Hockey East Preseason Power Rankings
With the opening face-off of the 2019-2020 college hockey season almost here, here’s a look at how the Hockey East is shaping up.
Preseason Power Rankings:
1. Boston College Eagles - Aside from coming in first in this set of rankings, the Eagles also finished first in the Hockey East preseason coaches poll, garnering 8 of the 11 first place votes. On paper, Boston College is the most talented team in the conference. The same was said of last year’s Eagles team, which also saw the team check in at first in the preseason conference poll. That BC team finished 14-22-3 but finished strong and came up a goal short of winning the Hockey East Tournament. With an influx of young talent to complement a talented core, there’s reason to believe the Eagles will live up to the lofty expectations this season. Matt Boldy, Spencer Knight and Alex Newhook were all selected in the first round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, marking just the fifth time in history a collegiate program had three players selected in the first round of an NHL Draft. As long as Logan Hutsko is fully healthy after a scary neck injury saw him stretchered off the TD Garden ice last March, the Eagles may boast the best top line in the conference. Put together early in November, the trio of Hutsko, David Cotton and Julius Mattila gave the Eagles an instant jolt. They’d remain linemates for the season and combined to post 17 points in BC’s 5 Hockey East Tournament games. The defense loses Casey Fitzgerald but will be led by five upperclassmen and two freshmen, Drew Helleson and Marshall Warren, both of whom were drafted in the 2019 Draft.
2. Massachusetts Minutemen - Coming into last season, it seemed as if there would be a lot of parity within the Hockey East. From the chaos, the Minutemen rose, posting the best season in program history. Led by Hobey Baker winner Cale Makar, UMass went 31-10-0 and made it to the National Championship, eventually falling to Minnesota-Duluth 3-0 in the title game. Makar, the fourth overall selection in 2017, is now playing for the Avalanche, but most of the players on last season’s national runner-up squad return. Mitchell Chaffee, tabbed as a preseason Hobey Baker candidate, led the Minutemen with 18 goals last season. With Makar and Jacob Pritchard gone, Chaffee can expect to see those totals increase as the focal point of the offense. Double-digit goal scorers John Leonard, Marc Del Gaizo and Bobby Trivigno also return. In net, coach Greg Carvel will have to decide between Matt Murray and Filip Lindberg. Murray set a program single-season win total during his sophomore season, but Lindberg took over midway through last season and led the nation with a 1.60 goals against average.
3. Boston University Terriers - The Terriers are most likely in for a down year by their standards. Still that means at worst a fifth place finish in the conference. Much like BC, BU is coming off a sub-.500 season. Picked by the conference’s coaches to finish behind Providence and Northeastern, the Terriers could leap those two thanks to a loaded defense. Six BU defenders were drafted between the second and fourth rounds of their respective NHL Drafts. Three of them come from the star-studded US National Team Development Program after being drafted in 2019. Patrick Curry, who finished second in goals and third in total points last season, will be bolstered up front by ninth overall pick Trevor Zegras. Like many of the conference’s top teams, the Terriers face a question mark in net. Jake Oettinger, Joe Woll, Cayden Primeau and Hayden Hawkey all left for the NHL. BC made a seamless transition by recruiting Spencer Knight to the Heights, but BU, Northeastern and Providence all have work to do. That’s why all three are grouped together in this second tier of the Hockey East. The Terriers get a slight edge for having the best defense in front of their goalie.
4. Providence Friars - The Friars had an interesting end to their 2018-2019 season. Upset by BC in the first round of the Hockey East Tournament, it looked like Providence would come up just short of a tournament berth. But the Friars were able to secure one of the final at-large berths and ended up in the East Regionals in Providence. Playing close to home, they dominated their quarter of the bracket, downing Minnesota State and Cornell by a combined score of 10-3, before losing to eventual champion Minnesota-Duluth. As mentioned, Hayden Hawkey is gone in goal. Gabe Mollot-Hill will most likely take over; the junior has appeared in seven collegiate games, going 0-0-2 with a 1.76 goals against average and a save percentage just north of .900. On offense, the Friars lose four of their top five point-getters and only return three players who tallied over 20 points last season. With six freshmen among the 15 listed, Providence will need big contributions from its youth, particularly former BC commit Patrick Moynihan.
5. Northeastern Huskies- After losing Cayden Primeau to the NHL, Northeastern is left with a combined 0 games of collegiate experience in net. The Huskies struggled to recruit a goaltender, finally getting Connor Murphy to sign on with a commitment last December. The only other option is senior Curtis Frye who has never stepped on the ice for NU. Much like Providence, Northeastern loses a lot of its offense from last season, but both Tyler Madden and Zach Solow return. Solow led the team with 15 goals, including six game-winners. Losing captains Jeremy Davies and Eric Williams on defense hurts, but Jordan Harris excelled as a shutdown defenseman during his freshman season, and Jayden Struble enters the fray after being selected in the second round of the 2019 Draft.
6. Maine Black Bears - Boston Bruins prospect Jeremy Swayman will have to carry the Black Bears if they are able to rise above the other teams in the bottom half of the Hockey East. Billed as a potential replacement for Tuukka Rask in the future, Swayman has struggled with consistency at times. Last season he had four games where he allowed five or more goals, including two where he yielded seven. He has also only recorded one career shutout, a 3-0 win at Boston University during his freshman campaign. At the same time, he finished last season playing some of his best hockey, allowing two or fewer goals in seven of his last nine games. In front of him, Maine has only one player who has been drafted by an NHL team, 2015 seventh rounder Patrick Shea. The forward group, which is relatively experienced, finished in the middle of the pack in the conference last season and figures to be in that range again. The Black Bears success comes down to whether or not Swayman and the inexperienced defensive group can keep pucks out of the net.
7. UMass Lowell - For the first time in a long time, fans can watch a BC-UML game without being confused about the goaltending matchup. Gone is the Woll-Wall duel that plagued the ears of NESN listeners whenever the two teams faced off on television. Knight takes over for Woll at BC, but Tyler Wall remains for the Riverhawks. Entering his senior season, Wall has had an up-and-down career for UML. During his freshman and junior seasons, Wall posted a goals against average just north of 2.00, but sandwiched between was a sophomore season mark of 3.98. Wall’s performance last season should earn him the starting job, but freshman Logan Neaton is waiting in the wings should Wall’s performance falter. UML finished fourth in the conference in scoring offense last season, despite not having a single player score more than 15 goals. Sophomores Seth Barton and Chase Blackmun will have to anchor a defense that will need to be a strength of this Riverhawks team if the are to surprise in the Hockey East.
8. Connecticut Huskies - UConn is a young team that is probably a year off from really competing in the Hockey East, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be able to compete to get back to the conference tournament after missing out on it last season. Nineteen of the Huskies 27 players are underclassmen, a few of whom contributed in big ways last season. Last season as freshmen, Jachym Kondelik and Rusian Iskhakov finished second and third on the team in points, respectively. Matej Blumel and Vladislav Firstov will also join the young forward group. There’ll be some bumps in the road, but an easy travel schedule (the Huskies only go as far as New York) should benefit a team that had to travel to Las Vegas and Ireland last year.
9. New Hampshire Wildcats - UNH will likely be battling it out with UConn for that final spot in the Hockey East tournament. The edge will go to UConn, because the Huskies have a higher ceiling given the youth on the team. The Wildcats have a veteran defense and a 2015 third-round selection in goal but still finished ninth in the conference in scoring defense last season.
10. Vermont Catamounts - There’s a considerable drop-off between the top nine and the bottom two of Vermont and Merrimack. Those two finished at the bottom of the Hockey East last season and should be there again this year. Neither team succeeds in keeping goals off the board, but Vermont should at least have a better offense than Merrimack, led by captains Matt Alvaro and Derek Lodermeier.
11. Merrimack Warriors - The Warriors finished last in the conference in scoring offense and defense last season, both by a wide margin. This season, they have three freshman goalies, and seven of their nine defensemen are freshmen. The youth injection should spark some life into the team, but there’ll be a lot of growing pains this year.