It was a weekend of “character wins” for Northeastern and UMass, the two teams currently sitting at the top of a wild Hockey East race to date.
Northeastern made one of the season’s biggest statements with a home-and-home sweep of Providence, surging to a 4-1 Saturday night win. As a result of a 10-1-1 run and their first perfect weekend against the Friars since 2009, the Huskies will at least enter its holiday break of more than a month as the league’s first-place team.
UMass earned four out of a possible six standings points against rival UMass Lowell, finishing the weekend with a 3-2 win in Amherst. The Minutemen and River Hawks will both be among the last Hockey East teams to play league games — and move atop the standings — this week, though the calendar year’s remaining conference action will be in the books by Saturday.
Both teams maintained their recent strong play while dealing with significant injuries, but key players have emerged up and down the lineup.
UMass has played all but five games this season without reigning Hockey East Rookie of the Year Josh Lopina, while recent lineups have been missing other top-six forwards including Garrett Wait, Cal Kiefiuk and Oliver McDonald, and forced head coach Greg Carvel to use defensemen Ty Farmer and Linden Alger (Barnstable, Mass.) up front.
“I’m a little frustrated with the types of penalties we’re taking right now, but I couldn’t be prouder of the fact that we’ve been playing shorthanded for a long time and continue to find ways to scratch and claw,” Carvel said after a Saturday game that included a highlight-reel goal by freshman defenseman Scott Morrow (Darien, Conn.) and capped senior Anthony Del Gaizo’s four-point weekend.
.@Scott23Morrow this is just absurd@ESPNAssignDesk @Buccigross @Canes #SCTop10 #NewMass X #Flagship ???? pic.twitter.com/pJVkASJ0xZ
— UMass Hockey (@UMassHockey) December 5, 2021
“We don’t win every game, but we’re in every game. … This adversity is going to make us better. When we get healthy, we’ll have four good lines of forwards, our defense can give us more, and Matt (Murray) has given us a great effort in net.”
Similarly, Freshman center Justin Hryckowian joined a long list of injured Northeastern players that has grown to include sophomores Sam Colangelo (Stoneham, Mass.), Ty and Dylan Jackson, and junior Riley Hughes (Westwood, Mass.) in recent weeks. The shortened bench allowed junior Matt DeMelis (Hingham, Mass.) and freshman Jack Hughes (Westwood, Mass.) to score three of the Huskies’ four goals while centering the top two lines on Saturday.
The two-goal, one-assist performance of Jack Hughes particularly impressed first-year bench boss Jerry Keefe, as the uber-talented rookie fulfilled his expanded role after being banged up in Friday’s game and starting the day as a game-time decision.
“He easily could have sat that one out … but he went out there and played like a winner,” Keefe said. “You’re asking a young kid, 18 years old, to play almost every other shift and play defensive-minded, even though he’s a really skilled offensive player. To me, that signifies a kid that wants to win and an unbelievable teammate.”
The Huskies were scheduled to represent the United States at the FISU World University Games in Switzerland, from Dec. 11-21, but the event was canceled last week due to continued COVID-19 concerns. As a result, their semester break will now extend until Jan. 7.
“It’s disappointing because I think our guys were really excited about the trip. It was out of our control,” Keefe said. “But, we need rest right now and we’re definitely going to take advantage of it. We expect all of the guys that have been injured to be back for our next game; they were all probably a week or so away from playing. I credit our depth because those guys gave us what we needed to find ways to keep winning.”
Bobcats, Falcons keep streaking
Quinnipiac continued its run up the national charts and now has a double-digit unbeaten streak of 11 games with a road sweep of ECAC Hockey foes Rensselaer and Union. Redshirt junior and former Boston Junior Bruin forward Gus van Nes scored two of the team’s three third-period goals in the 4-0 Saturday win over the Dutchmen.
Sophomore goaltender Yaniv Perets earned the 2-0 and 4-0 wins to match Northeastern’s Devon Levi and Minnesota State’s Dryden McKay for the national lead with six shutouts apiece, while his 0.86 GAA and unblemished 8-0-2 record are tops. He has backstopped a stout Bobcat defense, which has allowed less than 20 shots on goal in 11 of its 16 games this season.
In Atlantic Hockey, first-place Bentley will ride a five-game win streak into its semester break after finishing a two-game sweep of Mercyhurst. Arizona State transfer Evan DeBrouwer has been in net throughout the streak, continuing it by making 16 of his 35 saves in the third period of Saturday’s 3-1 decision.
Blanks from Brown
Brown’s seven-game losing streak became history in a flash this weekend as freshman Mathieu Caron pitched consecutive shutouts against its two other Ivy League rivals, Harvard and Dartmouth. Friday’s 2-0 victory was the Bears’ first since their Oct. 30 opener against Yale in which Caron’s graduate goaltending partner Luke Kania pitched a shutout by the same score.
Caron made 34 and 28 saves during his perfect weekend, becoming the first Bears goaltender to put up zeroes in back-to-back games since Mike Clemente did in the 2009 ECAC Hockey First Round Series at Harvard. He also backstopped a penalty kill that went 9 for 9.
Senior captain Tristan Crozier scored a goal in each game after missing the previous month due to injury. Crozier netted the game-winner with 8:13 to play against the Crimson before tallying a shorthanded goal the following night.
Crozier was out of the lineup during a week-long stretch that included games against Harvard, Holy Cross and Providence. In that time, players like freshman Thomas Manty (Andover, Mass.) were thrust into key roles — and scored his first of two collegiate goals — while junior defenseman Luke Krys (Ridgefield, Conn.) played upwards of 30 minutes in multiple games.
“We had to force some guys into roles or positions they’re not prepared for at this time because some of our injuries have been top-line players,” head coach Brendan Whittet said. “They’re going to make mistakes, have good shifts and bad shifts but you can always learn something. I like our team. When we get some of these guys back, it’ll be a much different Brown team.”
Catamounts win “turf war”
While Northeastern and UMass emerged at the top of the standings following their weekend performances, a series between two of the league’s growing programs ended with Vermont earning an overtime win and shootout win at Maine. Including last Sunday’s non-conference triumph over Dartmouth, the Catamounts have won three straight road games — including their first back-to-back since sweeping Merrimack in January of 2018.
“What started out as a game that looked like it would be a low-event match ended up being a turf war between two teams on similar development paths,” Vermont head coach Todd Woodcroft said of Friday’s 1-0 game in which sophomore defenseman Cory Babichuk scored the lone goal at 2:48 of overtime.
Gabe Carriere was the story of Saturday night’s game as the sophomore netminder turned in an “extraordinary” performance with a career-high 50 saves in a 1-1 tie. With a perfect shootout performance and UMass grad transfer Philip Lagunov’s goal, the Catamounts banked four of a possible six standings points from the weekend.
Carriere, who has started all of Vermont’s three wins and two ties, has stopped 98 of the 101 shots he’s faced over the last three games.
THREE MORE STARS:
Hockey East - Max Kaufman, Boston University
Kaufman was one of four Terriers who recorded points in both of their Hockey East wins over New Hampshire, but the graduate student was the only one to find the back of the net in each after entering the weekend scoreless on the season.
After finishing Friday’s 3-1 triumph with an empty-net tally, the Rochester, N.Y., native and Vermont transfer was the difference maker in Saturday’s 2-1 overtime win as junior defenseman Case McCarthy picked a puck out of the corner and found him alone at the front of the net for a game-winning backhand shot.
ECAC - Reilly Connors, Yale
The former Loomis Chaffee standout from Madison, Conn., helped the Bulldogs pick up their first ECAC win of the season and factored into the scoring in both of the past weekend’s games against two of their Ivy rivals. As a team, Yale has won two of its last three games entering the final league contest of 2021.
Connors netted his first collegiate goal in the 3-2 triumph over Dartmouth before assisting on junior Cole Donhauser’s tally against Harvard the following night.
Atlantic - John Gelatt, Holy Cross
The freshman from Middletown, N.J., picked a crucial time to score his first two collegiate goals, netting the tying and winning goals in Saturday’s 3-2 triumph for the Crusaders over Niagara. Gelatt has seven points in 17 games this season, but he became the first Holy Cross freshman to score a goal.
He followed Cushing Academy product Matt Guerra’s first goal since Oct. 21 — which came just 1:22 into the game — by scoring on power plays in both the second and third periods. The effort ensured a weekend split and the team’s second win in four games entering a month-long holiday break.
THIS WEEK’S HAT TRICK:
1. Battle of Commonwealth Avenue: Only three Hockey East league games will remain on the 2021 calendar by the start of next weekend, but one of the two on Friday should pack Boston University’s Agganis Arena as the Terriers host archrival Boston College in front of a home crowd for the first time since Feb. 29, 2020.
The head-to-head series is even at 6-6-2 over the previous five seasons after the two teams split a home-and-home just days before the Beanpot would have been contested in February.
Elsewhere, Merrimack hosts UMass for a Wednesday night game and UMass Lowell will play a two-game weekend series at Vermont.
2. Momentum in ECAC: The only ECAC league game of the upcoming weekend features Yale and Brown, two teams looking to continue the momentum that they gained from victories during their most recent series.
The two Ivy rivals match up on Friday night in New Haven after the Bulldogs began the past weekend with their second straight win against Dartmouth, and Brown earned its first sweep of the season while facing the same opponents, Harvard and the Big Green.
3. Non-conference highlights: Five New England teams will step outside of league play to finish the first semester, including American International and UConn who begin a home-and-home set on Thursday night. AIC graduate student Brian Rigali will look to continue his streak of points in six of his last seven games when he goes against his former team.
Maine will become Union’s third of four Hockey East opponents this season when it hosts a two-game series. The Friday and Saturday slates also see Providence host Princeton, while red-hot Quinnipiac will become the first local club to go home-and-home with Division 1 newcomer Long Island. The Sharks play host on Friday night in East Meadow, N.Y.
In exhibition action, the U.S. National Team Development Program’s Under-18 Team will play at BU (Saturday) and Merrimack (Sunday).
