With just four games left in the regular season, Connecticut coach Mike Cavanaugh has no intention of his team taking its foot off the gas.
The Huskies — currently in fifth place in Hockey East with an 11-8-2 record (17-10-3 overall) and 16th in the latest USCHO.com men’s D-I poll — are very much in contention for a first-round bye in the conference tournament and could very well make a deep run. One thing UConn won’t be doing — which Cavanaugh made abundantly clear during a recent press availability — is taking it easy in order to rest for the postseason.
“We’re going to play every game to win them — no one’s going to be getting any rest,” Cavanaugh said. “I don’t approach it, really, by where our seeding is. You’d like to get the bye, that’s for sure, and not have to play in the play-in game, but then it doesn’t really matter.”
The Huskies’ seeding for the single-elimination Hockey East tournament will come down to its performance in its final three league games, starting Saturday night at home against New Hampshire. If it has any NCAA tournament ambitions, however, UConn cannot afford to look past Thursday’s non-conference home contest vs. Alaska Anchorage. A 19th-place ranking in the current PairWise rankings puts the Huskies firmly on the bubble for an at-large bid.
“Every game is really important,” Cavanaugh said. “When you have 34 games (the) non-conference games, sometimes, are more important than the conference games. You look at Penn State (Big Ten) right now, (they’re) 10-0 in non-conference games, and that’s why they’re a top-10 team in the country.”
The Hockey East tournament begins March 8 with seeds 6-11 facing off at the home of the higher seed. The remaining teams will be re-seeded and travel to seeds 1, 2 and 3 with the No. 4 seed hosting No 5 in the quarterfinals on March 11. The four quarterfinal winners will be re-seeded again and meet in the semifinals on St. Patrick’s Day at TD Garden, with the championship game the following night.
Northeastern (currently in first place at 12-5-3), Boston University (second, 14-6-0) and Merrimack (13-8-0) have clinched byes to the quarterfinals. UMass-Lowell, UConn, Providence, Boston College and Maine are all mathematically alive for a bye, while UNH, UMass and Vermont can all potentially finish as high as eighth, which would guarantee a first-round home game.
BU had been ranked as high as No. 3 in the national poll but has since lost four straight and now sits at No. 9 (eighth in PairWise). Coach Jay Pandolfo said his team is focused on getting back on a winning track and isn’t all that concerned about Hockey East tournament seedings entering a two-game set at Vermont this weekend.
“We’re trying to get better every day in practice and worry about our next game. Right now, that’s our focus. We have to get back to finding a way to win again. (We’re) not really not thinking about anything else other than that.”
Last season, the Huskies fell just short of a NCAA tournament bid after losing 2-1 to UMass in the Hockey East championship game. Cavanaugh said a strong showing at the end of the regular season could very well lead to postseason success.
“It gets to a point where it’s one and done,” Cavanaugh said. “You really want to focus on playing your best hockey this time of year, and not so much what’s happened in the past, or what could’ve or what should’ve or what would happen if this team does this, or scoreboard watching. We just have to focus on playing the best hockey we can play.”
