The Boston University men’s hockey team was picked to finish second in the conference behind Boston College in the preseason coaches poll, Hockey East announced Tuesday at its annual media day.
BU received three first-place votes and 83 points in the poll while BC received seven first-place votes and 88 points. The University of New Hampshire (72 points) and the University of Maine (64 points) rounded out the top four teams in the conference.
BU coach Jack Parker does not like to put much stock into polls, especially preseason polls, but he did note that HE looks to be a competitive conference this season.
“I’m not sure that there’s any clear-cut ‘These two teams or this one team will win the league’ like BC was last year and BU was a couple of years ago,” Parker said. “I think there are an awful lot of good teams in our league.”
BC and BU typically headline the HE preseason polls, and the two schools have combined for 19 of the 27 HE regular season titles. Still, BC coach Jerry York admitted that there is always plenty of competition at the top of the standings.
“It’s not just BC and BU,” York said. “I think New Hampshire and Maine have historically been very strong. Now you’re seeing Northeastern taking steps and Vermont, so it’s going to be a good challenge for BU and BC in the league.”
There are many unknowns in conference this year, but the boldest question marks surround the new blood in the conference. Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts-Lowell and Providence College all have new head coaches this season. That trio rounded out the bottom of the poll at Nos. 8, 9 and 10, respectively.
No. 5 Merrimack College, No.6 University of Vermont and No. 7 University of Massachusetts rounded out the middle of the pack, but both Parker and York said there is reason to be wary of those squads.
“I truly think UMass will make the biggest jump of anybody this year because they had a really solid, fast team last year and they have just about everybody back,” Parker said. “They’ll be a real good team, and they’re hungrier.”
UMass returns its top four scorers from last season in Danny Hobbs, T.J. Syner, Michael Pereira and Joel Hanley. The Minutemen finished eighth in the conference with a 6-23-6 record and was swept by BC in the Hockey East quarterfinals.
York had a different sleeper pick for the season: Merrimack. The Warriors finished fourth last season with a 25-9-4 record and lost in the Hockey East Championship to BC.
“They lost [leading scorer Stephane] Da Costa but I think that’s a team that has proven they’re for real,”” York said. “That’s the one team that there hasn’t been much talk about but when I look at the league, that could be a very surprising team.”
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