More than a month into the Division 1 men’s season, three of the top four goal scorers in the country are a trio of Hockey East juniors.
Boston College’s David Cotton, Connecticut’s Alexander Payusov, and Northeastern’s Grant Jozefek sit tied atop the league with eight goals apiece, having played eight, nine, and 10 games, respectively.
Cotton and Jozefek have added four assists each, putting them one off the Hockey East points lead, which UMass sophomores John Leonard (Amherst, Mass.) and Cale Makar share with identical 4-9-13 lines after their Minutemen swept Providence in a top weekend series to move up to the No. 1 spot in our weekly NEHJ Top 10 and No. 4 in the national rankings.
Cotton has been the engine for BC’s offense after finishing second on the team with 28 points last season. The Hurricanes prospect has a pair of two-goal games, two winning goals, and eight of his 12 total points over the last three games. His other four points came Oct. 13 at Wisconsin with a hat trick and one assist.
“His skating is better, his strength is better, his poise with the puck is better, his shot is better,” BC head coach Jerry York said of Cotton, who has formed a potent line with classmate Julius Mattila and sophomore Logan Hutsko during the Eagles’ recent winning stretch. “He’s developing into a real high-level player for us, and we’re going to ride him.”
Jozefek has three multi-point games and a pair of two-goal games in his last four, with two assists Friday against UConn and two goals Saturday against UMass Lowell. Six of his eight goals this season have come in the third period of games, which puts him atop the nation. The Chester, N.J., native had just eight goals and 19 points over 45 career games entering the season and is on pace to shatter those marks with a 8-4-12 line through 10 games this year.
Payusov had a goal and an assist in UConn’s season opener at Army West Point and has since scored seven straight goals to take the team scoring lead. Five of his tallies have come on the road, while four opened the scoring in games for the Huskies.
Following the leader …
… is where Cotton, Payusov, and Jozefek stand in the national scoring race, as it’s Arizona State’s Johnny Walker who leads the pack.
The undrafted sophomore brings his nation-best 11 goals and 17 points out east this weekend as his Arizona State team plays a two-game, non-conference series at Harvard. The set marks the Sun Devils’ first trip to Massachusetts since they played four different schools in the Commonwealth two seasons ago, beating American International and twice UMass.
The Sun Devils are 9-3 on the season and, on Monday, earned their first-ever national ranking at No. 18. Speaking of the polls, the No. 4 ranking for UMass represents its highest in program history.
River Hawks' happy return
No player from a New England school was on the score sheet last week than UMass Lowell junior Ryan Lohin, who missed four consecutive games due to injury before returning with five points over two Hockey East contests against New Hampshire and Northeastern.
Eighteen different players have recorded points to provide a balanced offense for the River Hawks, despite their 4-5-1 overall and 1-3-1 Hockey East records. Even with the missed time, Lohin sits in a four-way tie for the team lead with his six points and a three-way tie in goals after entering the two-game weekend with a single assist to his name.
The Lightning prospect scored two extra-attacker goals in a 27-second span in the third period of the 2-2 tie with UNH before tallying twice on the power play in the following night’s losing effort. As a team, Lowell had not scored two extra-attacker goals in the same game since Oct. 16, 2010 at RIT.
Keeping it clean
Dartmouth junior Adrian Clark pitched his second collegiate shutout and the Big Green’s first against Yale since Jan. 13, 1979 ― when head coach Bob Gaudet was tending goal ― with a 31-save performance in a 3-0 decision at Ingalls Rink. The win was the first Dartmouth shutout in New Haven since 1949 and Gaudet’s 308th at his alma mater, which moves him into a tie with the legendary Eddie Jeremiah for tops in program history.
Only four goaltenders in the nation have three shutouts on the season, and Merrimack’s Craig Pantano became one after posting a career-high 38 saves in Saturday’s 1-0 win at Bemidji State. The Bridgewater, Mass., native has allowed just one goal in a victory and earned his second Hockey East Defensive Player of the Week honor as a senior.
Sacred Heart breaks a streak
Sacred Heart improved to 2-1 in Atlantic Hockey play for the first time since 2015-16 as it opened last weekend’s home-and-home series against Army with a 4-2 win. The Pioneers, who started 2015 with a 4-2-1 mark through their first seven league games, had not defeated the Black Knights since Jan. 9, 2016 in Bridgeport or won in West Point, N.Y., since Oct. 12, 2014.
SHU would drop a 4-1 decision Saturday back at Webster Bank Arena, but 10 different Pioneers recorded points on the weekend. Freshman Ryan Steele was the only player with two, scoring in Friday’s win before assisting on Marcel Godbout’s first collegiate goal in the following game.
The Pioneers were resilient in Friday’s affair, breaking a 1-1 tie with three unanswered goals in the second period. Junior Austin McIlmurray scored the game-winner before Northeastern transfer Jason Cotton scored a shorthanded insurance tally less than three minutes later.
Shorthanded success
Jason Cotton scored Sacred Heart’s third shorthanded goal of the season against Army, but Boston University and Bowling Green are the only two teams in the country with four so far this season. Four different BU players have scored the team’s man-down goals this season, including three in the last three games.
Sophomore Shane Bowers became the latest BU skater to net a shorthanded goal with his first of two tallies in Saturday’s 3-2 win at New Hampshire, joining freshman Joel Farabee, junior Patrick Curry, and fellow sophomore Logan Cockerill. Bowers also scored the overtime winner in Durham.
Baby Bears
Though Brown welcomed back four of its top five scorers from last season’s team, the Bears’ freshmen have been the most vital piece of the offense. Rookies have accounted for six of the team’s 13 goals and 14 of 35 points through six games this season.
Tristan Crozier leads Brown with three goals and five points, including a goal and an assist during this weekend’s ECAC split with Dartmouth and Harvard. The assist came on junior defenseman Zach Giuttari’s (Warwick, R.I.) deciding goal in Friday’s 4-2 decision over Dartmouth, which was the Bears’ first of the season.
Loose pucks
Vermont and Tampa Bay Lightning legend Martin St. Louis was one of six inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday night. St. Louis was inducted in his first year of eligibility, becoming the first former Catamount to receive the honor in Toronto. The three-time All-American had his No. 8 retired at Gutterson Fieldhouse in 2016, and the Lightning raised his No. 26 to the rafters a year later.
Speaking of the Catamounts, junior Stefanos Lekkas passed 2001 graduate Andrew Allen for seventh on the school’s all-time saves list during last Friday’s 3-2 loss at Boston College. He now has 2,161 stops in his collegiate career. In the same game, sophomore teammate Vlad Dzhioshvili scored his first collegiate goal.
Defensemen have accounted for eight of Harvard’s 21 goals and 25 of the team’s 60 total points through five games. Junior Adam Fox has four multi-point games and a nation-leading 2.4 points per after posting a goal and an assist in Saturday’s 5-2 win at Brown, while sophomore Reilly Walsh (Andover, N.H.) has scored all four of his goals on the power play.
Northeastern had to rally for both of its wins last weekend, overcoming a 2-1 deficit with two third-period goals against UConn before scoring three unanswered to topple UMass Lowell in overtime. The Huskies have trailed after two periods in four of their six victories this season.
