Take a look at the top of the Hockey East standings.
Boston College, Providence College and Boston University are all tied with four points so far in the season, which, it should be noted, is still in its clear plastic hospital bassinet waiting to be taken home by Mommy.
But who exactly is Mommy? Who is going to claim the newborn season?
Good luck figuring that one out.
We have reached one of those magical years when most of the teams in the league are peaking. Isn’t it sweet? Yeah. And it’s kind of scary, too.
Take, for example, Providence. So, far, in seven games, the Friars have scored 42 goals. Get ready for the crazy stats: Over the course of a 34-game season, that total would expand to 204 goals. Last year, New Hampshire, with a pretty good offensive player named Darren Haydar, scored a league-best 103 goals. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst scored 45 goals all of last season. The Hockey East record for goals in a season? The 1986-87 Boston College Eagles, with 203.
Will the Friars break the Eagles’ record? Not likely, considering one-quarter of their goals came against Iona, the perfect early-season patsy. But if their top line of Devin Rask (four goals against Princeton), Jon DiSalvatore (20 points in seven games) and Peter Fregoe (19 points) keep producing, Sean Fields will be a busy man when the Friars come to Boston in early January. Oh, and Providence goalie Nolan Schaefer is one of the three best in the league.
All of that talk of how good Providence is reminds me of something: It’s like someone is tapping me on the shoulder telling me I forgot something. Oh! I remember now. Massachusetts took the Friars to overtime last week. Yeah, the Minutemen, who, at times, look like they should officially change their name to the Doormats, hung in there against undefeated juggernaut Providence and took them to overtime before losing, 2-1.
Then, two nights later, that same Massachusetts team beat Northeastern. You know the Northeastern team that slugged it out with Boston University Friday night, losing, 7-6. And, by the way, that BU team is the same one that got all dressed up to lose to Merrimack, who lost by a hair to New Hampshire, who lost to BU Saturday night.
My head hurts. Let’s slow down.
Let’s take a quick look at Northeastern. Originally thought to be a middle of the pack team, Northeastern has stumbled so far and now possesses a not-quite-middle-of-the-pack 1-4-2 overall record (0-2-1 in Hockey East). Apparently the real Keni Gibson is locked away in a closet somewhere and some impostor allowed six goals against the Terriers this past weekend. Northeastern fans had better hope Scooby and the rest of the gang can scoop up the real Keni and push the Mystery Machine to top speed to get him back to Matthews Arena before Friday’s game against Providence.
Terrier fans can look forward to Friday night and a little revenge against Merrimack and they can head in to the game with some confidence after beating top-ranked New Hampshire, 3-2, on Saturday. Fields was in top form and the penalty kill, which for the first week of the season seemed like nap-time for the Terrier defense, was effective. If New Hampshire forward Colin Hemingway wasn’t what I like to term ‘scary good,’ Fields would have had a shutout at the Whittemore Center and the entire Granite State would have sobbed for three days.
Despite the loss to the Terriers, the New Hampshire Wildcats are still at the front of the pack. A 3-point weekend against the defending national champion and a 10-0 go-home-and-cry-to-mama pounding of a decent ECAC team will do that for you. Having a top goalie like Mike Ayers and a top line that includes Hemingway and Lanny Gare helps, too.
Two teams are lost in the shuffle. First, there’s Maine, which has yet to play a conference game but will be good as long as its young goalies play well kind of like Sean Fields last year. And then we have the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, which has already played four high-quality opponents and enters conference play with a 5-3 overall record. Not too shabby.
No, I didn’t forget Boston College. I just put them all the way down here so I won’t get assaulted for saying something good about them. Freshman Patrick Eaves might be better than big brother Ben. The Eagles are currently undefeated and will stay that way until they come to Walter Brown on Nov. 15, topping fellow unbeaten Providence along the way.
So then, how does it all shake down? Well, the top four at the moment, at least on paper, are BC, UNH, Providence and BU, in that order. Maine and Lowell are next, followed by Merrimack, Northeastern and Massachusetts.
Of course, none of this is binding on me in January when Massachusetts leads the league and Providence is struggling to score.
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