BOSTON – After taking a 1-0 victory on the road against Massachusetts, the Huskies fell at home in a 6-3 routing at the hands of the Minutemen.

Kevin Roy struck on the first power play chance for the Huskies, beating UMass goaltender Kevin Boyle just 10 seconds into the two-minute advantage. The rest of the first period was all UMass when it came to scoring, with Rocco Carzo and K.J. Tiefenwerth each notching a goal to extinguish the Northeastern lead and make it a 2-1 Minutemen advantage heading into the second period.

Roy would strike again when he took a cross-ice pass from Mike McMurtry for his seventh goal of the season and the equalizer. The 2-2 score was short-lived as the Minutemen’s first scorer Carzo beat Chris Rawlings on a pass from Steven Guzzo to make it 3-2 and give UMass back the upper hand.

Two third period UMass goals changed the tempo of the game and proved to be too much for Northeastern to recover from. First, Drew Ellement was boarded in the corner, but it resulted in no call and in the process Adam Phillips was able to steal the puck and beat Rawlings with a high shot to the top of the net. Joel Hanley put UMass on the scoreboard again within 90 seconds later to make it 5-2.

Vrolyk had a solo effort to cut the Northeastern deficit to 5-3, coming from the corner to sneak the puck under Boyle. But a late empty netter from Michael Pereira was all UMass needed to seal it and take one win from the home-and-home weekend against the Huskies.

With the win, UMass moves to 4-6-2 overall and 3-6-1 in Hockey East. Northeastern falls to 5-7-1 overall and 3-6-1 in conference play.

What I Saw

• UMass controlled play throughout the first period, despite Northeastern getting the early jump from Roy’s power play goal. The Minutemen outplayed the Huskies in almost every aspect of play early on, with some heavy handed defense keeping a high energy Northeastern top two lines under control. But Northeastern broke out of their usually sluggish second period play with some dominating play in front of Boyle. About halfway through the second, they had a period of about 90 seconds of sustained pressure in the Minutemen’s zone. Their play was composed and intelligent, and a few minutes later it paid off with some perfect positioning from Roy to take a cross-ice feed from McMurtry. There might have been a big game going on in Boston over in Chestnut Hill, but these two teams certainly match up well for a fast paced, physical game. These are both teams that have potential if they could rack up some conference points. Read the rest of this entry »

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Josh Myers’ third-period goal proved to be the difference as Merrimack College snapped a five-game winless skid with a 2-1 win on the road at Providence College.

The Warriors picked up their first victory since beating Vermont on Oct. 26. It was the Warriors’ longest winless skid in three years.

Brian Christie also scored for the Warriors, who got 34 saves from first-year goaltender Rasmus Tirronen. Tim Schaller scored for the Friars and Jon Gillies stopped 22 shots.

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BOSTON — Jerry York was looking to tie the all-time wins record on his archrival’s ice, but Boston University had different ideas. Led by a 35-save effort from Matt O’Connor, the Terriers beat Boston College 4-2 at Agganis Arena on Friday night. An exciting first period didn’t produce any goals, but the Terriers finally broke the ice 9:04 into the second. Matt Nieto hit the post on a rebound chance, but Garrett Noonan was able to bat the puck out of mid-air and past Parker Milner (30 saves).

BU (8-4-0, 6-3-0 Hockey East) added to its lead seven minutes later when Evan Rodrigues took a pass from Danny O’Regan and fired a laser past Milner’s glove. The Eagles (10-2-0, 8-2-0 HE) answered just 38 seconds later when Johnny Gaudreau kicked a pass to Pat Mullane, who proceeded to beat O’Connor stick-side. Matt Grzelcyk scored what proved to be the game-winner 1:46 into the third when he led a rush down the left wing and beat Milner on a wraparound.

What I saw
-Some great goaltending. The only reason the game was scoreless after 29 minutes was because O’Connor and Milner both made a handful of great saves on quality chances. The Terriers had a couple turnovers in their own zone that could’ve given BC an early lead, but O’Connor was there to bail out his defense and keep it scoreless. Milner’s biggest challenge came against Sahir Gill on a breakaway, but the senior netminder was able to shut the five-hole in time. O’Connor also made several big saves in the third as the Eagles tried to claw their way back.

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AMHERST, Mass. – Adam Reid scored the lone goal of the night for Northeastern, but it was just enough to hang on as Chris Rawlings made 31 saves to lift the Huskies to a 1-0 win over Massachusetts Friday night at the Mullins Center.

Rawlings pitched his second shutout of the season, while his counterpart Kevin Boyle was solid as well, making 16 saves on 17 shots faced.

What I Saw

• While UMass had a majority of the chances throughout the first two periods and seemed to dominate play, it was the Huskies that found the back of the net in the most unusual of circumstances. The goal by Reid came shorthanded 17 minutes, 13 seconds into the second period in a moment of indecisiveness by NU coach Jim Madigan. The Huskies had only three men on the ice in the defensive zone for the first few seconds of the shift as Madigan and his staff were deciding to put Reid out on the ice. As NU was was left with those three players on the ice, Reid hopped over the boards and found himself wide open in the neutral zone. Dustin Darou obtained possession of the puck and skipped it to the sophomore forward right away, who proceeded to skate into the Minutemen zone untouched and slipped the puck past Boyle after faking right and going left to beat the sophomore goaltender’s outstretched pad. It was Reid’s first goal of the season and third point total.  Read the rest of this entry »

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UNH took an early lead at nine minutes, 43 seconds  on a breakaway, shorthanded goal off the stick of Grayson Downing and would proceed to score the next three goals in the game to race out to the 4-0 lead on the River Hawks. The goal was Downing’s sixth of the season. He would later score his second of the game, while Kevin Goumas and John Henrion also scored for UNH. The 4-0 lead was more than enough for UNH and they would hold on for the 5-2 victory over Lowell.

UNH improves to 10-1-2 on the year with the victory and 7-1-1 in Hockey East, while UML falls to 4-6-1, 2-4-1. Coupled with a BC loss to BU on Friday night, the win moved the Wildcats to within one point of the Eagles in the Hockey East standings, with a game in hand. The loss was the first for UML in three games and UNH is unbeaten in seven tilts. Read the rest of this entry »

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Hockey East teams return to conference action in a major way as a total of ten games will be played between the league teams. The biggest two game series this weekend is without question Boston University and Boston College who will take the regional and national stage by storm with two nationally televised tilts. The home and home series becomes a popular concept this weekend as four out of five series’ are of the such. This weekend could be the one that teams could make a big splash in the league standings as many of the games are between teams in all four tiers, which Hockey East has turned into. Without further ado, here is my weekly take on the games: Read the rest of this entry »

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The top three remain the same, but eight of the nine teams to follow are in a different spot than last week. Although the top three didn’t change, things certainly got more interesting at the top thanks to Denver being swept.

1. Denver (9-3-0, 7-1-0 WCHA) — Last week: 1
The Pioneers had a comfortable enough lead over Minnesota that they remain at the top despite losing a pair of nonconference games over the weekend. They lost to Yale 2-1 in overtime on Friday, then blew a 3-0 lead en route to a 6-4 loss to New Hampshire on Saturday. Friday was just the second time the Pioneers scored fewer than three goals in a game, and Saturday was the second time they allowed more than three. Denver went 0-for-10 on the power play in the two games.

2. Minnesota (9-2-2, 4-2-2 WCHA) — Last week: 2
The Gophers closed the gap between first and second by sweeping Vermont with a 5-1 win on Friday and 3-1 win on Saturday. Adam Wilcox stopped 48 of 50 shots in the series and now ranks second in the conference with a .931 save percentage. Kyle Rau tallied three points on the weekend, while five others registered two. The Gophers went a perfect 8-for-8 on the penalty kill. Read the rest of this entry »

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There were only six Atlantic Hockey games played last week, along with three non-conference games, but there were still some major shake ups in our power rankings. Even with the shake ups there is still one constant: Niagara. For the fifth consecutive week the Purple Eagles top the power rankings.

1. Niagara – Even with the weekend off, the Purple Eagles are without a doubt the best team in Atlantic Hockey at the moment. They’ve won six straight are 7-0-2 in their last nine games. It’s the second longest active streak behind only Boston College (10-0-0). The Purple Eagles host Sacred Heart for two games this weekend.

2.Holy Cross – The Crusaders had a 2-0 lead after the first period at Brown but couldn’t hold on as they fell 3-2. They host Robert Morris for an important two game series this weekend. Read the rest of this entry »

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The way I see it, Hockey East has four tiers right now — the top two, BU, the middle four, and the bottom three. This weekend helped highlight the line between the latter two tiers, but it didn’t result in a whole lot of movement in this week’s rankings. Two teams swapped places, but everyone else stayed where they were last week.

1. Boston College (10-1-0, 8-1-0 HE) — Last week: 1
The Eagles extended their winning streak to 10 with a 6-3 triumph over Dartmouth on Saturday. With the victory, Jerry York is now just one away from tying Ron Mason’s all-time wins record. BC’s top line of Johnny Gaudreau, Pat Mullane and Steven Whitney combined for an incredible five goals and seven assists in the game. Gaudreau has at least one point in every game this season and is second in the league in points. Mullane and Whitney both rank in the top five as well.

2. New Hampshire (9-1-2, 6-1-1 HE) — Last week: 2
The Wildcats blew a 4-0 lead and ended up tying Colorado College 4-4 on Friday, then they overcame a 3-0 deficit to beat Denver 6-4 on Saturday. Grayson Downing and Kevin Goumas each registered a hat trick on Saturday, while Casey Thrush scored twice on Friday. Goumas ended up with seven points on the weekend and now leads the league with 20 on the season. The eight goals allowed on the weekend were more than UNH had allowed in its previous eight games combined. Read the rest of this entry »

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Another weekend of ECAC non-conference action brought us even more turmoil in these rankings. Yale went out to Colorado over the weekend and swept Denver and Colorado College. This sweep has to move them up in the rankings as they are the only ECAC team, save Union, to take two wins out of the weekend. Cornell also won against Michigan at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night.

Friday night was a success for the conference as a whole as the teams had an aggregate 4-0-1 record, but Saturday night was more of a struggle as the conference went 3-4-1 against teams from the other conferences. The conference still looks good in terms of non-conference tilts and should bode well going forward. Cornell and St. Lawrence have done well in their non-conference games while they have struggled within the league.

1. Union (8-2-1, 3-1-0) – Last Week 2

Troy Grosenick returned for the Dutchmen on Sunday and this can only improve an already good team that was ranked second last week in these rankings. Union swept Penn State over the weekend, sending 88 shots at the Penn State goal.  Read the rest of this entry »

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