As the puck drops on November, league points are on the line in all but one game involving New England’s Division 1 teams.
Boston University and Northeastern opened the slate a night early with a back-and-forth, 5-5 tie and will continue their rivalry series Saturday night at Agganis Arena. Four other Hockey East series are scheduled, including two of the home-and-home variety featuring Boston College-Merrimack and UMass-New Hampshire.
In ECAC Hockey, Quinnipiac brings a perfect record into its first league competition of the year at Dartmouth and Harvard, while the Big Green and Yale aim to build off their season-opening games of a week ago.
A pair of the region’s Atlantic Hockey squads get together again in Waltham, Mass., as Bentley hosts Sacred Heart, while AIC draws a long road trip to Canisius for two games. An Atlantic Hockey club hosts the lone non-conference game of the weekend involving New England clubs, with Providence taking on Holy Cross at the Hart Center.
HOCKEY EAST
Boston College (0-4-0, 0-0-0) vs. Merrimack (2-5-0, 1-2-0)
Friday, 7 p.m. in North Andover, Mass.; Saturday, 7 p.m. at Conte Forum
What to watch for: Non-conference struggles over the last tw seasons haven’t stopped BC from flipping the switch at the start of Hockey East play, so Jerry York’s club hopes things are no different this year. Four conference points are on the line against a Merrimack team that gave BC everything it could handle in a pair of one-goal quarterfinal games last March. The Warriors, under first-year coach Scott Borek, have one loss by more than one goal.
Fun fact: Last season, BC split its first two Hockey East games before starting a seven-game league winning streak with a sweep of Merrimack in early November.
UMass Lowell (3-3, 0-1) at Maine (2-3-1, 0-1-1)
Friday, 7 p.m./Saturday, 7:30 p.m. in Orono, Maine
What to watch for: Lowell had been held one goal in back-to-back games before Nick Master scored twice en route to a 4-1 win over Bentley last Saturday. The River Hawks are on the road in Hockey East play for the first time this season and will look to string a pair of wins together against Maine, who hasn’t scored more than twice in any of its last four games. However, junior Tim Doherty (Portsmouth, R.I.) and freshman Jacob Schmidt-Svejstrup two tallies apiece in that 0-4 span for the Black Bears.
Fun fact: Friday’s game marks the 125th all-time meeting between these programs. Maine holds an 80-38-6 lead, but Lowell has eight wins over the last 12 games.
UConn (3-2-1, 1-1-1) at Vermont (2-2, 0-1)
Friday, 7:05 p.m./Saturday, 7:05 p.m. in Burlington, Vt.
What to watch for: UConn is coming off a 1-0-1 weekend against Maine, so they'll have to translate that success to the road if they want to keep pace in the Hockey East standings. The Catamounts lost two of three in this head-to-head series last year. Their biggest task will be deterring UConn junior Alexander Payusov and freshman Jachym Kondelik, who have seven goals and eight assists, respectively.
Fun fact: The Huskies’ line of Payusov, Kondelik, and senior Karl El-Mir has skated together in four straight games, producing nine goals and six assists.
Northeastern (4-2-1, 1-0-1) at Boston University (0-4-1, 0-2-1)
Saturday, 7 p.m. at Agganis Arena
What to watch for: The 236th all-time meeting between these programs will be Saturday night on Commonwealth Avenue after a 5-5, series-opening tie in which half of the game’s total goals were scored in the third period. The teams entered the series trending in opposite directions. An ultra-balanced Northeastern club swept UMass Lowell and St. Cloud State last weekend, while BU had been shut out for the second straight game.
Fun fact: After working through injury, junior defenseman Chad Krys' (Ridgefield, Conn.) goal on Thursday tied matters at five and sent it to overtime, where neither team could find a breakthrough.
Massachusetts (5-1, 2-0) at New Hampshire (1-3-1, 1-0)
Saturday, 7 p.m. in Durham, N.H.
What to watch for: Both teams have momentum entering this clash. Thanks in large part to John Leonard’s (Amherst, Mass.) consecutive three-point games, UMass swept a two-game Hockey East series against Merrimack. Meanwhile, UNH entered the win column in its league debut against Vermont. A third straight win would set the Minutemen up nicely entering next week’s huge set with Providence.
Fun fact: UMass senior Jacob Pritchard has recorded all seven of his points this season on the power play. He leads Hockey East and is tied for third nationally in that statistic.
ECAC Hockey
Brown (0-2, 0-1) at Colgate (2-3, 0-0)/Cornell (0-2, 0-0)
Friday, 7 p.m. in Hamilton, N.Y.; Saturday, 7 p.m. in Ithaca, N.Y.
What to watch for: Brown hits the road for the first time and looks to flip the scores from its one-goal losses to Yale and Vermont during the season’s opening weekend. The Bears face a pair of teams hoping to do the same on home ice, as Colgate lost its last three straight games on the road and Cornell suffered a sweep at the hands of Michigan State in its own building.
Fun fact: Cornell is 9-0-2 in its last 11 games against Brown, while the Bears were swept in last year’s Colgate series.
Yale (1-0, 1-0) at Cornell/Colgate
Friday, 7 p.m. in Ithaca, N.Y.; Saturday, 7 p.m. in Hamilton, N.Y.
What to watch for: The Bulldogs never trailed in their season-opening, 3-2 win at Brown last Friday and now await their first weekend-long ECAC challenge on the road in New York. Yale went 2-1-1 against these clubs a year ago, posting a season sweep of Colgate that came during a five-game winning streak last February. Senior leading scorer Joe Snively and the Elis open the set in Ithaca, where the Big Red are 0-2 for the first time since 2010.
Fun fact: Nine of the last 12 games between Yale and Cornell have been decided by a goal or less.
Quinnipiac (5-0, 0-0)/Princeton (0-1, 0-0) at Harvard (0-1, 0-1)
Friday, 7 p.m./Saturday, 7 p.m. at Bright-Landry Center
What to watch for: Even with Bruins rookie Ryan Donato gone a year early, Harvard’s power play was lethal in Saturday’s season-opening loss to Dartmouth. Defensemen accounted for three of Harvard’s five man-advantage goals, with sophomore Reilly Walsh (Andover, N.H.) scoring two and junior Adam Fox another as part of a five-point game. Such an offensive output is hard to maintain, but the Crimson will need a balanced effort in order to crack the win column this weekend.
Fun fact: Harvard has taken care of these two opponents in recent history, having gone 8-2-2 in its last 12 meetings with Quinnipiac and earned 10 straight wins against Princeton.
Princeton/Quinnipiac at Dartmouth (1-0, 1-0)
Friday, 7 p.m./Saturday, 7 p.m. in Hanover, N.H.
What to watch for: Perhaps no team in the country entered the season with as much returning firepower as Princeton, led by Max Veronneau and Ryan Kuffner. Still, the Bobcats and Big Green had offensive outbursts of their own last weekend. Dartmouth potted seven, but needed Quin Foreman (Needham, Mass.) to score in overtime to take down Harvard, while Quinnipiac scored 13 goals in two games against AIC.
Fun fact: Quinnipiac and Penn State are the only two Division 1 teams with a five-win, unblemished record.
ATLANTIC HOCKEY
Sacred Heart (0-2-1, 0-0) at Bentley (1-3-1, 1-1-1)
Friday, 7:05 p.m./Saturday, 6:05 p.m. in Waltham, Mass.
What to watch for: Sacred Heart has scored just four goals (and allowed 12) through its first three games, so the Atlantic Hockey opener would be the perfect time for sophomores Matt Tugnutt and Marc Johnstone to turn those numbers around. They visit a Bentley team that had six individual multi-point games — including a four-assist night from sophomore Luke Santerno — in its first league win over Holy Cross, 7-4.
Fun fact: Bentley scored five goals in the second period last Friday against Holy Cross.
American International (2-4-1, 2-1-1) at Canisius (2-3, 2-2)
Friday, 7:35 p.m./Saturday, 7:35 p.m. in Buffalo, N.Y.
What to watch for: These two teams have already played a pair of Atlantic Hockey sets apiece, so some separation in the early-season standings could emerge. The series continues a five-game road trip for the Yellow Jackets, who suffered a 13-3 series loss to Quinnipiac. They'll now have the tall task of slowing down Canisius senior Dylan McLaughlin, the league’s second-leading scorer from a year ago.
Fun fact: AIC junior Shawn McBride has one goal and three assists over the club's last three games.
NON-CONFERENCE
Providence (4-1-1, 2-0 HE) at Holy Cross (1-4, 1-2 AHC)
Saturday, 7:05 p.m. in Worcester, Mass.
What to watch for: The lone local, non-conference game of the weekend features two teams averaging at least 3.5 goals per game this season. The difference in this clash should be goaltender Hayden Hawkey and a stingy Friar defense that's recorded two shutouts and allows 1.3 goals per game. On the flip side, Holy Cross has allowed 4.6 goals through five games, as senior Tommy Nixon and freshman Erik Gordon splitting the starts in net.
Fun fact: A freshman (forward Matt Barry) and a sophomore (defenseman Frank Boie) are tied for the Holy Cross team lead with three goals apiece, while a junior (defenseman Johnny Coughlin) has five assists.
