Three Hockey East teams headed to the NCAA men’s Tournament

Three Hockey East teams headed to the NCAA men’s Tournament

Three schools from Hockey East are headed to the NCAA Division I men’s ice hockey Tournament this week to compete for a national title, as the brackets were announced on Sunday evening.

The University of Massachusetts made it back to back Hockey East Titles when they defeated UConn 2-1 in the championship game in overtime at TD Garden on Saturday night. The #11 ranked Minutemen, who are also the defending national champions, improve to 22-12-2 on the season and get the automatic qualifier to the NCAA Tournament with the victory over UConn. Also earning an at-large bid to the field are the UMass-Lowell Riverhawks (21-10-3). The #13 Riverhawks lost to UMass in the Hockey East semifinals, but earned a bid when Bemidji State lost in overtime 2-1 to Minnesota State in the CCHA Final on Saturday. 2017 was the last appearance in the tournament for UML when they lost 3-2 in overtime in the regional final to Notre Dame. The last team in from Hockey East is the #10 Northeastern Huskies (25-12-1). NU lost to UConn in the conference semifinals on Friday, but was able to earn their first bid since the 2018-19 season where they lost 5-1 to Cornell in the first round.

Here are the first round matchups for the Huskies, Riverhawks, and Minutemen-

Worcester, Massachusetts Regional:

Northeastern vs #3 Western Michigan (25-11-1)- Friday, March 25 12 p.m.

Massachusetts vs Minnesota (24-12-1)- Friday, March 25 6 p.m.

Loveland, Colorado Regional:

UMass-Lowell vs #4 Denver (27-9-1)- Thursday, March 24 9 p.m.

The other matchups include #1 Michigan vs American International and Quinnipiac vs St Cloud State in the Allentown, Pennsylvania Regional, #2 Minnesota State vs Harvard and North Dakota vs Notre Dame in the Albany, New York Regional, and Minnesota Duluth vs Michigan Tech in the other game at the Loveland Regional.