While UMass and Providence prepare to represent Hockey East and the entire New England region in the Frozen Four next week, the Division 1 college hockey season is over for the remaining 18 teams that play within our six-state borders.
Last weekend’s NCAA regional tournaments marked the end of the line for American International, Quinnipiac, Harvard, and Northeastern. The two former teams were each one win away from the first Frozen Four since 2013 to include three New England clubs, but there had not been more than one representative from the region in each of the last two seasons.
Despite this past weekend’s losses, it was a banner season for many of New England’s advancing teams.
The end to the season in Manchester, N.H., was especially bittersweet for Harvard head coach Ted Donato, whose son, Ryan, began his collegiate career as a member of the Crimson’s graduating senior class before signing with the Boston Bruins last year. While the younger Donato now plays for the Minnesota Wild, captains Lewis Zerter-Gossage and Michael Floodstrand as well as Hobey Baker Award finalist defenseman Adam Fox led the 19-win Crimson to its fourth NCAA trip in five years.
“Probably the worst part about coaching is walking into that locker room when you know seniors have played their last game with a lot of their best friends, representing a school that they love,” the 15th-year coach Donato said. “You’re always challenged as a coach as to what kinds of words will even have an impact. … But I’m not sure there’s a better word other than ‘love.’”
Led by Eric Lang, who is a finalist for the Spencer Penrose Award as National Coach of the Year along with UMass’ Greg Carvel and Providence’s Nate Leaman, American International earned its first-ever win against the nation’s No. 1 team in St. Cloud State to advance in its first NCAA appearance after winning the Atlantic Hockey regular-season and tournament titles. Quinnipiac advanced to a regional final for the third time in program history after a 26-win season, falling to reigning national champion Minnesota Duluth.
The Yellow Jackets have plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future as the veteran roster will include goaltender Zackarias Skog, leading scorer Blake Christensen, and top defenseman Brennan Kapcheck. Only seniors Shawn McBride, Ryan Polin, and St. Cloud graduate transfer Ryan Papa will be lost.
“I’m proud of this group. I definitely know they’ve changed the landscape of AIC hockey,” Lang said. “I told them that as you get a little older in life, life is about making memories. These guys made a bunch of memories this season for each other, for me and my family, and I’ll be forever grateful to them. … We return a whole bunch (next year), so these guys will have to go like the taste of this and want to advance this thing another step.”
Northeastern suffered a disappointing opening-round loss to Cornell in Providence, R.I., but the Beanpot and Hockey East champions posted the winningest record in school history (27-11-1) and made the tournament for the third time in four years.
Frozen Four duo
When the Frozen Four kicks off next Thursday in Buffalo, N.Y., it will include a pair of New England teams for the first time since 2016 when Quinnipiac and Boston College both traveled to Tampa, Fla. This will mark the 14th Frozen Four in Hockey East’s 35-year history to include two teams from the league, but the last was in 2015 when Providence beat Boston University to win the 2015 title at Boston’s TD Garden.
A pair of Hockey East victories next week would set up only the fourth-ever national title game between two teams from the league. Maine was involved in the two such games that took place before 2015, losing to BU in 1995 and beating archrival New Hampshire in 1999.
Last season’s Frozen Four marked only the third since 2000 that did not include a regional club but the first since 2011. BC won its fifth national title and second of three in five years to cap the following 2011-12 season, so the Friars and Minutemen will be looking to follow that trend.
Buffalo breakdown
Providence has nine National Hockey League draft picks on its roster, which is more than any team in the initial 16-team NCAA tournament field. However, the Friars are the only Frozen Four squad with a Buffalo Sabres prospect on their roster in junior defenseman Jacob Bryson.
Bryson will be entering the Frozen Four on a high note after becoming the lone Providence defenseman on the East Regional All-Tournament Team. He was on the ice for eight of the 10 consecutive Friar goals on the weekend and assisted on sophomore Greg Printz’s winning goal at the 10:20 mark against Cornell.
Buffalo is hosting the Frozen Four for the second time ever and first since 2003 when Minnesota beat UNH for its second straight title. The Wildcats were making their second of consecutive Frozen Four appearances that year and one of three in five seasons.
Good at stopping Hawkey pucks
Providence senior Hayden Hawkey is now the national leader in shutouts this season as he pitched his eighth in Sunday’s 4-0 win over Cornell in the East Regional Final at Dunkin’ Donuts Center. Despite that mark, it was the Parker, Colo., native’s first clean sheet in eight games since Feb. 16 against UMass Lowell.
Hawkey needed to make just 19 saves, including nine in the third period alone, to blank the Big Red. The only shutout this season in which he made fewer stops came on Oct. 26, 2018 when he made 18 consecutive saves en route to a 5-0 win over BU.
Providence has four shutouts in its 16 all-time NCAA tournament contests. Hawkey has been in net for two of them as he also blanked Clarkson during last season’s East Regional. That game in Bridgeport, Conn., was a 1-0 shutout in which he made 18 stops.
Freshmen named Filip
Next Thursday’s second national semifinal features two more of the nation’s hottest goaltenders in UMass freshman Filip Lindberg and Denver’s Filip Larsson. Both rookies posted shutouts in back-to-back games last weekend with the Minutemen doing so by identical 4-0 scores against Harvard and Notre Dame in Manchester, N.H. Larsson’s second shutout came with 26 saves in last Saturday’s West Regional Final triumph over AIC.
Lindberg had not started consecutive games all season until the Hockey East quarterfinal round against New Hampshire and now has logged all four of his shutouts in the last seven games. He has a .968 save percentage in five postseason games after stopping all 30 shots he faced in two games at SNHU Arena.
With those results, UMass is only the fourth team in the era of 16-team NCAA fields to post two shutouts en route to the Frozen Four. Two of the previous three teams to do so were from BC as Cory Schneider (Marblehead, Mass.) and Parker Milner turned the feat for the Eagles in 2006 and 2012, winning the national title in the latter season.
