PC Hockey, Ranked 9th in National Preseason Poll, Opens Season This Weekend With a Pair of Games
Robert McMahon, Sports Columnist
PC Hockey, Ranked 9th in National Preseason Poll, Opens Season This Weekend With a Pair of Games
PC hockey fans will get their first look at this year’s team in a pair of exhibition games this weekend at Schneider Arena. On Friday, Simon Fraser University from British Columbia will face off against the Friars at 7 PM. The Red Leafs team, once a club team, has been playing in the British Columbia Intercollegiate Hockey League (BCIHL) since 2007. Each year, they also play a few NCAA teams. They last played PC in an exhibition game on January 7, 2024, with the Friars blasting 61 shots on goal and winning handily 5-2.
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This is the perfect season for the Friars to open with two exhibition games, as PC has twelve new faces on the team. The two games will give Coach Nate Leman an opportunity to figure out what offensive lines the new players will be on and to experiment with defensive pairings. Don’t be surprised if the two new freshman goalies, Aaron Matthews and Jack Parsons, backups for senior goalie Phil Svedeback, see net time in this game. It wouldn’t surprise me if each PC goalie plays one period each against the Red Leafs.
The Friars will play the second exhibition game of the weekend on Sunday, October 5th, at 2 PM against ECAC powerhouse, the Bobcats from Quinnipiac University out of Hamden, CT. PC last played the Bobcats in 2014, winning 4-0, and is 4-2-1 all-time against them. While the Quinnipiac game is only an exhibition game, it will be great opportunity to see how good this PC team is. The Friars come into the game as the #2 pick in the Hockey East preseason poll; the Bobcats have been tabbed the #1 team in the ECAC preseason poll, edging out #2 Clarkson and #3 Cornell. And the Bobcats received a #13 preseason ranking in the USCHO poll.
Besides assimilating twelve new faces into game conditions, two of the most important things on Coach Leaman’s mind in these exhibition games are 1) to determine his three defensive pairings, and 2) to improve the team’s power play.
The Friars only return three defensemen from last year’s team—two sophomores, Alex Bales and Tomas Machu; and one junior, Andrew Centrella. The lone grad transfer, Kale McCallum from the University of New Brunswick, is likely to be a starter on one of the defensive pairings. So, Leaman will be looking closely at the four new freshman defenders to fill out the defensive pairings. This weekend’s games are not likely to be conclusive. All four freshmen are likely to be revolving through the defense pairings for the first several regular-season games until Leaman settles on his picks.
These early games will also provide Coach Leaman with some direction on improving the team’s power play. The Friars had a paltry 16% success rate last season, scoring only 18 power play goals the entire season, two of the lowest outputs among the top 20 Division One teams.
For several seasons, PC has lacked that elite premier goal scorer who is a go-to skater in the clutch. Will new freshman phenom recruit, and #10 overall NHL draft pick last spring, Roger McQueen be the answer to PC’s lack of scoring in power play situations? Last season’s heralded PC freshman and first-round NHL pick, Trevor Connelly, was often injured and scored only 4 goals. When he did play, he over-stick-handled and suffered a lot of turnovers. He was a one-and-done recruit and will likely play in the Las Vegas Knights minor league system for most of the 2025-26 season.
McQueen is part of a flood of Canadian talent that is leaving that country’s professional junior hockey league (CHL) and opting to play a shorter schedule in elite facilities with possible NIL opportunities in US Division One hockey schools.
The incentive for McQueen to go to Providence, rather than enter the NHL right away, was probably encouraged by the club that drafted him, the Anaheim Ducks. McQueen missed most of his last hockey season in the CHL because of a painful back injury. He did return late in the season, but the Ducks want him to recover in a college program with great conditioning facilities and a lighter schedule. Also, on the plus side for McQueen is that he will be facing more talented and older competition in Hockey East than he would see in another year in the CHL.
From the film that I have seen of McQueen, he has top-notch playmaking ability for a big guy. NHL scouts project him as a future skilled center.
All eyes this weekend at Schneider Arena will be on the 6’6” #29 McQueen. Can he regularly find the back of the net, and can he improve his line mates with his playmaking?
