Hockey East teams off to flying start in season’s second half
Through one weekend, the second half of the men’s college hockey season is looking much like the first half, at least as far as Hockey East is concerned. In a 16-game nonconference slate, the league posted an 11-4-1 mark to improve to 61-27-4.
It was a considerably better start than last season, when the league’s teams went 6-8-2 after the break, and that’s where we begin our look back at last week’s action.
■ The weekend concluded with Harvard traveling to Connecticut Sunday for its second road game in as many days, dropping a 4-2 decision to the Huskies. UConn (8-9-1) wasted little time getting on the board and grabbed a 1-0 lead on freshman Jake Richard’s goal 40 seconds in. It was a nice start for a squad that was playing its first game in 29 days.
“You don’t know what you’re going to get sometimes,” said UConn coach Mike Cavanaugh about returning from the break. “We were able to have four practices this week. The first practice we were naturally a little rusty, but our ensuing practices I thought were really good.”
Sophomores Jake Black and Jake Percival also scored to complete what UConn folks were dubbing a “JakeTrick.”
■ Injuries and inexperience continue to be a tough combination for Harvard (1-7-3), particularly on the defensive unit, where it was without juniors Ian Moore and Kyle Aucoin, but did have Jack Bar back in the lineup. Despite the slow start at Storrs, the Crimson were within striking distance and trailed, 3-2, late in the game thanks to goals from Joe Miller and Zakary Karpa. But with the net empty for an extra skater, Chase Bradley buried one at 19:42 to account for the final.
“I thought in the third period we started to do some things as a group that will allow us to play some better hockey in the future,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato, whose team also lost at Princeton Saturday. “We were on our heels a little bit too often in the beginning, but then we started skating and attacking a little bit more. That really has to be our mentality.”
■ Northeastern sophomore defenseman Hunter McDonald, who missed all but one game in the first half, returned from injury for the Kwik Trip Holiday Face-Off in Milwaukee. The Huskies (6-9-1) advanced to the final with a 4-3 overtime win over Minnesota Duluth on the strength of a hat trick by Jack Willams, but lost to Wisconsin, 3-0, in Saturday’s title game.
■ UMass scored late in the third period to force overtime in both games of the Adirondack Winter Invitational at Lake Placid. The Minutemen tied Cornell, 2-2, on Friday after neither team scored in overtime. The teams played a shootout to determine who would advance to the final, with the Big Red prevailing. UMass dropped Saturday’s consolation game with Clarkson, 5-4.
■ There did not appear to be any rust for Maine to shake off at the Ledyard Classic at Dartmouth. The Black Bears scored 10 goals over two games, following up a 5-2 win over RIT with a 5-1 win against the hosts in the title game. With the victories, Maine improved to 12-3-1 and vaulted to the top of the PairWise rankings.
■ One notch below is Boston University, which defeated Yale, 6-1, as senior Dylan Peterson and freshman Shane LaChance each scored two goals. The Terriers improved to 12-4-1 despite being without sophomore
Lane Hutson and freshmen Macklin Celebrini and Tom Willander, all of whom are competing in the World Junior Championship in Sweden.
■ The quarterfinals of the World Juniors are Tuesday, and a number of Hockey East players are shining for their countries. The US will face Latvia at 11 a.m. after going undefeated in four preliminary-round games to finish first in Group B. The Americans closed out play by handing Slovakia its first loss of the tournament, 10-2.
It was just a 3-2 game late in the second period when the Boston College line struck, with Ryan Leonard scoring off a nice feed from Will Smith while Gabe Perrault was trying to establish position in front of the net.
BC sophomore Cutter Gauthier (1 goal, 7 assists in four games) continues to impress as a facilitator. His spinning pass from behind the net led to Rutger McGroarty’s hat trick and had analyst Dave Starman comparing Gauthier to former Eagle Johnny Gaudreau.
Celebrini (4-4—8) had a pair of goals to lead Canada to a 6-3 win over Germany. Next up for Canada will be Czechia, which almost knocked off the US thanks to 30 saves from UMass freshman Michael Hrabal before losing in a shootout. Tuesday’s action begins with Slovakia taking on Finland, and will conclude with Group A winner Sweden against Switzerland. All games will air on NHL Network.