The point in the college hockey season when coaches say freshmen aren’t freshmen anymore is near. And that goes for players in all classes, too, because there’s no substitute for experience at the Division 1 level.
With the schedule clear until after Christmas following this weekend’s slate, New England teams have started to come together and new contributors emerged at the end of the first half. In Hockey East, that group includes several players with local ties.
UMass Lowell entered this season as one of the youngest teams in the nation, so building consistency took time. The River Hawks split their final Hockey East series of the calendar year against Boston University last weekend, earning a 5-3 road victory in the first game.
“It’s not an easy thing to build,” said head coach Norm Bazin, whose team finished the first half at 8-7-1. “Early on, I thought we had a little bit of a tough time closing out games, but we've corrected that over the last three or four weeks. There's a lot to learn with eight freshmen in the lineup every night, but you've got to let them play through it.”
A pair of defensemen ― sophomore Anthony Baxter and freshman Seth Barton ― both scored for the first time in their collegiate careers during the win over the Terriers. The River Hawks have now had 17 different players score goals this season, but this is also a time of year when a zero in that column of the stat sheet can start to weigh on a player.
Depth has been a hallmark of many of Lowell’s recent teams, and the eighth-year head coach is excited to see it developing for this year’s version.
“That's always nice to see guys get that piano off their back,” Bazin said of the newcomers to the stat sheet last week. “And it's a heavy piano come the 14th or 15th game of the year. We had five different contributors (in the win over BU), so it's good to see that depth.”
On a local note, Tewksbury, Mass., native Connor Sodergren has factored into the scoring more as a sophomore. Sodergren scored his second goal in Friday’s win at Agganis Arena, but he ranks fourth on the team with nine points after recording four in a 16-game span to begin his rookie campaign last year.
Recently, Sodergren has played on a line with senior Ryan Dmowski (East Lyme, Conn.) and sophomore classmate Charlie Levesque, the latter whose 10 points tie for second on the team.
“I’ve always liked his play away from the puck and hopefully he’s going to continue to contribute a little more,” Bazin said of Sodergren, who played four prep seasons at St. Paul’s School and then two in the British Columbia Hockey League. “He’s a competitor … and he’s been progressing as a sophomore.”
On the opposite bench last weekend, BU sophomore Ty Amonte (Norwell, Mass.) is starting to heat up. The Thayer Academy product scored goals in both games of the Friendship Four in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the weekend after Thanksgiving and added his third goal and fourth point of the year last Friday.
BU will have one final chance to finish the semester on a high note as Dartmouth makes the trip into Boston for a Friday night game. First-year head coach Albie O’Connell has liked his team’s play despite a 5-7-2 record, but Amonte has played a role in two wins since he scored his first goal.
“Ty is one of my favorites,” O’Connell said. “He just plays his (butt) off out there. He works, he competes, and he wants to win. He's a great guy to have on your hockey team.”
Merrimack has battled through the first half with a young team, so first-year head coach Scott Borek is certainly hoping his Warriors can turn the five losses by one or two goals they have suffered into better results.
Freshman Chase Gresock has made an immediate impact in that lineup with nine points, trailing only juniors Tyler Irvine and Johnathan Kovacevic on the team, but the Warriors have another rookie just getting warmed up after having offseason surgery that kept him out of the first 15 games.
August Von Ungern-Sternberg, who hails from Eagle, Idaho, and was the first player to join the program after Borek was hired, jumped into the fold for the first time as a collegian and made things happen throughout the weekend, developing some chemistry with Gresock.
“His legs are elite, his compete is elite, and I think he's setting himself up nicely,” Borek said of Von Ungern-Sternberg. “He made Chase play a little bit faster than Chase is used to playing, and Chase had some good chances because of it.
“I thought he was a really nice boost.”
And that’s exactly what coaches are looking for entering the crucial final months of the season.
