BSRS Pre-Season Poll

This is the time of year where journalists and fans start posting their projections for each conference. We took the time to decide on our pre-season rankings as a blog. We realize we are early by a month but we have a Pre-season Hockey Least team to decide in the next month. Pre-season polls mean absolutely nothing as the defending champion is almost always the consensus #1 both nationally and in each conference no matter how much they lost from the year before. Exhibit A here. That 09 BU team was picked to finish 2nd behind BC. They went on to post 35 wins and a National title while BC went on to post 18 and miss the tournament all together.

Feel free to disagree with any of our selections besides the #1 because that is as obvious as it comes.

1. BU(5)- While the general public drool over Gillies, Hellebuyck, and Demko , O'Connor and Maguire are returning from a season where they both got real hot for stretches and both posted save percentages over .910. While PC and Lowell may have one great goalie, BU has two great ones. The rest of lineup will fall into place with big jumps coming from Lane and Kurker up front.

2. Lowell-Someone has to finish 2nd to BU and it is tough to pick against Lowell is returning both goalies(even though Carr is only good at flopping now) and a majority of their lineup from last year's team that made it to the Frozen Four before choking against Yale.



3.  Notre Dame- First year in Hockey East may have its bumps for the Irish as they get used to getting on an airplane for half of their games throughout the season. They have the talent returning lead by TJ Tynan up front.

4. PC- They have Gillies in net and should continue to improve up front which means they should only improve from a year ago. The renovations to Scheider should help the coaching staff to continue to bring in high end recruits. If they were smart, they would add caserta's pizza to their concession menu too.

5. BC-Everyone is freaking out over their freshman class but fact of that matter is they are returning 3 forwards who can actually play at a competitive level in Hockey East. Besides Gaudreau,Arnold and Hayes(if he can avoid shitting himself), they don't have a forward with more than 15 points last season. They have a question in net until freshman Thatcher Demko or Brian Billett proves that he is the guy. The defense was awfully thin last year especially when Matheson inevitably takes his 2 or 3 game misconducts. I don't care how good the freshman class is. They have too many questions to put them higher than 5 and because they suck.

6. UNH- This team depends on DeSmith too much and when he falls, so does their record

7. Merrimack- They will find a way to remain competitive within in the conference. They need to find a way to score more goals this season as they struggled doing so most of last season.

8. Maine- The new coach(Red Gendron) can't be worse than Timmy so they have to get better. I personally wouldn't be surprised to see them finish top 6 if someone falls off because they have the talent. It's just whether the coaching change can have them take that next step.

9. UVM- Brady Hoffman is the goalie they have been looking for the past couple seasons. Now they just need the team to improve in front of him.

10. NU- I think it may be addition by subtraction with Rawlings graduating. They will go as far as Roy(guess which one I'm referring to) can take them.

11. UMass- They cut like half their team from last year. I understand they are trying to rebuild but we don't see this working out too well for them in the immediate future.