{"id":810,"date":"2012-10-22T08:25:27","date_gmt":"2012-10-22T13:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/hockey-east-blog\/?p=810"},"modified":"2012-10-22T08:25:27","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T13:25:27","slug":"struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/","title":{"rendered":"Struggles at BC, Maine, and Hockey East in general"},"content":{"rendered":"

I probably learned more than three things about Hockey East this weekend.  At least I think<\/em> so. But that’s our Monday morning format, which also leaves me something for the mid-week column.  So here are the three most significant things I think<\/em> I learned.<\/p>\n

Three: Boston College dodged a celebration bullet.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Imagine the scene on Saturday night if the Eagles celebrated last year’s national championship with a banner raising while doing so as an 0-2 club.<\/p>\n

They came mighty close.<\/p>\n

After Northeastern beat them at Matthews Arena, 3-1, they traveled to Massachusetts on Friday night, still a near prohibitive favorite.  But jaws around Hockey East began dropping as the out-of-town scoreboard showed the Eagles in trouble. Heading into the third period, they trailed, 3-0. A banner raising with a sour-taste-in-their-mouths 0-2 record seemed almost certain.<\/p>\n

Bill Arnold and Destry Straight scored in the opening eight and a half minutes to get within one, but then UMass’s Darren Rowe countered to reestablish a two-goal lead that still held with little more than three minutes remaining.<\/p>\n

BC, however, showed that superior talent can sometimes crawl out of holes it finds itself in and two Pat Mullane strikes sent the game into overtime where some kid<\/em> named Johnny Gaudreau scored the game-winner.<\/p>\n

One night later, the Eagles followed the banner raising with a more championship-like performance, scoring twice in the first period en route to a 3-0 win over Northeastern.<\/p>\n

In dodging the bullet, they may well have learned lessons that will suit them well in their title defense.<\/p>\n

Two: Maine’s offense is in big trouble.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hey, we knew that last year’s firepower wasn’t returning, and the Black Bears would need to win games in a more defensive fashion.  But after getting shellacked at home by St. Lawrence, 5-0 and 5-1, Maine has to be hearing alarms blaring.<\/p>\n

About the offense in particular.  Other than the lone win — 4-3 over Army — the Black Bears have scored a grand total of two goals in the other four games, all losses.  (And for point of reference, Army last year posted a 4-23-7 record.)<\/p>\n

Yes, it’s supposed to be a great Maine freshman class and yes, this is a team that should be better in the second half than the first as those youngsters adapt to collegiate hockey. But at this rate, the Black Bears stand a distinct chance of digging themselves too big a hole to crawl out of.<\/p>\n

The one fortunate thing is that they’ve yet to play their first Hockey East game. They’ve still got a clean slate there.<\/p>\n

One: The league has gotten off to a very rough start.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Heading into the final game to finish on Saturday night, Hockey East teams were still looking for their first nonconference win of the weekend.<\/p>\n

Granted, all the games except Maine’s series against St. Lawrence were on the road and mostly against formidable opponents, but still…<\/p>\n

Maine got swept by unranked St. Lawrence. Merrimack lost to the two Alaska teams, both unranked. Providence returned from fourth-ranked Miami with only a tie in two games, albeit with the loss coming in overtime.  And Lowell had lost on Friday night to Denver, 5-1.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the River Hawks rebounded with a 3-1 win over Colorado College to maintain some sense of league pride.  And thankfully New Hampshire swept St. Cloud at home last weekend.<\/p>\n

Because right now, Hockey East teams are 7-8-1 out of conference and 4-8-1 against the other three traditional conferences.<\/p>\n

Hey, it isn’t even Halloween yet so there’s tons of hockey left to be played. But if the league doesn’t start doing a better collective job outside its borders, Hockey East teams will be looking at the PairWise Rankings in March with sour looks on their faces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I probably learned more than three things about Hockey East this weekend.  At least I think so. But that’s our Monday morning format, which also leaves me something for the mid-week column.  So here are the three most significant things I think I learned. Three: Boston College dodged a celebration bullet. Imagine the scene on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":140328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1425],"tags":[1236,1490],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStruggles at BC, Maine, and Hockey East in general - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I probably learned more than three things about Hockey East this weekend.  At least I think so. But that's our Monday morning format, which also\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Struggles at BC, Maine, and Hockey East in general - College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I probably learned more than three things about Hockey East this weekend.  At least I think so. But that's our Monday morning format, which also\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficialUSCHO\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-10-22T13:25:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1175\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"763\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David H. Hendrickson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@USCHO\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@USCHO\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"David H. Hendrickson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/\",\"name\":\"Struggles at BC, Maine, and Hockey East in general - College Hockey | USCHO.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-10-22T13:25:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-10-22T13:25:27+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5a31672f6e5fa9794a9e2cb7499d5c7a\"},\"description\":\"I probably learned more than three things about Hockey East this weekend.  At least I think so. But that's our Monday morning format, which also\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg\",\"width\":1175,\"height\":763},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Struggles at BC, Maine, and Hockey East in general\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/\",\"name\":\"College Hockey | USCHO.com\",\"description\":\"Men's and Women's D-I and D-III College Hockey News, Features, Scores, Statistics, Fan Forum, Blogs\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5a31672f6e5fa9794a9e2cb7499d5c7a\",\"name\":\"David H. Hendrickson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/7c52c5de08e32dd666a5f15d37701a87\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2639396fa7adc593297cdb92e4a799a5?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2639396fa7adc593297cdb92e4a799a5?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"David H. Hendrickson\"},\"description\":\"Hockey East Columnist David H. Hendrickson has covered Hockey East for USCHO since the site's inception.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/author\/hewriter\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Struggles at BC, Maine, and Hockey East in general - College Hockey | USCHO.com","description":"I probably learned more than three things about Hockey East this weekend.  At least I think so. But that's our Monday morning format, which also","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Struggles at BC, Maine, and Hockey East in general - College Hockey | USCHO.com","og_description":"I probably learned more than three things about Hockey East this weekend.  At least I think so. But that's our Monday morning format, which also","og_url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","og_site_name":"College Hockey | USCHO.com","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficialUSCHO\/","article_published_time":"2012-10-22T13:25:27+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1175,"height":763,"url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"David H. Hendrickson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@USCHO","twitter_site":"@USCHO","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"David H. Hendrickson","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/","url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/","name":"Struggles at BC, Maine, and Hockey East in general - College Hockey | USCHO.com","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg","datePublished":"2012-10-22T13:25:27+00:00","dateModified":"2012-10-22T13:25:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5a31672f6e5fa9794a9e2cb7499d5c7a"},"description":"I probably learned more than three things about Hockey East this weekend.  At least I think so. But that's our Monday morning format, which also","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg","width":1175,"height":763},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2012\/10\/22\/struggles-at-bc-maine-and-hockey-east-in-general\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Struggles at BC, Maine, and Hockey East in general"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/","name":"College Hockey | USCHO.com","description":"Men's and Women's D-I and D-III College Hockey News, Features, Scores, Statistics, Fan Forum, Blogs","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5a31672f6e5fa9794a9e2cb7499d5c7a","name":"David H. Hendrickson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/7c52c5de08e32dd666a5f15d37701a87","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2639396fa7adc593297cdb92e4a799a5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2639396fa7adc593297cdb92e4a799a5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"David H. Hendrickson"},"description":"Hockey East Columnist David H. Hendrickson has covered Hockey East for USCHO since the site's inception.","url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/author\/hewriter\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}