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Beanpot BONANZA! · This Week in Hockey East

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Coming up on this week in Hockey East, we preview a beanpot final between Northeastern and Boston University and a couple of huge games with pairwise and hockey standings implications on the men's side.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's all coming up on This Week in Hockey East.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of This Week in Hockey East.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Great to be back with you along with Bridget Peru.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Eric Galanti.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: This time of year is so great.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: We get to talk about women's beanpot.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: We get to talk about a lot of just awesome men's games.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot to talk about right now.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: So let's jump right in.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Our Friday night Hockey East game of the week will take place in Durham, New Hampshire, as the Wildcats try to bounce back from last weekend against UConn as they take on a Boston University team that may have had one of their best weekends of the season last week, at least offensively, they certainly did against Vermont.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start with the Terriers, who we've discussed a lot this year, Bridget.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: But where do you kind of feel like BU is right now?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm excited to be on this call.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, this will be a game that immediately follows this show.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but so to just look into BU and what they've been able to do in this last week, they're trying to bounce back from that seven to five loss against Yale in their non-conference game.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think they did a really good job of just putting that game behind them with this weekend.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: They had 13 goals in two games.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and in their 11 conference games, the Terriers have scored a league leading 45 goals, uh, which that success has led them to be second in the Hockey East standings.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're only one point behind Maine at the moment.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So uh they've had more success in their conference schedule than their non-conference schedule.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you see them putting together two more solid wins against Vermont.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look at just the points production over the weekend, uh they had they're six and two in their last eight games.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: They averaged 4.8 goals per game in that stretch, which is, you know, that's obviously really high anytime you're up near five goals per game.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so they scored four goals uh in seven of those eight games.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And remember that loss to Yale, they were without three players that were over at World Juniors.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Cole Eiserman, Cole Hudson, Brendan Svoboda, all were back for the weekend series against Vermont.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Cole Eiserman came back, went right back to scoring.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: He had a hat trick in Saturday's game, and then some other players of note that had big weekends, Ryan Green had a five-point weekend, and Quinn Hudson is our service credit union scoring leader.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: He had three goals and two assists in BU's offensive explosion this weekend.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think it's really interesting to see what the special teams did as well, right?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, we've talked about the penalties with BU, but the thing that kind of is important to talk about is not just the taking penalties, it's the fact that the penalty kill had struggled a little bit.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I thought they were really good on the penalty kill this past weekend, right?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: They were six for six in the two games against Vermont.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: In the two losses they had in that six and two stretch that you mentioned, they allowed three power play goals in each of those games.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then on their own power play, it's now four games in a row.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: They've scored two power play goals.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's pretty crazy.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: That includes the loss to Yale that you mentioned.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: So the power plays clicking right now, that's where Iserman really thrives.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And look, you know, you get three of the next five games against this New Hampshire team.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the two in between are BC, so it's a tough stretch.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's going to be a common theme of this show.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk about every hockey's team has a tough stretch because hockey is just hard, right?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it is right now.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it'll be interesting to see how BU kind of can they carry that momentum of some of the stuff they did offensively, plus that penalty kill against this UNH team that, you know, tough weekend, certainly.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they dropped those two games to UConn, but I think everybody's going to have these weekends, right, Bridget?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like the league's so good, you're not going to be able to, you know, even defend home ice sometimes with these teams.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: We just saw it with Boston College last week against Merrimack.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: We saw it a bunch of different examples of it.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you lose a couple of games.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think the uncharacteristic thing about the weekend for UNH was how many shots they gave up to UConn.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: They gave up 36 shots on Saturday.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's only the second time since the start of last season that they've given up more than 35 shots in a game.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, that's where UNH is always really good, limiting those shot attempts.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: BU, obviously, we know what they can do offensively.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a really important thing that we have to watch.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: But on the positive side, I thought UNH's power play was really good last week.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: And they scored all three of their goals on the power play.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they got a lot of chances, which they hadn't been getting.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's important.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Robert Cronin scored in both games.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: He's got four goals in his last five.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Marty Lavins, I thought was really good, nine points in his last nine games.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I think we're gonna see a resurgent UNH team uh here this week against BU.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Eric, UNH really needs those hockey east points right now.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're at the bottom of the standings.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: BU obviously a top team in the country.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're right back up there.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: They've bounced back into number eight in the pairwise.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: So not gonna be an easy game to get or an easy weekend series to get points in, but they definitely need them.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so right now, uh 11th in the hockey east standings with just eight league points and needing to improve on that as they get into now.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're we got our feet into the second half of the season where things can really uh shift up in the standings.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And like you mentioned, such a strong conference, you got to take the points when you can get them.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's pretty crazy that we're we have potential NCAA tournament teams at the bottom of the hockey standings, but very much in the NCAA tournament picture.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, New Hampshire does have two games in hand, as you talked about, but those two extra games this year against BC and BU.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's you know, you take both sides of it, certainly.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: But should be a really interesting matchup.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Looking forward to watching you on it.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: B BU taking on New Hampshire.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of big matchups this week across Hockey East, but we're going to transition to the beanpot and what we saw Tuesday night at Matthews Arena and get you set for what we might see this coming Tuesday at TD Garden.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's next on This Week in Hockey East.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to This Week in Hockey East.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And this week, of course, was the start of the women's beanpot on Tuesday.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Bridget, you were there.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just dive in.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start with game one.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Boston University survives.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the right word?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: A really late goal to tie it, an overtime winner.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: They survive Harvard and move on to the championship game.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: What stood out to you about BU's performance?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for me, it was just that the game was scoreless through the first two periods.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And even though uh BU had heavily outshot Harvard, both teams were still in the game.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was up for grabs for anyone.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was Harvard that scored first.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then Harvard held onto that lead all the way into the final minute, like you mentioned.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a goal with 55 seconds remaining from Sidney Healy that ended up sending this game to overtime.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was an extra attacker goal.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Callie Shanahan was out of the BU net, and they were able to find a way to tie this.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, funny enough, last year in the Beanpot Championship game, they did a similar thing.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: They tied Northeastern with under a minute left in regulation.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: But this time, when they went to overtime, they got the game-winning goal.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it was from Lindsay Bachner, who's our Jersey Mike's, a sub-above women's player of the week.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to give it to Lindsay Bachner, not just because it was a game-winning goal, but because it was her first goal in the beanpot.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: She played at Providence College for the last four seasons.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So now she's coming in, getting to experience it for the first time, and was really excited to get that game winner for her team.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: She's acclimated really well.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's really amazing.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Harvard almost scared another team, right?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen this this last couple of years since Laura Bellamy's come in as part of this rebuild for the Crimson that, you know, they have this ability, even though they're absorbing a lot of shots, to, you know, potentially scare someone.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And they almost did it again here in this first round game.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I thought BU did a really nice job sticking with it all the way through the end, and they finally have the opportunity and they get that game-winning goal.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Let's transition to the second game.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: They'll take on Northeastern in the final.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: And boy, Northeastern was just really solid in that first period.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: It felt like Bridget.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know BC gave them a scare at the end of the game, but that what, three goals and basically a four-minute segment kind of put this game away.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was just such a fast start from Northeastern.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of expected this game to be more of a high-scoring game just because of these offenses and the teams.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Boston College has a really strong top line with Pellerin, Tabor, and New Hooks that have all been reunited.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just expecting, you know, they're going to be able to get the scoring going.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: But Northeastern just shot out of a cannon in their last game, last beanpot game at Matthews Arena, more than likely, because it rotates every four years, and Matthews is kind of coming to a close.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it meant more.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: The crowd was absolutely packed.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: The student section was sold out, and it was actually the largest crowd at a game at Matthews Arena for a woman's game.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was so loud there was times where I couldn't hear my producers.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was just the atmosphere was amazing.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of makes me think that it's foreshadowing an even bigger crowd than we got last year at the beanpot final at TV Garden.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: It was not for lack of chances for Boston College, right?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: They had 19 shots in the third period, 31 shots over the last two periods alone.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but they just could not find that goal until, as you said, the extra attacker goal.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, and and how about Northeastern again?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Just they always seem to rise to the occasion, no matter what the situation is in this tournament, in many tournaments.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and they do it once again.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we will get to see Northeastern and Boston University in the final coming up on Tuesday at TD Garden.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Should be great.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Can't wait to watch you, Bridget, have the call.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and can't wait to see what the crowd looks like.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because once again, we've had this momentum of women's hockey here in this area, and I think it should be uh a really spectacular atmosphere.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Can't wait to watch it on Tuesday.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Plenty more to come on our show.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: We have a couple of other huge men's games that we have to talk about.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: We'll go there next on This Week in Hockey East.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to this episode of This Week in Hockey East.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Bridget Prue here with Eric Galanti.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to go around the men's side of Hockey East, brought to you by Boston Harbor Hotel.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And Eric, we have two games we really want to spotlight this week: Providence College against Boston College.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's a top five matchup in the pairwise, and then UConn in Maine, another uh with more implications on the pairwise as well.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: We'll finish off the segment with that.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: But first, just want to start with Providence and what they've been able to do because they come in on an eight-game win streak that dates back to late November in that win against LIU that it was a tough win for them.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then ever since that, they kind of hit a turning point.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: They've won their holiday tournaments.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so they enter this game against number two Boston College in pretty good shape and feeling confident they get Trevor Connolly back uh from World Juniors.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: BC gets uh the rest of their players back.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: They had six guys or seven guys at World Juniors, so they they come back to full strength, full rosters, both of these teams.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then to look at the January schedule, uh it's been a light schedule for Boston or for Providence College.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: They only had one game January 7th, and that was against Brown in a non-conference game.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: They've been off for over a week.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: So they come in with the potential to, you know, maybe have a little bit of rust after that long time off.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's always that rest versus rust argument.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Boston College in that time played three games.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: They played Friday, Saturday, Tuesday uh with that Harvard non-conference game.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Normally you might say, you could do the rust argument.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: You say that actually might benefit Providence because BC has played a lot, but I actually think it benefits Boston College because I think they needed to get their legs back under them a little bit.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we started to see that, especially at the end of the third period in that Harvard game.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I think that this matchup is such a it's for both of these teams starts a really big time stretch, right?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Providence in his next 11 games here.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: BC, Lowell, Yukon, Maine, BU, Lowell.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, are you kidding?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Boston College, next stretch here.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: These these two with Providence, the two with Boston University, the one off against Lowell in the beanpot.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, these stretches, as we talked about earlier in the show, are pretty crazy.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the thing with Providence, I just wanted to mention too, how about Logan Will?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how good has this guy been?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's points in all eight games of this win streak, three goals, nine points, goals in three of his last four.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: He did it against Colorado College, you know, as a transfer from CC, and he leads hockey east in plus-minus.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'm really excited to watch him on Friday, someone we probably haven't talked about enough and how good he's been.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: The thing I want to see from Boston College, and I was having this conversation with a lot of folks at the game on Tuesday, is it feels like at the same time they have 14 wins, they're second in the pairwise, they're pretty far and away, uh, a one seed if everything goes the way they're supposed to go this year.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it feels like they actually have some potential to jump up quite a bit.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you like expected goals, which I know Steve Metcalf's gonna roll his eyes out as he's watching it, but I'm just gonna go there for a second.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you take CHN, which has a pretty good job on expected goals, Boston College has actually underperformed their expected goals in 11 of their 14, of 11 of their last 14 games.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it feels like they actually have the potential to score even a little bit more than they are.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you've started to see the depth scoring the last couple of games.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really interesting to see if that continues against Providence.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a great rivalry.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's also been some pretty big blowouts in this rivalry over the years, oddly so.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it'll be interesting to see what we get.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the other big one is you talked about Maine against UConn, Maine, what a solid weekend they had against Lowell, huh?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Three wins in a row now with Denver and two against Lowell.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: All of them low-scoring tight games.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: 2-1, 3-1, 2-1.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Harrison Scott was amazing again last weekend.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, I think Ryan Leonard might be the favorite for Hockeys player of the year, but Harrison Scott's right there too.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, two goals Saturday.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: He's averaging a goal per game over his last nine.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: The shot numbers were crazy for Maine.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: They outshot Lowell 21-4 in the first period on Saturday.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: When has anyone ever done that to Lowell?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's pretty crazy.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Maine is number one in the country in Corsi, which is your shots attempts for the ratio of your shot attempts against.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're number one in controlling kind of the flow.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they'll take on this red hot Yukon team who put themselves firmly in the conversation.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: We've been talking about it here.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: We've been telling you, Yukon's right there.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: If they just get a couple of these wins, they got two of them against UNH, um, two short-handed goals, three power play goals for the weekend.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: UConn now leads the country with seven shorthanded goals this year.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Hudson Shandor was awesome.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: He had goal, has goals in three straight games.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited to see.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Can UConn do this again?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Can they go on the road?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Good goaltending right now.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Their main guys are producing right now.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Can they go do it at a place that not many people do it up in Orino?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Can't wait to see how this weekend plays out.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and UConn right now, number 11 in the parwise.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that actually puts them inside the cut line as well.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: So uh we have uh another, you know, top 15 matchup in Hockey East in that one.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Yukon's upcoming schedule, the next three weeks look like this.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: They have two against Maine, then they play Quinnipiac in the Connecticut Ice, and then they have a home and home series with Providence.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: That is not an easy schedule.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna find out.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna find out about this Yukon team.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Coming up next, we'll talk about another key women's game to watch this weekend and do a little pairwise talk that's coming up on this week in Hockey East.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: We continue around Hockey East.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: This segment brought to you by Boston Children's Hospital.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Really key women's game to watch this weekend be outside of the beanpot.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Northeastern is in action.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: They'll take on Providence College.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: This Providence team is starting to make some noise here, and they've now moved themselves up firmly into fifth place in Hockey East.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, they had a good weekend against Holy Cross last weekend, and now they get Northeastern in a weird time where they're they're playing they played Tuesday, round one.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: They won in that matchup for the beanpot.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then this is the middle ground series between these two teams.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Providence did take the matchup earlier in the year, two to one.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And now they're trying to slow Northeastern down, even though Northeastern seems to have picked up a little bit of steam here with that beanpot win in the first round.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: So they bookend that.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they'll be back, Northeastern will be back next Tuesday for the championship game.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it'll be interesting to see what Daiflin decides to do with the goalie situation because uh for Providence, it's pretty certainly gonna be Hopelinski.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: She's had an awesome season.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: For Northeastern, Lisa Jensen is the top goalie in hockey east and goals against average, safe percentage, but she's gonna be playing a lot this week.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, do we see Paige Taborski in one of the two games uh in this Providence series?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, uh definitely can go to either of these goalies and feel pretty confident their numbers have been good this year.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Two young goalies, and they're both doing really well.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, and I do want to note that last weekend when I was doing the PC games, Hopolinski made two saves that were better than most saves I've seen this season.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, she can get post-to-post really quick.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've been so impressed with her improvement from even just last year when she was already good to making these saves that just no goalie has a chance really on.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And she's been doing that a lot.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you're gonna need her to play really well against Northeastern.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she's only allowed two goals on her last 58 shots over the last three games.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it really stands out.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Providence is now firmly in fifth place with their next four games, two with Northeastern, two with Boston College.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll get to see uh how good they are.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, should we should we do a little pairwise?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do we have time for a little pairwise?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: The floor is yours, Eric.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is you know, I was just thinking it's really amazing how, you know, on the women's side, we've talked about it a lot.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: We have four teams that we're gonna talk about the rest of the way here, and can they work their way up?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: On the men's side, I think we might be talking about 11 teams having an opportunity.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, is that crazy?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: The entire Hockey East Men's Conference is in the top 27 of the pairwise right now.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Merrimack has jumped into the top 25.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Northeastern is back in the top 25.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then you look at the number of teams in the tournament right now, seven teams in qualifying position, not just on the bubble, in qualifying position.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Six teams would be top three seeds right now.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's really remarkable.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why when we keep reading off these schedules to you of look what these teams have, nobody's gonna drop all that far.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's certainly clusters where the RPI is close.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you might see a New Hampshire drop from say 10 to 13 with a couple of losses to UConn, but no one's gonna drop a crazy amount because of where these teams are in Hockey East and where they are in the pairwise.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it's gonna be a really crazy stretch.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk more about it as we go through.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: We had a lot of games to talk about this week, so we'll leave it there.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: But a really, really fun time to be a Hockey East fan right now.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: We'll take some short shifts on the other side when we come back.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to this week in Hockey East.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Bridget Prue here with Eric Galante.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to take some short shifts to finish off the show.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's presented by the Shift Group, helping former athletes and veterans become elite business professionals.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: We want to talk about the Merrimack men's team.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: They've been doing pretty well since they came back from Belfast.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, how good has Merrimack been here?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: The upset against BC kind of validates what they've been doing.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, going back all the way to coming back from Northern Ireland, they're five and two.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, their goaltending's been so good in that time.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Nils Wallstrom has played a bunch.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we've seen Max Lundgren play pretty well.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: There was a couple of guys that really stood out to me last week.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Zach Bookman scored a goal against Boston College.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he has six points in his last four games.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: He's our night shift all-academic standout.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Nick Pierre was the hockey's rookie of the week last week.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: I thought he was by far the best player on the ice on Friday.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, sometimes you know this.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: You watch a game, there's someone who jumps out who maybe you don't quite expect coming off the card, but he was really good.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he had a couple of points in that game on Friday.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: He could have had five if it had gone a different way.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Jacob Fowler made a couple of big saves.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: So again, Merrimack, it's crazy to say this, you know, and Mike McMahon's talked about this a little bit, but you know, if you take out those two Stonehill games, one of which they played with an equipment manager, and one of which they really heavily outshot Stonehill, they'd be in the bubble conversation right now, even where their record is.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's pretty amazing how well Merrimack's played.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: They're going to be a dangerous team.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: They'll take on UMass this week.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And my short shift has to do with uh just some awards finalists, as we we're kind of starting to see the announcements of certain uh different categories and finalists for certain awards.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: This one is the Hockey Humanitarian Award, and there's four hockey east skaters, and this ranges from the men's and women's side that have been nominated, and the award goes to a student athlete who makes significant contributions, not only to his or her team, but also to the community at large.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so it's a leadership and volunteerism kind of award.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And these are the names from Hockey East that we have this year as the finalists.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the four players are David Brazial from Maine on the men's side, then Carrie Clarity from Boston College, Alex Gagney from UNH, and Ray Sott from Merrimack, and this is her second year in a row being nominated for this Hockey Humanitarian Award for all the work she's been doing up there volunteering in the Merrimack Valley.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this award's really special, so it's really quite an honor to even be nominated.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so having four hockeyist um players be nominated for this award is a pretty special thing.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Boy, big week.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: We can't wait to watch it.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Ton of good games on both sides, and then uh we have the Beanpot coming up, the final on Tuesday.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Should be a lot of fun.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nesson will have B U and U and H next.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Women's Beanpot as well coming up on Tuesday.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Hope you can join us for that.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: And thanks for joining us for another episode of This Week in Hockey East.