{"id":98084,"date":"2017-02-13T10:45:18","date_gmt":"2017-02-13T16:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/hockey-east-blog\/?p=1927"},"modified":"2017-02-13T10:45:18","modified_gmt":"2017-02-13T16:45:18","slug":"a-two-team-race-becomes-a-six-team-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2017\/02\/13\/a-two-team-race-becomes-a-six-team-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"A two-team race becomes a six-team battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A week ago, I wrote about the race for the Hockey East title becoming a two-team race. Not anymore.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Losses by BC, BU make race to finish interesting<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Boston College and Boston University each looked ready for a battle to the finish for the Hockey East regular season title. But after losses for each last weekend, coming away without points in a weekend this late in the season has brought a number of teams back into the mix. Notre Dame and UMass Lowell each took four points to each climb within four points of BC and a single point of BU. Providence continues its roll and is a single point in back of the Irish and River Hawks. Vermont, after a split with New Hampshire, lost pace and, though still mathematically alive for the title, really will focus on trying to climb to fourth place for a first-round bye.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. The Friars are the hottest team (and scariest opponent to face) in the league right now<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After a 4-3 loss to Vermont on January 13, Providence&#8217;s season looked dire. The Friars sat at 1-6-2 in Hockey East. Sure there were a lot of games left, but the Friars were needing to find wins fast. They&#8217;ve found them. Nine straight victories &#8211; all in league play &#8211; raised the Friars to 10-6-2 and they are locked into a battle for a league title and a first-round bye. This weekend&#8217;s series at Notre Dame could go a long way to sorting out the top of the standings. But this turnaround, quite frankly, is remarkable.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Merrimack end of an ugly streak<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Merrimack coach Mark Dennehy made a lot of good memories as a player at Boston College&#8217;s Conte Forum. He was a member of BC teams that won three Hockey East regular season title, a postseason championship and that reached a Frozen Four in 1990. All of the biggest games in that time (Hockey East finals, NCAA regionals) were all played in Conte Forum.<\/p>\n<p>Since becoming coach at Merrimack, though, you wouldn&#8217;t blame Dennehy for not wanting to visit his alma mater. Before Friday, his Warriors hadn&#8217;t won a game in his coaching tenure at the Heights &#8211; nor in the eight years prior &#8211; running Merrimack&#8217;s futile streak at BC to 20 seasons.<\/p>\n<p>That ended on Friday thanks to a 6-3 victory paced by Hampus Gustafsson&#8217;s five-point (three goals, two assists) game. The win makes Merrimack 3-0-1 against BC and Boston University this season and has to give this team confidence heading to the postseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A week ago, I wrote about the race for the Hockey East title becoming a two-team race. Not anymore. 1. Losses by BC, BU make race to finish interesting Boston College and Boston University each looked ready for a battle to the finish for the Hockey East regular season title. But after losses for each [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"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":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A two-team race becomes a six-team battle - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A week ago, I wrote about the race for the Hockey East title becoming a two-team race. Not anymore. 1. 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