{"id":24798,"date":"2002-10-04T21:18:31","date_gmt":"2002-10-05T02:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2002\/10\/04\/200203-hockey-east-season-preview\/"},"modified":"2010-08-17T19:54:30","modified_gmt":"2010-08-18T00:54:30","slug":"200203-hockey-east-season-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2002\/10\/04\/200203-hockey-east-season-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"2002-03 Hockey East Season Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"
Logjams, Lurkers and Longshots<\/h4>\n
“Any one of the top four teams in Hockey East could win the national championship.”<\/i><\/center> \n
New Hampshire. It’s got to be the Wildcats. Goaltending, scoring, defense. They’ve got it all. It’s gotta be them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Martin Kariya and Maine are back after reaching the NCAA title game last season (photo: Pedro Cancel).<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
No. Make that Maine. Hey, the Black Bears came within a minute of the national championship. Look at all that talent coming back! <\/p>\n
How about Boston College? The Eagles only lost two players. Two! How can you go against Eaves, Voce and Forrest?<\/p>\n
Yeah, but what about Boston University? If the Terriers went three straight years without a title, matter and anti-matter could collide and — poof!<\/i> — there goes the universe. <\/p>\n
Then again, you can’t dismiss Providence. Yeah, yeah, last year, blah, blah, blah. Fuggedaboudit! Jupiter must have been misaligned with Joe Bertagna. It was a fluke! DiSalvatore. Rask. Fregoe. Schaefer. Friar Fever, baby!<\/p>\n
Hey, don’t forget about…<\/p>\n
Aw, geez, just put the names in a hat and pick ’em out like last year. You’ll look like a dolt either way…<\/p>\n
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Look, at the end of the season, Hockey East’s eventual winner will almost certainly look perfectly predictable in 20-20 hindsight. Right now, though, all that’s visible is a logjam of candidates. Just ask Boston University coach Jack Parker, whose Terriers were picked to finish first in the coaches’ preseason poll.<\/p>\n
“It means nothing,” he says. “You can ask Providence. They were picked number one last year and they had injuries and some problems and wound up seventh in our league. What baffles me is that Providence was the number one pick last year, they’ve got everybody back from last year’s team and they’re picked fifth this year. I think that just indicates that it doesn’t really matter.<\/p>\n
\n"We have five and maybe six teams that absolutely could win the regular season championship and nobody would be surprised."<\/p>\n
— Boston University coach Jack Parker<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
“What it really does is point out the balance in the league, especially for the top spot. I think this is the best year we’ve ever had as far as who would possibly win this league. It’s the closest we’ve ever had. We have five and maybe six teams that absolutely could win the regular season championship and nobody would be surprised. <\/p>\n
“If Maine won this championship, people would say, ‘They were picked fourth? They were the NCAA finalist and they’ve got almost everybody back. How could you not pick them to be the number one team in the league?’ <\/p>\n
“If BU won it, if BC won it, if Providence won it, if UNH won it, nobody would be surprised. I think that’s what makes the league so great, its competitiveness from top to bottom. This year, more than any other year, the competitiveness for the number one spot is going to be great. It could be that one team shows up and is so much better than everybody else by December that they pull away, but the probabilities are that we’re all going to be fighting for that one spot for a long time.”<\/p>\n
Enough equivocation? How about some picks?<\/p>\n
With all the above protestations and disclaimers duly noted, let’s take our best shot and say that the league breaks down three ways: logjams, lurkers and longshots. (One final caveat: Providence defies categorization, straddling logjam and lurker status.)<\/p>\n
At the top, there’s a logjam of the usual suspects: New Hampshire, Maine, Boston College and Boston University. All four can harbor serious hopes of challenging for a national championship as well as a league title. They have the fewest question marks and the most exclamation points.<\/p>\n
Providence, Northeastern and UMass-Lowell lurk just a bit behind the four perennial favorites. Only PC seems to have much of a shot at joining the logjam and winning the Hockey East title, at least on paper, but any of the three could take home ice without an eyebrow being raised in surprise. For every hole in their depth chart, there’s a game-breaking player to give hope of a FleetCenter surprise or a berth in the 16-team NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Northeastern’s Keni Gibson looks for a stronger finish in 2002-03 (photo: Scott Weighart).<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Merrimack and Massachusetts, both with rosters loaded with youth as they build for the future, appear almost certain to duke it out for the final playoff spot. They’ll compete night in and night out and extract hard-earned points on many weekends, but remain longshots to climb in the standings.<\/p>\n
At least that’s the way it looks on paper. No doubt, there’ll be surprises, both good and bad, in the standings at season’s end. That’s the way this game works. It’s part of its charm and mystery.<\/p>\n
It also gives enraged fans the opportunity to email yours truly and use opening salutations like, “Hey, moron!” <\/p>\n
Here’s a brief look at the nine schools, in order of predicted finish, with links provided for more detailed analysis of each team.<\/p>\n