College Hockey Update:  Last weekend there weren’t many college hockey games played, no top ten matchups, only three top ten teams played, starting with #2 Denver hosting, and splitting with Dartmouth.  Elsewhere, #7 Mankato hosted and swept two from Alabama-Huntsville, and #8 Northeastern traveled to, and tied Merrimack College.  And that’s it for the top ten.  No changes in rankings are noted because there was no new poll this week.

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Last weekend Northeastern had huge help from junior forward Adam Gaudette, of Braintree, MA., who scored the late second period goal to save a 1-1 tie for Northeastern Saturday night at Merrimack.  The 6’1″ 184lb junior is first on his team in goals scored with twelve, and is tied for third in assists with twelve.  His sophomore year he was second on the team in goals scored with 26, and was tied for third in assists with 26; as a freshman he was third on the team in goals with twelve and was tied for fourth in assists with eighteen.  Before coming to Northeastern he played for Cedar Rapids of the USHL, and prior to that he played at the Thayer Academy in Braintree, MA.  He was selected in the fifth round with the 149th pick overall by the Vancouver Canucks in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft.  His hometown of Braintree was first settled in 1625 and is home to 37,000.  It was the birthplace of Presidents John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and of John Hancock.

Northeastern University was founded in 1898 as the Evening Institute for Young Men, and had classroom space at the YMCA on Huntington Ave. in Boston, the same street on which Northeastern sits today.  Northeastern enrolls 18,000 undergraduates and 7,000 graduate students, and provides undergraduates with two different tracks.  In addition to the traditional four-year academic track, Northeastern provides undergraduate students with a five year track which provides three internships adding up to a year in length.  Northeastern lines up the internship for students with nearly 200 partner businesses in the program.  Northeastern teams are the Huskies, and the hockey team is coached by Northeastern 1986 graduate Jim Madigan, who played hockey at Northeastern, and is now in his seventh season as Head Coach.  Madigan spent a long stint as an assistant at Northeastern, a brief stint as an assistant at Vermont, and a brief stint as an NHL scout for the Pittsburgh Penguins.  Madigan’s record to date at Northeastern is 107-101-29, and includes a trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2016.  Northeastern is 10-5-2, was ranked #8 in last week’s poll, and plays next on Friday, January 5th, when they host Bentley in the opening game of a home-and-home weekend series.

Saturday night at Merrimack the Warriors got on the board first when a clean win in the faceoff circle was passed to Jace Hennig near the net and he beat the Northeastern goalie for the 1-0 lead which they retained going into the break.  Merrimack outshot Northeastern 7-5 in the first.  The second played pretty evenly, so much so that by mid period things were not looking too good for Northeastern.  A power play opportunity led to an Adam Gaudette goal that he swatted in with seven minutes left in the period.  Jeremy Davies kept the puck in play on an attempt by Merrimack to clear the zone, and he centered it to Nolan Stevens, who one-timed it very hard, but high of the net; an alert Gaudette was near the left post and tapped the puck out of the air in behind the Merrimack goalie to tie it at one apiece.  Both teams had ten shots on goal in the second.  Northeastern pressed hard in the third, outshooting Merrimack 16-9 but neither team could convert, and the game ended in a 1-1 tie.

This weekend there are no games scheduled whatsoever.  The next action will start on December 30th and run straight through to January 3rd, with the action heaviest on the weekend.  There are no top ten matchups scheduled in this stretch.

This provides the top ten teams with rankings as of last week’s poll; records for Denver, Mankato, and Northeastern have been updated, and results of games for those three teams are updated as well:

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That’s all for now.  I hope you have a wonderful and Merry Christmas, and a great New Year.  Stay tunes, and go Terriers!

— Tom