Northeastern earned 19 wins last season, a feat accomplished only seven times since joining the conference in 1984. The Hounds of Huntington Avenue are most pleased about the new Hockey East playoff format with all teams qualifying because they have failed to make it four times this decade. They are among the nine of 10 Hockey East teams with a winning non-conference record.
Orono – The University of Maine released the 2014-15 Men’s Ice Hockey schedule this morning. The full schedule can be found here. The schedule begins with the annual exhibition game against New Brunswick at Alfond Arena on Sunday, October 5. Maine begins the NCAA season with a trip to Alaska for the Kendall Hockey Classic. Maine will play host Alaska-Anchorage on Friday and Alaska on Saturday. These games are exempt from the 34-game schedule as they take place in Alaska. Maine begins the home slate the next weekend with defending national champion Union on homecoming weekend. The next week Maine welcomes the Seawolves of UAA to Alfond for the first time since 1990.
The Hockey East schedule kicks off the next week with the Massachusetts Minutemen coming to town. Later in the month of November, a home game against rival Boston University is sandwiched around trips to play the Vermont Catamounts and Boston for the Terriers and Eagles. A non-conference series against Vermont at the Alfond closes the month. December has only three games – and none at the Alfond – but does feature a game at defending Hockey East champion Lowell and a pair of games against New Hampshire. The first at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester and the next night at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland.
The new year starts early as Maine plays host to old friend Tyler Walsh (Director of Hockey Operations) and the Canisius Golden Griffs on January 2-3. Maine wraps up the non-conference schedule the following weekend at Massachusetts. The final 14 games will feature Hockey East opposition, including Boston College, Lowell and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish making their first trip to Alfond since 1991. The season will conclude with a rematch of last season’s Hockey East tournament at Schneider Arena in Providence.
I predict a record of 22-9-5 overall, and 12-6-2 in Hockey East which should qualify the Black Bears for a first-round bye in the new Hockey East playoff format. The team’s chances at an NCAA berth are a little more precarious. Last season both New Hampshire and Vermont won 20 games and failed to qualify. The new calculation for pairwise hurts teams who schedule a lot of home games as Maine has done this season by devaluing those wins. A home win is multiplied by .8 as opposed to a neutral win which is 1.0 and road which is 1.2. When all is said and done, I believe Maine will do enough to garner a 3-seed in Providence. A little extra motivation for the team this season is that next April’s Frozen Four is being held in Boston.
Looking ahead at next season, Maine will again play the 22 games in Hockey East. We know there will again be two against New Hampshire and the Icebreaker in Portland. They will also have the return visit to Union. Hopefully this will mark the end of the non-conference games against Vermont and Massachusetts. Assuming it does, that leaves 10 games to be filled (the Icebreaker games are exempt). Of those, I would expect six or eight of those to be at home with one or two road series included. Opponents that have been rumored include Yale, Denver, North Dakota, Michigan State and Penn State. A potential series with Duluth will likely be delayed until 2016-17 at least.
In 2010 the Nanooks qualified for their first and only appearance in the NCAA tournament and were rewarded with the longest trip ever in a hockey regional – Fairbanks to Worcester. They have been within 3 games of a .500 record six times in the decade. They also have the honor of losing the fewest number of non-conference games of any member of the old CCHA. However, Alaska is probably best known in the college hockey world for this dazzling intro from the 2009-10 campaign:
After going the first half of the decade never approaching the .500 mark, RPI has achieved that level of success three of the last five seasons. In 2011 they converted their first 20-win season in a decade into an NCAA appearance. The next steps for RPI are to win in conference – where they are 28 games under .500 – and in the ECAC tournament -where they are the only team in the conference with single-digit wins come tournament time.
Canisius has only put together two winning campaigns in the decade. The Golden Griffin’s saving grace is the tournament run they made in 2013, running the table to win the AHA crown and claim a first-ever spot in the NCAA tournament. They almost pulled off another miracle this season, coming within a period of two tournaments in a row. The Griffs need to translate this tournament success to the regular season and then they can move up this list. For now, #45 is where they sit.
The Chargers were very happy in the old College Hockey America conference. Two regular season crowns early in the last decade and a pair of tournament titles and NCAA appearances at the end. Unfortunately for Huntsville geography – both on the map and in the college hockey world – worked against them and almost killed the program. The years as an Independent saw the team struggle to only nine wins in three seasons. They were able to join the WCHA in the offseason shakeup but managed only two wins in the new conference. On a pro-rated basis, UAH would be 13 places higher if they had remained in the CHA for a full decade. As the successful CHA years fade away the Chargers are going to need to win again to maintain this rank.
Merrimack’s 25-win season in 2010-11 was its first winning campaign since joining Hockey East. The Warriors have failed to get 10 wins in a season five times – including the disasterous 3-win season in 2006-07. They are the only Hockey East team with a sub-400 record (.344) in conference play. The best years of the Dennehy-era may be behind him as the team struggled to only eight wins last season. They will have to get markedly better to move up this list.
More schedules are being released as the summer months begin. So far Maine’s official schedule looks like:
10/04/14 New Brunswick
10/10/14 @Alaska-Anchorage &
10/11/14 v Alaska &
10/17/14 Union
10/18/14 Union
10/24/14 Alaska-Anchorage
10/25/14 Alaska-Anchorage
11/07/14 @Vermont *
11/08/14 @Vermont *
11/21/14 @Boston University *
11/22/14 @Boston College *
12/06/14 @Lowell *
12/12/14 v New Hampshire (Manchester)
12/13/14 v New Hampshire (Portland)
01/09/15 @Massachusetts
01/10/15 @Massachusetts
01/23/15 New Hampshire *
01/24/15 @New Hampshire *
02/01/15 @Connecticut *
02/06/15 Notre Dame *
02/07/15 Notre Dame *
02/13/15 @Merrimack *
02/14/15 @Merrimack *
02/20/15 Northeastern *
02/21/15 Northeastern *
02/27/15 @Providence *
02/28/15 @Providence *
& – Exempt
* – Hockey East games
The home conference games vs Lowell, Connecticut, Boston College and Boston University are yet to be scheduled.
There are four games left to be scheduled. All are anticipated to be home games. Teams with available dates which match Maine’s are:
AHA: AIC, Army, Bentley, Holy Cross, Air Force, Canisius
ECAC: Dartmouth
HEA: Providence, Vermont
B1G: Michigan, Penn State
NCHC: Western Michigan
WCHA: Bowling Green
Since Maine will be playing a NC game at UMass after hosting the Minutemen last season, it makes some sense that Maine will host Vermont as well. That would leave one weekend series to fill. There is still a chance for the new program at Penn State to visit Orono on January 2-3 but odds are that final spot will go to one of the remaining six AHA teams.
Winning the AHA tournament and getting some NCAA experience is just what the Colonials needed as they head into a second decade of Division I play. After splitting the first two games against Army, RMU put together a five game winning streak to capture the tournament. They have had a winning season each of the four years since the CHA folded and they joined the AHA after reaching the .500 mark just once in the old conference.
It has been a long two decades since the glory days up on the Soo came to a sudden and painful end. The Lakers have won 20 games only once and had a winning season only five times since, and there has been no post-season hardware. They suffered seven first round exits in nine seasons in the old CCHA and missed the WCHA playoffs entirely this season. Lake State is hoping a new coach will bring back a winning tradition. His first task will be to qualify for the WCHA playoffs and advance past the first round.
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