Especially after a season that was largely lost to the pandemic, two weekends of hockey is hardly a decent sample size to draw conclusions.
No, what we can draw are impressions, at least from the three New England leagues that are off and running (the first night of play for the NESCACs is Nov. 19).
With five of the top 10 teams in the national rankings, New England is flexing its muscle. But the weekend’s impressions go well beyond the top teams.
Here are four takeaways from the second weekend of play in Division 3.
Who earned the biggest confidence jolt this weekend?
UMass Boston. Now that fans are back at Kreitzberg Arena, there’s no tougher place to play in New England than at Norwich, which also happened to be ranked the No. 1 team in the nation on Friday night.
The Beacons skated onto that ice in front of 1,347 fans and skated off with a 3-3 tie, one they probably felt to a man should have been a win. They owned a two-goal lead late but surrendered a pair of power-play goals in the final 83 seconds of regulation.
They finished off the game a night later, with senior Chris Peters, one of the team’s known qualities, setting up three goals on the power play in a 5-2 win at New England College in NEHC play.
Combined with a 4-3 win over a UMass Dartmouth team that could have the firepower to contend in the MASCAC, it’s been a pretty encouraging start for a team that lost two top players to the pros and another to Division 1 and has a roster that's half new.
“It’s kind of interesting,” said UMB coach Pete Belisle (Manville, R.I.). “We have 15 guys who survived the pandemic and stuck with the program, and we have 15 new guys. It’s been a real chemistry test.”
Which conference is shaping up to be heaviest at the top?
Again, back to the NEHC. With apologies to the NESCAC, whose teams open play the weekend of Nov. 19-20, this league is loaded.
Norwich opened as the No. 1 team in the country and currently sits at No. 2. No. 4 Hobart, which joined the league for the 2017-18 season, has reached the last six NCAA tournaments.
No. 6 Babson is senior-heavy and could be as good as any team in the region. UMass Boston, even as it reloads, can still remember a Frozen Four appearance in 2016 and an NCAA trip in 2019.
And the newest addition, Elmira, was last year’s champion in the UCHC.
“I would never say we’re the SEC of Division 3 hockey,” said Babson coach Jamie Rice (Newton, Mass.), “but we’re pretty good.”
Which under-the-radar team has a chance of being sneaky good?
UMass Dartmouth. Not sure there’s a team in the MASCAC that has had less turnover, and the Corsairs were a pretty solid squad in 2019-20, going 13-12-3 and reaching the league’s championship game.
“We have almost all of our guys back from last year, so we only brought in two freshmen and one transfer,” said UMD coach Erik Noack. “I think all three will help us this year.”
In the 3-1 start that includes a one-goal loss to UMass Boston, the scoring has been spread across multiple lines. Jake Maynard (1-5-6) is the reigning MASCAC Player of the Week and the team has produced at least three goals in every game.
Good measuring-stick game Saturday when league gold standard Plymouth State visits.
What are the best games to watch this weekend?
For the second weekend in a row, there’s a big one in the Commonwealth Coast, when preseason favorite, defending champion and No. 8-ranked Endicott plays at the No. 10 University of New England.
Endicott’s home-and-home with Salve Regina last weekend was everything it was hyped to be: The Gulls won on the road, 3-2, when Andrew Kurapov scored with two minutes left in regulation, but couldn’t defend home ice in a 2-1 loss the next night.
UNE opened its season with a home-and-home sweep of Nichols by 7-2 and 2-1 scores.
In the NEHC, battles between Babson and UMass Boston are always intense, and we get another one Saturday (4 p.m.).
@MikeZhe602
mzhe@hockeyjournal.com
