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Hockey East’s pre-season coaches poll is out, and the UMass-Lowell River Hawks are picked to finish 9th in the conference.
Perennial powers Boston College(84-points) and New Hampshire(84) finished tied atop the poll, splitting the 10-first place votes evenly. As seems to be the case every year, Boston University(77) and Maine(61) round out the top four, coming in third and fourth respectively. The rest of the poll has Vermont(54) and Massachusetts(54) tied for 5th, Northeastern(43) 7th and Providence(39) 8th. The River Hawks(25) and Merrimack(19) round out the ten team conference.
The numbers show how tough a challenge Blaise MacDonald faces just to get his squad into the playoffs. There’s a pretty good sized gap between what the coaches think of the final playoff team (Providence) and the River Hawks. True, these polls don’t really mean anything once the games start, but it’s pretty safe to say the top four will finish that way in some order (don’t they always?), while Vermont and UMass are clearly better than Lowell right now. That doesn’t leave much margin for error, and the River Hawks are going to have to win as many games as possible against Northeastern, Providence and Merrimack. Squandering opportunities to pick up points against those teams will almost surely doom UML to another spring without playoff hockey.
That’s the view from Mt. Olympus…how do you see Hockey East playing out? Do you agree with the top of the poll? How about the River Hawks place in it?
Comments (2)
UML routinely ranks at the bottom of these polls year after year. They also did in the years they last made the Hockey East semis in Boston. Hopefully they repeat those years and have a team that's on the rise at the end of the season that NO TEAM wants to play in the playoffs.
Certainly the UNH, BC, BU, Maine will always be your top 4 until someone knocks them off annually. Vermont certainly has the goaltending to displace one of those 4 from what I saw of them last year. I think UMass is a little overrated in this poll- they didn't seem to be in the class of Vermont to me last year although I must admit I don't know much about their young guys and won't until I see them at the Tsongas.
The River Hawks MUST improve vs the Friars as they have been woeful against them the last few years. They have been fine vs Northeastern and Merrimack. I really think that if the new arena config works for them they should be able to add emotion to their play against the "big guys" and knock off at least 2 or 3 of the games at home vs those teams as well as another 1 or 2 vs Vermont and UMass. The key is to make sure Lowell sells more tickets to LOWELL fans for those big matchups. Doesn't do any good if the noise is generated in the building yet it's all for BC, UNH, or Maine. They've played well vs BC, UNH, and BU at home the last few years- hopefully the things being done in and around the arena will have more fans cheering for Lowell and turn it into an actual home-ice advantage as those other teams all have.
I feel as optimistic about this team as I have in a while. They have tons of youngsters and there is enough potential up front, on defense, and in net that if they gel and improve throughout the year they could be a good team this year with the hope of getting even better over the next two as the current sophs continue on in their careers.
Posted by dboisver | September 26, 2007 9:28 AM
Posted on September 26, 2007 09:28
To say UMass is clearly better than UML at this point is a stretch. Not only did they lost a large majority of their scoring, they lost one of the best players in Hockey East in Quick.
The Minuetmen overachieved last season, and with their losses they'll return to the bottom of the pack.
Posted by RHawk13 | September 28, 2007 8:19 AM
Posted on September 28, 2007 08:19