Well the regular season wrapped up last week and now the real fun begins as we start the play-in round of the playoffs. In Hockey East, seeds 5 through 12 will battle in a best of three series for a position to get to the quarterfinals next week against one of the top four seeds with the ultimate goal of going to TD Garden for the Hockey East semis and finals. I finished my regular season with a 4-0 week last week and I will be picking the Maine at Northeastern series as well as the New Hampshire at Merrimack tilts. I will pick even the third game of each series in case it does get to that deciding game on Sunday.
Last week’s record: 4-0-0 Season record 49-21-10
This week’s games:
HOCKEY EAST PLAY IN SERIES
Best of 3
#11 Maine (8-22-6) at #6 Northeastern (16-13-5)
The Huskies just swept the Black Bears last week at Matthews Arena in the last two regular season games by 5-3 and 7-1 scores. Northeastern is also 14-1-2 in their last 17 games and Maine only has two road wins this year and those came against UMass. All signs point to the Huskies this weekend as the painful Maine season comes to an end.
The pick- Game 1: Northeastern 4, Maine 2 Game 2: Northeastern 5, Maine 1 Game 3 if necessary: Northeastern 4, Maine 1
#10 UNH (10-18-6) at #7 Merrimack (11-16-7)
This series shapes up to be one of the best of the weekend and not alot to choose from these two teams. UNH won the season series between the two teams in their only two matchups with a win and a tie. I am thinking this series will go all three games.
The pick- Friday night: Merrimack 3, New Hampshire 2 Saturday night: New Hampshire 4, Merrimack 3 Sunday if necessary: Merrimack 2, New Hampshire 1
Other play in series this weekend include #9 Vermont visiting #8 Connecticut and #12 UMass visiting #5 Boston University. The top four seeds with the bye this week one through four are Notre Dame, Boston College, Providence and UMass-Lowell.
