The Atlantic Hockey postseason is underway as Sacred Heart and RIT have already split the first two games of their best-of-three quarterfinal series, but four Hockey East, three ECAC Hockey, and two more Atlantic Hockey sets involving New England clubs will commence on Friday night.
In Hockey East, UMass skates as the top seed for the first time ever and on the Mullins Center ice in the league quarterfinals for the first time in more than a decade, reversing roles in a series with New Hampshire. It’s been much longer than that since Boston College was a No. 7 seed, but the Eagles will be visiting a Providence team they have beaten twice this season. Recent postseason histories continue in the league’s other two series as Maine visits Northeastern and Boston University makes the short trip up to UMass Lowell.
Two of the top four ECAC seeds are New England clubs as No. 1 Quinnipiac hosts a battle-tested Brown team and No. 4 Harvard welcomes in a Dartmouth club that played the maximum three games last weekend to advance in the tournament. Yale takes its show on the road to the North Country to battle Clarkson.
Our capsule look at the Hockey East and ECAC series comes your way today. The Atlantic Hockey preview was posted here earlier this week.
HOCKEY EAST
No. 8 New Hampshire (12-13-9) at No. 1 Massachusetts (26-8)
Friday-Sunday, 7 p.m. at Mullins Center, Amherst, Mass.
What to watch for: The Minutemen will skate on home ice in a Hockey East quarterfinal series for the first time since 2007 welcoming in a team they swept by a combined 9-3 score during a pair of November games. UMass ended its season last Friday with a 4-3 loss to UConn, meaning that three of its six league setbacks have come since January. Sophomore defenseman Cale Makar (13-29-42) led the top three Hockey East scorers, all from UMass. Second-year UNH defenseman Max Gildon has recorded 14 of his 21 points away from Whittemore Center this year, but this series will present a challenge against a UMass team that went 15-1 at home.
Fun fact: These two teams have not met in postseason action since the 2007 semifinals at now-TD Garden and a 2008 quarterfinal series in Durham, N.H., but the Wildcats won all three of those games as the No. 1 seed in Hockey East.
No. 7 Boston College (11-20-3) at No. 2 Providence (21-9-6)
Friday-Sunday, 7/7/5 p.m. at Schneider Arena, Providence, R.I.
What to watch for: It hasn’t been long since the Eagles and Friars got together as they completed a three-game season set with Providence earning a 3-1 home win last Thursday. The series hosts finished the year on a 5-0-1 run with junior Josh Wilkins scoring five goals and eight points in that span to move within two points of the career century mark. The Eagles won only one of their last nine games but did score four goals in each of their January wins against the Friars. Three of BC junior David Cotton’s league-leading 20 goals came in those games. In this series, either recency or history will be the winner.
Fun fact: BC has been the No. 7 seed in Hockey East only one other time in history, losing to Boston University in a best-of-three series in 1993.
No. 6 Maine (15-15-4) at No. 3 Northeastern (23-10-1)
Friday-Sunday, 7 p.m. at Matthews Arena, Boston
What to watch for: Before a 2-5 stretch and then concluding the regular season with seven wins in their last eight games, the Huskies swept Maine in their first Hockey East set of this calendar year by a combined 7-2 score in Orono. The most recent stretch allowed Northeastern to clinch home ice during the postseason for the fifth straight year. No player in Hockey East had more points in his team’s last seven games than Husky junior defenseman Jeremy Davies with 11. Maine ended a 5-1-1 stretch with last Saturday’s 6-0 win over Boston University. Nashua, N.H., native Brendan Robbins had a three-point game and finished the year with seven points in his last seven games.
Fun fact: Northeastern is the No. 3 seed in Hockey East for only the second time ever (also 1989) and will be meeting Maine in the postseason for the first time since a 2016 opening-round series on its way to winning the league championship.
No. 5 Boston University (14-16-4) at No. 4 UMass Lowell (18-11-5)
Friday-Sunday, 7:15/7/4 p.m. at Tsongas Center, Lowell, Mass.
What to watch for: The two middle seeds in the Hockey East standings meet for the first time since splitting a home-and-home series on Dec. 7-8 and get together in the playoffs for the fourth time in seven years. The road teams won both games in that series in which Lowell sophomore Charlie Levesque scored two of his four goals on the season and BU senior Bobo Carpenter netted a game-winning goal among three total. Both sides have recent memories to put in the rear view as BU was pummelled last Saturday in Maine and Lowell won only one of its last seven games, earning only one point over its final two weekends of the year.
Fun fact: Nine of BU’s last 11 Hockey East postseason games have been decided by one goal, including all three last season before the March 17 title victory over Providence.
ECAC HOCKEY
No. 8 Brown (13-13-5) at No. 1 Quinnipiac (25-7-2)
Friday-Sunday, 7/7/4 p.m. at People’s United Center, Hamden, Conn.
What to watch for: Brown played a lot of hockey en route to sweeping its first-round series with Princeton, needing more than two full overtime periods to capture the Saturday night victory. Senior Alex Brink had the marathon game-winning goal as well as two assists against the Tigers last week, while he was also one of four goal scorers in a Feb. 9 upset win over Quinnipiac in Hamden. Entering this weekend, sophomore Odeen Tufto and senior Chase Priskie lead a group of eight 20-point scorers for a Quinnipiac team that leads the ECAC in scoring offense (3.71 goals per game) and defense (1.39), the latter led by junior goaltender Andrew Shortridge.
Fun fact: Brown is making its first appearance in the ECAC quarters since 2012-13. In that season, the Bears beat Clarkson, Rensselaer, and Quinnipiac on their way to the league title game.
No. 6 Yale (15-13-3) at No. 3 Clarkson (22-10-2)
Friday-Sunday, 7 p.m. at Cheel Arena, Potsdam, N.Y.
What to watch for: After sweeping RPI in last weekend’s opening round in New Haven, the Bulldogs turn their attention to a best-of-three set against the North Country foe that enters its postseason on a five-game unbeaten run with wins over Harvard and Quinnipiac. The teams split two regular-season meetings in December and January. Yale picked up its first two victories in easy fashion last weekend, 4-1 and 4-0. Unanimous All-Ivy League forward Joe Snively had a goal and totaled four points in the Bulldogs’ last set, leading eight different goal scorers. Senior Sam Tucker (Wilton, Conn.) finished the weekend with a 25-save shutout.
Fun fact: Yale defensemen have scored 19 goals this season after combining for only 10 last year. Freshman Jack St. Ivany leads the way with four.
No. 5 Dartmouth (13-15-4) at No. 4 Harvard (17-9-3)
Friday-Sunday, 7/7/4 p.m. at Bright-Landry Hockey Center, Allston, Mass.
What to watch for: The ECAC travel partners meet again after doing so in this round of the postseason last year and splitting their regular-season games in October and February, the former of which was a 7-6 overtime thriller won by the host Big Green. The playoff scene is again Bright-Landry where the Crimson is 7-0-1 in its last eight, senior captain Lewis Zerter-Gossage has scored 13 of his 16 goals, and junior defenseman Adam Fox has 21 points. The Big Green needed three games to defeat No. 12 St. Lawrence last week, ultimately doing so in resounding fashion with a 8-0 Sunday victory. While sophomore Quin Foreman (Needham, Mass.) had seven points in the series, the finale marked junior Adrian Clark’s program-record sixth shutout of the season.
Fun fact: Harvard advanced past the Big Green and onto the ECAC semis for the fourth straight year last year. Two of the three league titles under head coach Ted Donato have come in that stretch in 2015 and 2017.
