Hockey East puckbag

· You cannot get much more gridlock than what you’ve got this week across the standings and the polls.

First-place Providence, second-place Connecticut and Northeastern, and fourth-seed New Hampshire are all pried apart by a mere two points. In the USCHO Top 10 list, UNH rates No. 6, UConn No. 7, PC No. 8, and Northeastern No. 9. It is basically the same under the USA Today heading, except the Friars’ and Hub Huskies’ positions are flip-flopped. And the PairWise leaderboard reads exactly the same as that of USA Today.

Any and all WHEA zealots who look at that are bound to have an ambivalent reaction. On the one
hand, their league is the one most prominently represented among the NCAAtournament prospects, but
they constitute the very bottom of the would-be tournament pool.

I say look at everything as half-full, for these teams have all dished out and endured their
share of beatings from conference cohabitants and will surely continue to do so in the
next four weeks of conference-only regular season and playoff competition. Once all the
ice chips settle and two or three Hockey East satellites venture on to face the reputedly
heavier favorites from the other leagues, they just might have the advantage of being the more battle-tested party.

Just ask Boss Bertagna, who saw an eerily similar season of all-encompassing parity in his men’s league two years ago. That year, only two Hockey East ambassadors (Boston College, UNH) were admitted to a tournament field of 16. Yet the Eagles, whose regular season record of 17-11-8 ultimately mean diddlysquat, surged through every phase of the postseason to a national title.

Not to predict or promise anything in particular here. Just saying…

· While still on the subject of proud Hockey Easterners, here is another forehand factoid for you. Harvard is 4-0-1 against WHEA teams and just might face one in the NCAA tournament. You can take that puck and think of it as you wish.

· Some have reportedly proposed, on and off-and-on basis, that the Beanpot purge its consolation games and start holding the women’s and men’s championships in double-header form at the TD Garden. Let me be the latest to second that motion. No one on either side will likely admit it, but it seems BC and BU would have both preferred to substitute another invaluable day of practice for their 1-1 tie in Tuesday’s third place tilt.

· Conversely, however, I say it’s high time Hockey East instituted a consolation game for its playoff championship. Especially in this year’s race, that could be a tipping factor in a victorious team jumping safely off its NCAA tournament bubble. That, in turn, could mean tipping the scale and getting three WHEA representatives into the Elite Eight.

· Currently at 11-8-11, there is a darn good chance Boston University will finish its season with more ties than losses. But the simple fact is, too many of those ties could have been wins, and should have been if the Terriers wanted to still be in the Top 10 through the second half of this season.

· With their tie for third place in Beanpot, Boston College is now winless (0-9-4) in its last 13 ventures dating back to the first weekend of December. If comedian Lewis Black were a college hockey fan, he would make that observation, pause, and say “I will repeat that,” to emphasize how stunning it is.

· Don’t anybody forget, in the midst of established starlets Florence Schelling and Julia Marty both casting beacons of pride on Northeastern, that Maine also has a young Swiss Olympian in forward Darcia Leimgruber. While she didn’t make much of an impact on the Black Bears’ plebeian strike force in her freshman season (one goal and one assist in merely six appearances), there is more than a fair chance that will change when she returns to Orono next fall and proceeds to mature.

· Unless Northeastern fails to curb its mild-to-moderate funk and takes a ghastly nose-dive in the time that remains in its 2009-10 campaign, I see a Coach of the Year award with two new engravings for Linda Lundigran and Laura McAuliffe.

· Speaking of Northeastern, history-savvy Husky buffs have now waited four games and three weeks for their program to crack the 500-plateau in their all-time W column.

· Similarly, ex-NU coach Heather Linstad, now with those other Huskies in Connecticut, is one win away from No. 300 in her career.

· Tuesday saw BU’s Lauren Cherewyk play in her 100th career game. Teammate and classmate Jillian Kirchner will reach the same milestone in this Saturday’s home bout with Northeastern. Ditto BC defender Katelyn Kurth in Part II of a two-night visit to Maine. Ditto UConn forward Brittany Murphy in Friday’s excursion to Providence.

· The fact that three of their 10 wins have been against nationally ranked teams (Clarkson back in October, Providence and New Hampshire more recently) and the fact that 17 of their games have been decided by two goals or less just speaks more to Vermont’s egregious underachievement.

· With Schelling done for the remainder of the league schedule, Alex Garcia of UConn stands a decent chance of usurping her claim to the ITECH goaltending championship. Criteria for that award is, after all, based solely on stats charged up in WHEA games and Garcia recently pole-vaulted into the lead with a 1.41 goals-against average. And with the obsessive-defensive bug raring to take over the coast like it usually does this time of year, either Garcia (or someone else) just might surpass Schelling’s .946 save percentage.