Weekend Preview: Time to Take out the Trash

This weekend the BU Terriers play host to two conference foes that are heading in two different directions. Friday night, they will host the 6-10-2 Northeastern Huskies. NU has had an up and down(well mostly down) year thus far. They began the season 2-0 with wins over Merrimack and BC at home. Their only other conference win since opening weekend was a 1-0 victory over UMass. They are coming off a tie of Maine who then lost 6-0 to Merrimack the next night. NU is a  trap game at home for the Terriers but hopefully this team learned its lesson from the Harvard game last week. NU always bring their best for BU because they have decided that BU is their "rival". It is a one way rivalry but we will save that for another day. This game is one that would be easy to overlook but should also give the team a good idea what to expect come Beanpot time in 3 weeks when nothing is easy. NU's MO is to lose to Atlantic Hockey teams at home(Bentley this year) and then knock off a top 10 team. They have already beaten BC and they could do the same on Friday to BU. That being said, I think BU will win a close one.

Hockey East Projected Standings

Many legitimate college hockey writers are coming out with their projected Hockey East standings in the coming days/weeks so I figure I should get mine out there ahead of time. I'm just going to do the whole thing in one big post since I have nothing better to do at work today.

UNH preview

The BU Terriers mens ice hockey(8-5-1) team prepares for the final game of their season series with the 6-8-2 UNH(University of No Hardware). The Terriers have won the first two games against their hick conference foe by a combined score of 9-1. However, the second game(4-1 BU win) was much closer than the score indicated. The Terries scored 3 times in the third to pull away including an empty net goal. This game, unlike the first two which were at Agganis, is in the middle of hillbilly country up there in Durham. Apparently the UNH fans are planning a "Blue Out" for the game which is odd to say the least. I have heard of "white outs" and "black outs"(which actually make sense) but a "blue out" is just retarded. How intimidating is seeing a bunch of people dressed in blue? The answer is not at all. Silly hicks. We better shut them out to keep the stupid fish off the ice.

I'll get back to the game though. According to our friends( we call them our friends but they probably hate us) at Boston Hockey Blog, sophomore forward Matt Nieto will be out of tomorrow night's game due to a shoulder injury in practice. This is a blow to the Terriers which will force other forwards to step up. He is questionable for Saturday's game at Maine. Either Wade Megan or Evan Rodrigues will probably be the guy to step up into one of the top 2 lines.

UNH is coming off a sweep at the hands of Lowell. Something that would never had happen a year ago. They should come out hungry on their home ice as they play their last game of the first half against a nationally ranked team at home. Speaking of Lowell, some of our favorite bloggers over at Ice is Life released this gem of an article today. Apparently, why they didn't jump from unranked to number 7-11(where they believe they belong) in the meaningless media polls is Parker's fault. This is also why BU is ranked ahead of them apparently. Okay buddy. I'm sure it has nothing to do with BU taking the season series from #2 BC and beating other ranked opponents(Denver and Cornell) while Lowell plays Alabama Huntsville and Minnesota State. You can make the argument that Lowell deserves to be higher than 18(I would give them 15) but, in a meaningless December poll, it isn't worth splitting hairs over. Lowell isn't a top 10 team right now so calm down and lay off the crack for a second. It also isn't worth your time(well you're from Lowell so I guess you got nothing better to do) to blame a coach who has openly said he hopes his team is ranked lower to keep them motivated (specifically last year when the team was ranked #1 in November). Just another example of people from Lowell going full retard(See below).

We should have a UNH recap and Maine preview up Friday. Tomorrow night's game will be on TV if you get WBIN which I believe is channel 50 on BU's cable system so all BU students should be able to watch the game(don't quote me on this).

Hockey East fills two vacant coaching positions

The two bottom Hockey East teams from last season filled their coaching vacancies in the last 24 hours. First, UMASS-Lowell filled their coaching void with the hiring of Norm Bazin. Bazin, is an alum from the class of 1994 and has coached at Lowell(as an assistant), Colorado College(associate head coach), and D-III Hamilton(head coach). Bazin comes in to replace the recently fired Blaise MacDonald who lead the River Hawks to a last place finish in HE and 55 out of 58 teams in RPI nationally. Bazin looks to return Lowell to glory for the first time since Micky Ward was still fighting...I'll believe it when I see the results on the ice, but seems like a good hire to make Lowell competitive once again. It was a fast fall for MacDonald as his team was a controversial goal call in the 2009 HE championship game against BU(thank you Benedetto and Comissioner Bertagna) from grabbing an automatic at-large bid in the NCAA tournament. These last two seasons didn't go quite as well and now he is out and Bazin is to begin the new era in Lowell.

The other cellar team from HE,Providence College, announced today the hiring of former Union head coach Nate Leaman. Leaman was one of three finalists along with former BU associate head coach and Cranston,RI native David Quinn and Newton College associate head coach(read York's successor) Mike Cavanaugh. Quinn is the current coach of the Lake Erie AHL team and is in the middle of a playoff series which could have been a factor to go with Leaman. Union has since announced that it will replace Leaman with associate head coach Rick Bennett.