If you want to use a Halloween theme for this past\u00a0weekend in\u00a0Hockey East, there were plenty of tricks and treats.<\/p>\n
Arguably, the best treats went to Providence and Merrimack.\u00a0 Boston University may have continued its strong start with two wins, the first Terrier blowout (5-1 over Massachusetts-Lowell) and yet another one-goal win in the rematch.\u00a0 And yeah, the Terriers are sitting atop the league.\u00a0 But this weekend was more of the same expected success for them.<\/p>\n
Providence, on the other hand, came into the season with much lower expectations after missing the playoffs the last two years.\u00a0 For them to take three out of four points against Massachusetts was huge.\u00a0 Based on points — admittedly a dubious exercise at this point since teams have played differing numbers of league games — the Friars are now second in Hockey East.<\/p>\n
Merrimack’s case is different.\u00a0 The Warriors came into this year with high expectations, but splitting with Boston College merits special attention.\u00a0 Going against a team just a week removed from a number one ranking, they played well on Friday but had nothing to show for it and then got their reward on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Staying with league games, Maine continued its strong play with a win over Vermont and may be five points behind BU in the standings but is 2-for-2 in Hockey East contests.<\/p>\n
The two Massachusetts state schools took it on this chin.\u00a0\u00a0Lowell dropped both to BU\u00a0and has the unenviable\u00a0possibility of making it an ofer hat trick tomorrow night at BC.\u00a0\u00a0UMass got only a point from Providence.<\/p>\n
Moving to the nonconference games, New Hampshire held up its end of the Hockey East banner with a 7-4 win\u00a0at Cornell.\u00a0 Any win at Lynah is a satisfying win.<\/p>\n
Then there’s Northeastern.\u00a0 Following the trick-or-treat theme,\u00a0this was\u00a0the worst trick.\u00a0 I complained earlier this year when league teams collectively went 1-0-4 against Atlantic Hockey teams, but that’s nothing compared to what befell the Huskies this past weekend.\u00a0 They lost to both Holy Cross and Bentley.<\/p>\n
Ouch!<\/p>\n
As I’ve said before, this is no knock on Atlantic Hockey, but if you’re gonna say you’re the best conference, you can’t be going ofer against the upstarts.<\/p>\n
As for the 1-4-2 Huskies, I was pretty bullish on them going into the season but have to wonder a bit now.\u00a0 Yeah, they’re only a game under .500 within the league and we are just talking about games in October.\u00a0 But this weekend has me concerned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you want to use a Halloween theme for this past\u00a0weekend in\u00a0Hockey East, there were plenty of tricks and treats. Arguably, the best treats went to Providence and Merrimack.\u00a0 Boston University may have continued its strong start with two wins, the first Terrier blowout (5-1 over Massachusetts-Lowell) and yet another one-goal win in the rematch.\u00a0 […]<\/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":"\n