Before any season starts, everyone loves
making their predictions. This team will win the league.
That player will vie for MVP, and everyone else will
do exactly that.
But a few months into these seasons,
those who make their predictions often look back,
slap themselves on the forehead and wonder why they
are considered “experts” in their particular
field. This season, along with a couple seasons in
the past, the UMass Lowell River Hawks are causing
a lot of red foreheads.
Picked by the coaches to finish in a
tie for third place with Maine in Hockey East this
season, the River Hawks were expected to do some big
things despite the loss of last year’s superstar
Ben Walter. But during a 6-13-0 start (3-9-0 in Hockey
East), Lowell looked like it may be in a dogfight
just to take the last spot in the playoffs, especially
with its porous defense.
Last year, Lowell's prospcts were mostly
mediocre (with INCH among the few who had higher hopes).
With a 4-5-0 record, the team's start lived up to
expectations. Then Walter and company slapped a knuckle
puck in everyone’s direction, the River Hawks
went on an 11-3-0 run and didn’t lose a game
from Nov. 23 until Jan. 29. The team was scoring,
getting great play from freshman goaltender Peter
Vetri and all was looking well. A 5-5-1 clip to end
the season and two playoff losses at Maine by a combined
12-3 score signaled a return to mediocrity.
Back to this year, and UML has sent
its line out to the Merrimack River with the intention
of reeling everyone back in. Over the weekend, the
River Hawks won a laugher over a hot UMass team by
a 6-2 score on Friday night and then knocked off Providence
on the road in a 4-3 overtime thriller.
Trailing 3-1 in Providence with just
under five minutes remaining in regulation, Lowell
picked up a pair of goals from Danny O’Brien
and Mike Potacco in just 1:42 to send the game in
overtime. There O’Brien capped off his first
career hat trick by lighting the lamp with 13 seconds
to go in the extra frame. The Lowell captain finished
the weekend with four goals and two assists, but more
importantly helped his team garner some momentum before
this coming weekend’s home-and-home with Northeastern,
which hasn’t won a game since Nov. 11.
Jason Tejchma, who also had a big weekend
with two goals and two assists, is optimistic the
team can keep this run going.
“[In November], we had two big
games against UNH,” Tejchma said. “We
lost the first night and came back the second night
and had a pretty good win. We were hoping to get on
a roll there, and the week after we didn’t turn
it around. Hopefully, this will be the weekend we
turn it around. We’ve matured after [what happened]
a month ago. We’ve gotten a lot better. Things
are looking good, and if we keep working hard, I think
we’ll get on a roll.”
After the River Hawks beat UNH 6-3 at
the Tsongas Arena on Nov. 19, they went on to lose
six of their next eight, including two separate three-game
skids. UML coach Blaise MacDonald, who was impressed
with his team's defensive and special teams improvement,
said it would take “a near-perfect game”
to beat Providence. He knows his group will need to
continue their consistency in those areas to keep
this weekend’s momentum steady.
“Typically, with teams that are
playing well, special teams are good and the goaltender
is playing great,” MacDonald said. “I
thought we did a nice job on our power play getting
some chances. We had some good looks. We did a nice
job killing penalties, and I thought Peter Vetri had
a real solid game so I think those are the keys to
getting on a roll.”
Another one of those keys involves the
teams Lowell is facing over the last two months of
the season. With 10 points and tied with UMass in
seventh place in the league standings, the River Hawks
are sitting four points ahead of Northeastern and
six above Merrimack, with both of those teams struggling
to do anything right as of late.
And with 13 contests left, UML has three
dates left with the Huskies, two with the Minutemen
and two with the Warriors, so the Hawks certainly
hold their playoff fate in their hands. Of the other
six games, one is with BU, three with BC and the last
series of the year is two-game stint with Vermont
in the Mill City.
Making a prediction as to how the River
Hawks will finish is tough, and we’ve been down
that road already. It’s also impossible to tell
if one weekend of solid play can translate into a
hot finish, particularly when the defense has been
inconsistent.
But after the team’s rocky first
half, one weekend of good hockey is at least a start.
And right now, that’s all the team could ask
for.
SEEN AND HEARD IN HOCKEY EAST
Old School vs. New School –
The phrase “From zero to hero”
has taken on a new meaning for Vermont sophomore stud
Joe Fallon, who no longer tends goal; he completely
locks it down as if he were counter terrorist Jack
Bauer on the hit series, “24.” Fallon
has posted four shutouts in the Catamounts’
last six games, which spanned a whopping 16 days,
and he has taken reigns of the school career shutout
record from new Boston Bruins netminder Tim Thomas.
Fallon tied Thomas’ record of
10 shutouts after a 3-0 win over Northeastern on Jan.
13, and promptly broke the mark the following night
in another 3-0 victory. He now has 11 career shutouts
in just 50 starts in net.
On Jan. 5, just a few days after the
20-year-old pulled to within one shutout of Thomas’
record with the help of back-to-back blankings on
Dec. 30-31 during the Catamount Cup, Fallon had this
to say about the possibility of staking claim to the
all-time mark: “Hopefully, I can do it this
season.”
Coincidentally, as he was sitting on
nine career shutouts, it took him just nine days after
that comment to break the record. Thomas couldn’t
be on hand at Gutterson that night, however, as he
was busy making 37 saves in his first start of the
season for the Bruins, a 2-1 shootout loss to the
Dallas Stars.
This weekend, Fallon’s opponent
in the opposite net will be another sophomore in Cory
Schneider, who has been similarly impressive for Hockey
East-leading Boston College. Schneider may have put
together this season's most remarkable individual
feat. After knocking away 45 shots for the U.S. National
Junior Team in the bronze medal game loss to Finland
on Jan. 5, Schneider made the 2,500-mile journey down
to Providence, where he backstopped the Eagles with
43 saves in a 4-1 win over the Friars. That matchup
of the two teams tied for first place in Hockey East
came just about 49-and-a-half hours after he faced
the Finns.
This two-game set at The Heights on
Friday and Saturday night could prove to be Vermont’s
most important weekend of the entire regular season,
as the Green and Gold try to prove that it can and
will challenge for the league crown. The Catamounts
sit in fifth place and are nine points behind the
Eagles in the standings, but they have also played
two fewer games.
A pair of wins for UVM will bring the
team to within five points and give it a chance to
get within one thanks to the two extra games in the
last six weekends of the season. Taking anything less
than three points from BC, however, will leave Vermont
virtually out of the title chase.
If the Eagles successfully defend their
home ice, they will have a very favorable inside track
on their fourth regular season league crown in a row
and fifth in the last six years, as they currently
hold a six-point lead in the standings over UNH and
Providence, who sit tied for second.
Great Weekend Getaway
Vermont
at Boston College (Fri.-Sat.) In the combined four games that
Fallon and Schneider started last weekend, the
two youngsters stopped 87 of the 88 shots that
they saw. But these two teams are deeper than
just their goalies. BC is ranked second in the
freshest edition of the INCH Power Rankings
while UVM sits cozily in the fifth slot.
While You’re
There: If you don’t feel like walking
around Boston on Saturday, since it’s
scheduled to rain, or maybe snow, but possibly
sleet with the chance it could be windy –
OK, so no one has any idea what the weather
will be like this weekend – check out
the New England Sports Museum, which is open
from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. If you want
to laugh, go to the latest Bruins section. Feel
like shedding a tear, read all about the Red
Sox. How about a smile? Meander through the
Patriots room. Indecisive? There’s always
the Celtics. The New England Sports Museum:
Where There’s Something For Everyone.
Stick
Salute
Just
five days after UNH coach Richard Umile
coached in his 600th career game, a 2-1 win
over Vermont at the Whitt on Jan. 6, the Wildcats
won their 1,000th game of all time in a 4-1
victory at Yale. UNH has since won Game No.
1,001, and Umile has been on the bench for 366
of those congratulatory handshakes.
Bench
Minor
Over the past month, this section
of the Hockey East notebook has turned into
“The Northeastern Watch,” and since
we at INCH don’t like to pick on teams
over and over and over again, especially those
mired in a tough transitional year, this week’s
bench minor will switch gears. The Tuesday announcement
from Fox saying it will finally
cancel “That 70’s Show” was
a year overdue. The show was one of the funniest
on television for seven years, but when a main
character, like that of Eric, is no longer around,
it’s really time to hang it up. Fans of
the show should now remember this season, its
eighth overall, in the same way Michael Jordan
fans remember “The Wizard Years”
– neither one ever actually happened.
FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG
• Merrimack defenseman Bryan Schmidt
moved into a tie with Mike Boyce for the school’s
all-time record for goals scored by a defenseman.
Schmidt’s fourth goal of the season, which was
also the lone Warrior tally in two games against the
Eagles over the weekend, was the 32nd of his career.
Let’s hope Schmidt isn’t too superstitious.
The senior’s record-tying goal came on Friday
the 13th, and he only has 13 games left to set the
new bar.
• UMass has had two separate
three-game winning streaks this season, but after
the first set, which took place from Nov. 12-25 against
Boston University, Vermont and Colorado College, the
Minutemen proceeded to lose four of their next five
games, including three in a row at the tail end of
that stretch. The Maroon and White went on its second
trifecta from Dec. 30 to Jan. 7, with a win over Army
followed by two over Merrimack, but the Minutemen
dropped a 6-2 decision to Lowell to end the winning
ways. The up-and-down road may continue for UMass,
as it takes on UNH in a home-and-home this weekend.
Since bouncing the Wildcats from the Hockey East tournament
two years ago, the Minutemen have lost four in a row
to their neighbors from the north and have been outscored
22-3 in that stretch.
• UNH exacted a bit of revenge
on in-state rival Dartmouth in the two teams’
annual showdown in Manchester on Saturday night. After
the Wildcats had an 8-5 third-period lead in last
year’s affair, the Big Green rallied for a quartet
of goals in the game’s final 10 minutes, including
the game-winner with 1:27 remaining on the clock to
escape with a wild 9-8 victory. The rematch didn’t
disappoint, even with that high standard set. With
the Wildcats leading 4-3, Dartmouth pulled its goalie
and grabbed the tying goal with just 45 seconds to
play, but Jacob Micflikier – who couldn’t
capitalize on a penalty shot with 23 seconds remaining
– scored the game-winning goal with 14.9 ticks
left to clinch a 5-4 win and the RiverStone Cup.
• Northeastern has tried shaking
things up by sticking freshman goalie Doug Jewer in
net of late. It’s just too bad he can’t
help the team score. Jewer has played in each of the
team’s last five games while starting in four
of them, and he has boasted a .916 save percentage
on top of a 2.46 GAA. But the Huskies have managed
to score just five goals during that stretch –
all losses – and have been shut out in three
straight games.
• Boston College freshman Benn
Ferriero has put together an impressive four-game
goal-scoring streak in which he has tallied five lamplighters
and an assist for six points. In the Eagles’
last seven Hockey East games, which date back to a
6-2 loss to BU on Dec. 3, Ferriero has scored all
13 of his points (9-4—13). He has scored a goal
in each of those seven contests.
• Boston University swept the
season series with Maine for the first time in eight
years, but it didn’t come without a fight. With
the Black Bears seemingly moving towards a victory
in Friday night’s affair, the Terriers rallied
for two third-period goals, including a Kenny Roche
game-winner with just 1:10 left to play. Saturday’s
game was back and forth throughout until BU used a
two-goal surge in the third to take a 5-3 lead. The
score almost didn’t hold up, however, as Derek
Damon added a fourth goal with Matt Lundin out of
the net and just 18 seconds to go. The Terriers’
big weekend throttled them ahead of the Black Bears
into fourth place in the standings, just two points
in back of UNH and Providence.
John Laliberte’s power-play goal
on Friday was the first one Maine has allowed in 30
penalty-kill situations. The Terriers have scored
two of the seven power-play goals that the Black Bears
have allowed this season. Finally, of the 12 total
goals that sophomore goalie Matt Lundin has allowed
this season, five of them have been scored by the
Terriers.
• Lowell is just 3-13-0 during
games that are played on Friday and Saturday nights,
but 5-0-0 during the other five days of the week.
With 13 games left on the slate, the River Hawks must
play 12 of them on a Friday or Saturday. That other
game is on a Thursday, but it’s against Boston
College.
A
variety of sources were utilized in the compilation
of this report.
