Friday at Boston College: Live Stats |
Watch |
Listen |
Game Notes
Sunday v. Dartmouth: Live Stats |
Watch |
Listen
LOWELL, Mass.—After a tough weekend of competition, the No. 14 UMass Lowell men's hockey (14-6-3-, 11-5-1 Hockey East) returns to the ice for a pair of games. The River Hawks open the weekend on Friday with a visit to Boston College (10-12-4, 5-8-3 HEA), before hosting Dartmouth (3-14-3, 2-10-2 ECAC) on Saturday for a non-conference tilt. Both games are set to start at 7 p.m.
SCOUTING THE RIVER HAWKS
UMass Lowell enters tonight's game with an 14-6-3 / 11-5-1 record after splitting a pair of one-goal games last weekend. The team defeated Northeastern 2-1 at Matthews Arena before dropping a 4-3 decision to Massachusetts on Sunday. The River Hawks are 7-4-0 on the road and 7-2-3 on the familiar ice of the Tsongas Center. UMass Lowell currently sits in the number 14 slot in the DCU/USCHO Poll and at number 15 in the USA Hockey Magazine Poll. It is the team's 12th week in the Top 20 and the number 9 spot, two weeks ago, is their highest ranking of the season. Hockey East Coaches, in their pre-season poll, placed the River Hawks seventh in the conference. UMass Lowell currently holds first place in the Hockey East Conference standings gaining that spot with a sweep of Vermont in the final weekend of action before the winter break. The team currently has a one-point lead over second place Massachusetts.
Andre Lee leads the team in goals with a dozen.
Carl Berglund tops the points chart with eighteen. Berglund's fourteen-assists lead the club. Goaltenders
Henry Welsch and
Owen Savory split time in goal evenly a year ago, but this year Savory has shouldered the heavier workload. Savory has gotten the call up 17 times and has been among the nation's best. He's got a 1.71 GAA and a .933 save percentage. The senior has four shutouts. Welsch has started five times with one shutout and a 2.77 GAA and a .878 save percentage.
SCOUTING THE EAGLES
Boston College has been battling through an up and down season. They enter tonight's game with a record of 10-12-4 / 5-8-3. The Eagles, who were beaten Tuesday (6-3) by Harvard, have lost their last two games and are winless in their last eight, 0-7-1. The team has dropped out of the national polls. Boston College is 4-6-1 on the ice at the Kelley Rink and 3-6-2 on the road. They are 3-0-1 in neutral site games. The Hockey East Coaches pre-season poll placed BC in the number three slot. They currently sit in eighth place, fourteen points back of the first place River Hawks. Fourteen different players have scored goals, three are in double digits, but only one of those three will be on the ice tonight. The other two Marc McLaughlin, 18-goals, and Jack McBain, 13-goals, are in Beijing representing their respective countries at the Olympics. Patrick Giles, with ten-goals, is the top BC goal scorer in uniform. Drew Helleson leads the Eagles with 16-assists, but he is also in Beijing. Goalie Eric Dop, a transfer from Bowling Green, has started 20 of the team's 26-games. He shows a goals-against average of 3.10 and an .887 save percentage.
SCOUTING THE BIG GREEN
Heading into Saturday's non-conference clash, the Big Green are on the hunt for their first outright win of 2022. Since the turn of the New Year, Dartmouth has struggled to outscore its opponents with six losses thus far, one in overtime. The Big Green notched a tie against ranked conference opponents Cornell on January 28, eventually taking them down in a shootout after forcing extra time. The win over the Big Red was not Dartmouth's only victory over a ranked foe, however. Earlier this season, the Big Green took down then No. 9 Massachusetts 3-2 in an exhibition before puck drop on the 2012-22 campaign. Leading the squad, a trio of Dartmouth skaters have registered double digit points through their first 20 games. Junior Mark Gallant sits atop the scoring column for the Big Green, tallying 12 points off a team-high seven goals and five assists. Hot on his heels, freshman Sean Chisholm and junior Tanner Palocsik lead the team with seven assists each. On top of Chisholm's seven assists, the rookie forward has knocked in four goals for an eleven-point season total. Just behind him, Palocsik added three goals for 10 points in 20 games. Between the pipes, goalies Clay Stevenson and Justin Ferguson have split time, with each making 11 appearances this year. Stevenson owns a 2.77 GAA and .925 save percentage, while Ferguson has a 3.72 GAA and a .872 SV%.
ALL-TIME SERIES VS. BC
This is the 123rd meeting between the two teams in a series that dates back to 1978. Boston College leads the all-time series 68-44-10. The Eagles swept the regular season series last year, but the River Hawks won in dramatic fashion in the Hockey East Tournament semifinals. Two years ago, the two teams split a pair of 3-2 decisions. UMass Lowell holds a 5-4-1 edge in the last ten. In the ten-plus years that
Norm Bazin has been behind the River Hawk bench these two teams have nearly played to stand-off, 13-12-3. The River Hawks have the one-game advantage. UMass Lowell defeated Boston College in the 2017 Hockey East Tournament Championship Game and grabbed the title with a 4-3 win. They have met once in the NCAA Tournament with BC winning, 4-3.
BAZIN vs. YORK
This is the 26th time these coaches have faced one another. UML's Lowell's
Norm Bazin has the fourth best winning percentage, .633, among active coaches with 100 wins or more. BC Jerry York is the winningest coach all-time with 1,118 victories. In their face-to-face meetings Bazin has a slight edge, 12-10-3. They have faced each twice in the post season, UMass Lowell winning a Hockey East Tournament title and Boston College winning an NCAA Tournament game.
PLAYOFFS VERSUS BC
UMass Lowell and Boston College have met eight times in the Hockey East Tournament for a total of ten games. Only one meeting was in the Final. That was in 2017 and the River Hawks finished on top, 4-3, to earn their third Hockey East Tournament Championship in five years. UMass Lowell earned a spot in the Hockey East Championship game with a 6-5 double overtime win against BC last year. The River Hawks have advanced by beating Boston College only once in the opening or quarterfinal rounds. That was in 1988 when UMass Lowell won a two-game total goals quarterfinal series, 8-5. That year the River Hawks won the deciding game 5-2 after the teams had tied at three the first night. They have met three times in the semifinals, but not since 2001, with Boston College advancing in each case.
ONE FOR THE BOOKS
The final time these two teams met during the COVID-19 shortened 2020-21 season it became an instant classic. UMass Lowell earned a spot in the Hockey East Championship Game with a 6-5 double overtime come-from-behind victory against Boston College, in the Hockey East semifinal, at the Conte Forum. The River Hawks trailed 4-1 with less than ten minutes left in regulation. UMass Lowell scored four times in the final 9:25 of regulation with
Anthony Baxter's second goal of the game evening the score at five.
Matt Brown got the game winner stopping the clock at the 12:00 mark of the second overtime. At 92:00 of hockey the double overtime win was the second longest game in UMass Lowell hockey history. The only game longer in River Hawk history was the River Hawks' 2-1 win against Providence in the 2016 semifinals. That game clocked in at 112:27. The double overtime 6-5 win against Boston College was the first time since 2013 that UMass Lowell has come back from a three-goal deficit to win a hockey game. That was a 5-4 overtime win against Northeastern on January 26, 2013.
ABOUT THE 2020-21 REGULAR SEASON
Boston College swept the two-game regular season series, a year ago, from UMass Lowell, 7-1 and 4-3. Alex Newhook and Mike Hardman had two goals and an assist in the first meeting between the two teams, February 12th, while Matt Boldy added a goal and four assists in Boston College's 7-1 win at the Conte Forum in Boston. UMass Lowell had a first period 2-0 lead the second night, but the visitors came back with two four-on-four goals to tie the contest in the second period. Nikita Nesterenko scored :09 into the third period to give BC a lead they would not relinquish.
Lucas Condotta had goals for the River Hawks both nights.
BACK IN NOVEMBER
Andre Lee scored twice as the River Hawks defeated Boston College, 4-2, in this season's first meeting between the two clubs on November 13th at the Tsongas Center. Lee and
Ben Meehan scored goals to give the home team a 2-0 lead in the second period. Trevor Kuntar and Marc McLaughlin scored less than two-minutes apart to tie the game before the second period was over. Lee broke the tie less than six minutes into the third period and
Carl Berglund added an insurance goal on the power play midway through the final period.
Owen Savory made 24-saves to earn the win. Eric Dop stopped 33-shots.
SCORING AGAINST BOSTON COLLEGE
Seven players on the UMass Lowell roster have scored goals against Boston College, four of them have at least three-goals.
Lucas Condotta and
Reid Stefanson have each scored three, but
Andre Lee leads the team with four, including two in the last meeting.
Connor Sodergren has not found the back of the net in eleven appearances against the Eagles, but he does lead the River Hawks, in scoring, with seven-points, all assists. Goalie
Owen Savory has a 1-1-0 record against the Eagles with a 3.02 GAA. He was in nets when the teams met in November.
Henry Welsch has faced the Eagles twice also showing a win and a loss. He has a 4.55 GAA and an .855 save percentage against BC. Welsch did turn aside 19 shots in overtime in the Hockey East semifinal.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
UMass Lowell and Boston College have played each other in nine different buildings, the second greatest number of venues for the River Hawks against any opponent. UMass Lowell and BC have faced off at Tully Forum (Billerica, Mass.), McHugh Forum (Chestnut Hill, Mass.), Providence Civic Center (Providence, R.I.) Matthews Arena (Boston, Mass.), Walter Brown Arena (Boston, Mass.), Conte Forum (Chestnut Hill, Mass.) Tsongas Arena/Center (Lowell, Mass.), FleetCenter/TD Garden (Boston, Mass.) and the DCU Center (Worcester, Mass.) UMass Lowell has also played New Hampshire in nine different buildings, but the River Hawks have played Clarkson and Maine in ten different buildings.
RANKED vs. RANKED
UMass Lowell and Boston College have met 26 times when both were ranked in the top 20 in the country as was the case earlier this year. The River Hawks hold a 16-9-2 edge in those 26-games. UMass Lowell is 7-6-1 when both are ranked and Boston College is in the Top Five in the country. Boston College, ranked 16th when the teams first met, is no longer ranked. UMass Lowell, ranked 20th back in November, is currently 14th in the USCHO poll.
Vs. BIG TIME FOOTBALL SCHOOLS
UMass Lowell is 67-32-9 against schools with big time football programs (FBS members) since
Norm Bazin took over behind the bench. That includes an 9-3-2 record against Notre Dame, 4-1-0 record against Penn State and 4-2-0 against Arizona State and an 20-6-2 mark against Massachusetts. The River Hawks are also 13-12-2 against Boston College and 11-7-2 against UConn. Bazin's teams are also 3-0-1 against Michigan State and have a winning record against Wisconsin and Miami.
ABOUT LAST WEEKEND
UMass Lowell split a pair of one-goal games against two different nationally ranked opponents last weekend. The River Hawks opened the weekend with a 2-1 win at Northeastern as two different freshmen scored goals. That hadn't happened in a while.
Stefan Owens and
Matt Crasa scored each found the back of the net. It was the first time this year that two different first year players had scored in the same game. Sunday afternoon UMass Lowell dropped a 4-3 decision to UMass. The River Hawks held leads of 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 but could not close it out.
Andre Lee,
Lucas Condotta and Crasa had goals for UMass Lowell.
