Providence has been a sneaky bunch ever since coach Nate Leaman took over in 2011.
In his first year, the Friars won their first postseason series in more than a decade. In year two, they earned a bid to the NCAA Tournament. Finally, in Leaman’s fourth year, the resurgence that began with his arrival came to a climax in 2015 when they snuck into NCAAs -- and won it all.
Since winning that first-ever national title, PC has appeared in the tournament every single year.
But after several first-round exits and last season’s Frozen Four defeat at the hands of two-time defending champions Minnesota-Duluth, the Friars have yet to earn another shot at a title game.
Now, just past the halfway point of the 2019-20 season, they’re on a mission to make it back. Having Jack Dugan and Tyce Thompson on their side makes that aspiration a serious possibility.
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It isn’t every year that the nation’s leading scorers play for the same team.
What’s even more unusual is if they’re roommates.
But, sure enough, that describes Dugan and Thompson to a T. Twenty-five games into the season, the sophomore teammates and roommates sit alone at the top of the NCAA scoring list: Dugan leading the league with 42 points (7 goals, 35 assists) and Thompson next with 37 points (17 goals, 20 assists). Thompson sits in a three-way tie for the national lead in goals.
Anchored by their explosive duo, the Friars are 13-6-5 overall with nine regular-season games to play. They are tied for second place in the ever-competitive Hockey East and ranked 10th nationally.
For Dugan, 21, and Thompson, 20, the offensive numbers are going up at a staggering rate.
“It’s really cool,” Dugan said. “I don’t think anyone at least at PC has done what we’ve done so far as individuals, so it’s really cool to do that together, and then everything comes along with the team’s success. You see that we might have had some struggles in the first half, but over these last 10 games, we’re really starting to find ourselves and turning into a really good hockey team.”
“I think we’re feeling pretty good about ourselves right now,” Thompson added on Friday. “We’ve been on a bit of a roll here the past five or six games, so I think the fact that we’re all pretty confident in each other and what we’re capable of doing out there as a team has helped.”
Both Dugan and Thompson enjoyed healthy breakouts as freshmen last year after each spending a year in the USHL. As sophomores, they’ve both taken their offensive games to the next level.
To their former coaches who watched them before their college careers, that’s not a major shock.
For Dugan, who was taken No. 142 overall (fifth round) in the 2017 NHL Draft by the Vegas Golden Knights before going to the USHL, the Chicago Steel became his home during 2017-18 under the leadership of coach Mark Abalan.
With the Steel, the Pittsburgh native lit it up in 54 games, amassing 66 points on 31 goals. At PC, Abalan said, not much seems different about the kid who possesses that it factor.
“I’m not really surprised,” said Abalan, who is now an associate coach with Sioux City in the USHL. “I’m just a little surprised because of the numbers. People don’t put up those kinds of numbers as often anymore, but [I’m] really just happy for Jack as much as anything, that he’s still getting better obviously, and I think there’s still more in his game that he’s going to keep growing as a player. It just speaks to his talent level, his drive and really his competitiveness.
“I’ve been fortunate to coach some pretty high-end guys like a Nathan MacKinnon, like a Jake Guentzel, like a Neal Pionk ... and they sort of had sort of this intangible, this not-completely-describable trait, and I would say Jack has that. But really what it is, is a desire every day to be the best guy on the ice. And it’s not just saying it, the next step is going out and actually doing it. I feel like that’s what Jack is all about.”
After one season with Chicago, Dugan joined the Friars and mimicked what he’d done at every level of hockey leading up to it, registering 39 points (10 goals, 29 assists) as a freshman at PC.
For Thompson, however, things took a bit longer to work themselves out in the amateur ranks.
After two years of prep school hockey at Salisbury, the Oyster Bay, New York, native jumped to the USHL with coach Oliver David and the Dubuque Fighting Saints. Thompson got off to a somewhat slow start in his first full season, so unlike the purely gifted, all-natural players, he had to work for it.
“Being a first-year guy going through the normal growing pains, you can tell he was intrinsically built to work,” David said. “He’s playing the game for all the right reasons and he has a deep fire in his belly to not be the reason he doesn’t make it to the NHL. And that was on display daily.”
At a point in his only season with Dubuque, Thompson went without a point for 20 games. But, as usual, he worked and worked and worked, until the flood gates burst open.
“He turned it around after that and then he was nonstop,” Oliver said. “He never stopped. Those are really the traits I remember: every day the smile, the willingness, a real, real fire in his belly.”
Thompson quickly carried his emergence with the Saints over to the Friars, where he shined as a freshman last season, scoring 25 points (8 goals, 17 assists) to add depth to the veteran forward corps.
For his efforts, Thompson was selected in the fourth round of the 2019 NHL Draft by the New Jersey Devils.
“That’s every kid’s dream, to hear your name on draft night,” he said. “It was pretty special.”
Now, in year two, after a swath of the Friars’ top scorers have moved on, putting more responsibilities on their plates, Dugan and Thompson are eager to help lead them get back to the national stage.
With the numbers they’re putting up, that thought doesn’t seem too farfetched, but it’s also the way they’re doing it. On even strength, Dugan and Thompson are on separate lines, so they do a lot for their other teammates, but when they meet on the power play, they shine through the most.
From one roommate to another, the duo make up a power-play menace – the best in Hockey East. Converting 27.5 percent of its chances, the PC man advantage is the fourth-best in Division 1.
“I think we have pretty good chemistry there,” Thompson said of the special teams’ success. “He’s usually making the plays, finding whatever seam or whatnot. Everything kind of runs through him, so I just have to get open for him and usually he finds me, which has been nice.”
From Dugan’s perspective, the power play’s advance has a lot to do with the surrounding cast.
“We have five really good players, not just us, but everything kind of has to do with those five guys,” Dugan added. “[Patrick] Moynihan as a freshman has come in and had some huge power play goals for us, [Greg] Printz does a great job screening, and Mike Callahan you’ve seen him kind of explode offensively this year too, and a lot of that is on the power play. So, I think all five of us have really molded well together, and every time we get out there and get a chance to do damage, I think the other team is pretty scared. We’ve done a good job creating chemistry.”
As sophomores, Dugan and Thompson are spearheading the Friars down the stretch.
Knowing how hard it is to get back to where they made it last year only to fall short, they’re more motivated than ever before, and with No. 12 and No. 27 leading the way, they have a good shot.
It will come down to executing the fundamentals instilled by Leaman and his staff all year long.
“We were there to win and that didn’t happen,” Thompson said. “So, this year we have a little bit of a fire under our butts to get us going here to try to get back to the Frozen Four, and ultimately win it. Being a year older helps and also having a lot of the new guys support us along the way has been great too, but I think we all have the same goal of making it back there and winning it.
“And I think it’s a pretty feasible goal for us.”
Liam Flaherty can be reached at lflaherty24@gmail.com and on Twitter @_LiamFlaherty.
