January 19^th and 20^th provided a slate of 9 contests involving Hockey East teams. At the time of writing, two intraconference showdowns featuring Merrimack at 2^nd ranked Boston College and UConn at 17^th ranked UNH have not been played yet, and barring any substantial upsets by the visitors won’t be a point of focus for us here at Black Stitch Hockey.

               1^st ranked Boston University took care of business in a home-and-home series with Vermont by a combined two game margin of 10-3. The most notable stat line to come out of this series was Lane Hutson posting 4 assists in Friday night’s contest. 8^th ranked Maine faced UMass Lowell in a back-to-back series as well, with the Black Bears picking up 5-3 and 7-2 wins respectively. Notably, Harrison Scott recorded the first hattrick of his NCAA career in Saturday night’s win over the Riverhawks. Over the weekend, Carolina Hurricanes’ prospect Bradly Nadeau continued to impress by collecting 4 more points over the weekend.

               In a standalone contest, 12^th ranked UMass Amherst defeated Northeastern 2-1. Michael Hrabal was the star of the game for the minutemen, stopping 34 of 35 shots, including 17 in the third period, allowing Nick Vantassell to score the game winning goal in the period despite the Minutemen only getting 6 shots on goal. In a non-conference series, the 9^th ranked Providence Friars split one and one with Anchorage Alaska. Providence’s win on Friday was fundamentally solid game where Philip Svedeback recorded a 15 save shutout, and Bennet Schimek recorded the game winning goal in the 2^nd period. Saturday’s contest was not as smooth for the Friars, as they were blanked 4-0 in a game where Svedeback posted a 76% save percentage, and Jared Whale stopped 26 of 26 for the boys from the Northwest.

               In the first halves of series that are concluding today, 2^nd ranked Boston College topped Merrimack 6-4. Cutter Gauthier, rejuvenated following the media scrutiny of his trade out of Philadelphia, recorded a hattrick in the contest. 17^th ranked New Hampshire walloped Uconn 5-0 on Friday night. Morgan Winters recorded three assists in the game, and Jakob Hellsten was flawless stopping 20 of 20 shots.

               Following those two days of action, Boston University sits atop the Hockey East, and is showing no signs of slowing down. Boston College and Maine are tied at 25 points apiece in the standings for now with their head-to-head series already in the rear-view mirror. UMass, Providence, and New Hampshire are all posturing to finish the year 3, 4, and 5 in no particular order, and likely qualify for national tournament bids barring any substantial setbacks.