College Hockey:

This Week in Hockey East: March 6, 2008

Pile-up At The Finish Line

I’m not going to even try to figure out all the different possible orders of finish in this absurdly close race as we go into the final weekend of the regular season. If I tell you that BC or Providence could finish as high as second and as low as seventh, I think you’ll get the idea.

Still, a few facts are worth noting:

• BU has their destiny in their hands when it comes to finishing second. If they sweep Providence, they will be second no matter what happens; they hold the tiebreaker advantage over Vermont. For that matter, they would hold the tiebreaker edge over Providence if they ended with a tie and a loss against the Friars this weekend. BC is the one team that would have the edge on BU with the tiebreaker if the two teams ended up tied. A BC sweep and a BU split would be one scenario that would give the Eagles a better seed.

• While Northeastern and Lowell are technically alive for the last home ice spot, the odds are against it. An NU sweep over BC–or a win and a tie, with the tiebreaker–would put the Huskies ahead of BC, but they still would need BU to sweep Providence and Lowell to get less points than they do this weekend.

• UMass is two points up on Maine for the last playoff spot… but Maine wins the tiebreaker against the Minutemen. So Maine would need to sweep Lowell up at Orono and then hope that UMass gets no more than a split against Merrimack. The somewhat dubious prize will be a date with top-seeded UNH.

So how did Dave and I fare in predicting the final order of finish? That still remains to be seen:

Dave’s Preseason Picks
1 BC
2 UNH
3 BU
4 Maine
5 Vermont
6 UMass
7 Northeastern
8 Providence
9 Mass-Lowell
10 Merrimack

Scott’s Preseason Picks
1 UNH
2 BU
3 BC
4 Maine
5 Vermont
6 Northeastern
7 UMass
8 Providence
9 Mass-Lowell
10 Merrimack

We were equally far off in our prognostications on Maine and, in all probability, Providence. I have a little edge with UNH in first, perhaps, but Dave can root for a BC sweep to help him be exactly right on Northeastern and as close as possible with BC. We’ll see who gets bragging rights by Saturday night.

Husky Believability

This year’s curious race is most epitomized by BU, Vermont, UMass, and Northeastern. The Terriers and Catamounts had a bad start, while the upstart Minutemen and Huskies dented the national top ten late in 2007. Then there was a turnabout, and we see BU and UVM tied for second while Northeastern and UMass have sunk below the .500 mark in the last few weeks.

Talking to Husky coach Greg Cronin, I told him that I viewed the Northeastern program as having taken three or four steps forward this year… followed by two or three steps back. He offered his perspective in response.

“All coaches have different ways of evaluating the game,” Cronin said. “You try to do it objectively so you’re giving your team information that’s got some integrity with it, right? Two words that I use together quite a bit are believability and substance. And I said all the time that there was not a lot of substance behind our winning because we were winning games by one goal. If you look at that streak — that 9-0-2 — I believe that with a couple of empty netters and the two ties that nine out of the 11 were one-goal games [or less] We’ve been in these battles all year long, and you are what you are, right? So if you’re winning one-goal games, it’s just as possible that you’re going to lose those one-goal games as well.”

I can attest that Cronin was far from giddy by the team’s successes when I spoke to him back earlier this season. He dismissed the team’s top 20 ranking as a “superficial pat on the back” and just about shrugged off the team’s holiday tournament victory. The successes were enjoyable, but he was clear that the program had not arrived just yet.

“I said before the year started that it we could get some production out of our freshmen early that we’d be in good shape. I felt that just being here in the league for two years at that point that the upperclassmen on most teams are the ones that guide the team early in the year. And then as the younger ones get comfortable, they start to produce. I think what happened to us is that the young kids were the catalyst behind the success early and then we got injuries, which in our situation is really difficult. We’ve only got six D playing right now, and we started the year with ten. When we got injuries, it knocked us out of that rhythm. And that believability we had became less and less and the substance I identified with earlier in the year became more of an issue.”

The Huskies showed signs of turning the corner on the tough stretch in the last couple of weeks. “If you look at the last three games, we could’ve won. The path to losing is paved with coulda woulda shoulda but that’s what we all do. I’m sure UMass would say the same thing. We actually played better in the last three games against BU and Lowell than we did the first time we played those teams, when we won and tied against them. Statistically we actually played well in all three of those [losses]. We played our style of hockey, but we didn’t score the timely goal, and we didn’t keep the puck out of the net. Someone said to me today, If you just won two out of those three, you’d be sitting in third place right now.’”

I asked if it had been difficult to manage the team’s psyche given the letdown in 2008. “That’s the biggest challenge of coaching at any level — getting guys to feel confident and good about themselves when you’re losing. And I think that the other thing that’s exacerbated the whole situation is that there was so much enthusiasm, [visions of] 20 wins, national tournament, home ice a program that is really starving for some success.

“That’s what I really feel as the coach, and I don’t know if the players feel it as much, but I feel that we had really promoted such an exciting brand of hockey that was going to translate into an exciting finish. I think it really mobilized our alumni and injected them with enthusiasm. Their believability was sky high. As a coach, you’re trying to measure that. I’ve coached teams that have been to the national finals and to the national tournament, and I know what that substance represents. And I knew that we’re not quite there yet, but we’re very, very close. That’s why I was trying to temper some of that enthusiasm that was surrounding the program earlier in the year.

“Did I think we’d lose five straight down the homestretch? Not in a million years — not in a million years. But it happened. Hey, I was in the American Hockey League, and we won 23 or 25 games without a loss — some crazy stat like that — and then we went into a two or three-game losing streak. And those were pro players — really mentally tough — but they started gripping the sticks tightly. College kids, there’s a lot of days between games, so that sting sits there a bit. I’m not trying to put a superficial silver lining on it, but we’re going to learn from it. I can’t predict what’s going to happen Friday or Saturday. I just have to get our guys focused on what we have to do to manage a game well and win a game.

Last weekend was particularly painful. On Friday, the Huskies showed real heart by coming back with a 4-2 third-period deficit on the road against Lowell, only to lose in overtime. On Saturday at home, they again rallied from a two-goal differential, only to lose on a third-period goal.

“Either one of those games could’ve gone either way and to come out with zero… Even to get two points, Scott, you’re battling for home ice and you’ve got the same carrot that BC’s chasing. But the issue is to manage the game and to get that believability back.”

Even one win against BC would do a great deal to accomplish that.

Sixty Minute-Men

How about that other team that has seen their season turn around unpleasantly? I saw UMass lose in person at BU on Friday and then watched them get outshot by a significant margin at home on Saturd