7 | New Hampshire | 7 | 2-1-4 | 8 | 26-24 | 16 | 6-6-4 | 61-59 | |||
| Vermont | 10 | 3-5-2 | 8 | 24-29 | 18 | 5-11-2 | 38-51 | ||||
| Massachusetts | 10 | 2-4-4 | 8 | 25-36 | 18 | 6-8-4 | 50-63 | ||||
| 10 | Connecticut | 11 | 3-7-1 | 7 | 26-39 | 16 | 5-10-1 | 40-55 | |||
| 11 | Maine | 8 | 2-5-1 | 5 | 13-24 | 17 | 4-9-4 | 31-48 | |||
| 12 | Northeastern | 11 | 0-8-3 | 3 | 24-38 | 17 | 2-12-3 | 39-55 | |||
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With their win over Brown Providence stays atop the national rankings, receiving all but two of the first place votes. BC drops from 3rd to 4th after losing to Notre Dame. Lowell remains at #8 after being idle this past week. BU moves up a spot after their weekend split that included beating Quinnipiac. Notre Dame moves up to #16 with their upset over BC. Merrimack is now winless in their last six and is just barely hanging onto their ranking at #20.
USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll
December 14, 2015
| Team | (First Place Votes) | Record | Points | Last Poll | |
| 1 | Providence | (48) | 12- 0-3 | 996 | 1 |
| 2 | North Dakota | ( 1) | 16- 2-2 | 932 | 4 |
| 3 | Quinnipiac | ( 1) | 15- 1-2 | 880 | 2 |
| 4 | Boston College | 13- 2-1 | 798 | 3 | |
| 5 | St. Cloud State | 14- 4-0 | 793 | 6 | |
| 6 | Nebraska-Omaha | 12- 3-1 | 779 | 5 | |
| 7 | Harvard | 6- 1-3 | 696 | 7 | |
| 8 | Massachusetts-Lowell | 10- 3-4 | 629 | 8 | |
| 9 | Cornell | 8- 1-2 | 564 | 10 | |
| 10 | Michigan | 9- 3-3 | 532 | 9 | |
| 11 | Boston University | 9- 6-3 | 476 | 12 | |
| 12 | Bowling Green | 11- 3-5 | 428 | 14 | |
| 13 | Yale | 6- 4-2 | 368 | 15 | |
| 14 | Penn State | 11- 2-3 | 336 | 16 | |
| 15 | St. Lawrence | 10- 5-2 | 320 | 13 | |
| 16 | Notre Dame | 9- 4-4 | 306 | 18 | |
| 17 | Denver | 7- 7-2 | 254 | 11 | |
| 18 | Minnesota State | 10- 6-4 | 124 | 20 | |
| 19 | Minnesota-Duluth | 7- 7-3 | 88 | 17 | |
| 20 | Merrimack | 6- 4-5 | 84 | 19 | |
| Others receiving votes: Rensselaer 50, Michigan Tech 36, Holy Cross 14, Robert Morris 11, Minnesota 6. | |||||
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Fox Sports has this feature on Frank Vatrano and his road to the NHL while the AHL has a similar feature on Brandon Montour.
Tomorrow I plan to post my mid-season recap, bumping my usual recruit update to Wednesday instead.
Fear The Triangle - UMass Hockey Blog 