Will the PC Hockey Team Make the NCAA Tournament This Year? An Early Season Report Card

Will the PC Hockey Team Make the NCAA Tournament This Year? An Early Season Report Card

With a highly rated incoming freshman class of 12 players, there were high expectations in the pre-season for this year’s Providence College men’s hockey team. One national poll picked them at #9 in the country.  And the Hockey East coaches picked PC to finish 2nd in the Hockey East.

Currently, the Friars have a 7-6-2 record, are 20th in the College Hockey NPI national poll, and are tied for third in Hockey East with Maine and Northeastern behind UConn and Boston College.  Last year at this time, the PC hockey team was 12-3-2 and ranked #10 in the country.

This is a team that is still very much a work-in-progress.  Coach Leaman has leaned on his freshmen a lot, with 10 of the freshmen getting regular playing time in every game.  Highly touted center forward Roger McQueen is adjusting to Division One hockey, is showing confidence now, has scored 4 recent goals, and with his 7 assists, is the third leading scorer on the team with 11 points.

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But Coach Leaman is still manipulating his offensive lines. For several games, Leaman used an all-freshman line centered by McQueen as the team’s #1 line.  Each defensive pairing has had one freshman all year.  With three non-conference games coming up against Brown and the University of Alaska, we should expect more lineup experimentation with the offensive lines.

So, what are the positives so far for the Friars?  They are scoring more goals than last year, currently scoring 2.93 goals/game vs. 2.78 goals/game last season. They are outshooting their opponents, averaging 34 shots on goal vs 28 for their opponents. Their power play is better than last year, scoring at a 23.5% clip vs a disappointing 16.2% record last season.  PC’s penalty kill percentage is slightly better, killing penalties this year at a rate of 82.5% vs last season’s rate of 79.1%.

What should concern PC hockey fans at this point in the season?  After 13 games, PC has yet to win 2 games in a row! That’s a problem and that kind of inconsistency will not carry this team into the NCAA tournament.  For the last six weekends, PC has split each weekend series, winning one game and either tieing or losing the other game.  Only one loss in the last 6 weeks was a blow out—a 5-1 loss to UMass-Lowell.  The other losses and ties have been frustrating, but perhaps not surprising given the number of freshmen that PC is playing.

The disappointing overall record also reveals a disappointing Hockey East record of 4-3-1 so far this season, and a surprising only a 2-3-1 home record.  These numbers have to change, as 16 of PC’s next 19 games are against Hockey East foes. And PC has yet to play Maine, BC, or BU, traditionally the Hockey East teams that give the Friars the most trouble.

An early-season issue with giving up short-handed goals was particularly embarrassing for the Friars.  PC leads the nation currently with allowing 6 short-handed goals.  All of these occurred in the first 7 games of the season, and fortunately, none occurred in the last eight games.

The other significant issue that continues to plague the Friars is scoring. While the goals/game is up slightly, this PC team is ranked 25th out of 63 Division One teams in goal scoring.  The top PC goal scorer is sophomore John Mustard with 7 goals.  Logan Sawyer with 5 goals and 8 assists, leads the team with 13 points.  PC does not have a sharpshooter who can give the power-play unit or the overtime 3x3 unit a proven high-probability scorer.

It is very likely that this Friar team will improve in its remaining 19 regular-season games, due to the continued improvement of the freshmen players and the reliability of their senior goaltender Philip Sevedback.  Looking at the remaining games, I am optimistically projecting an overall regular season record of 20-12-2 and an overall Hockey East record of 14-9-1. Will it be enough, however, for PC to be selected to the post-season NCAA tournament?

Under Coach Leaman, the Friar reached the NCAA tournament 7 of the last 13 seasons, including, of course, the national championship in the 2014-2015 season. Reaching this year’s NCAA tournament will be challenging for the PC team.  The NCAA tournament selects the 6 Division One conference champions and 10 at-large teams.  PC last won a Hockey East Championship in the 1995 season, so it is likely looking at an at-large berth this year.

Getting selected for an at-large berth is complicated for PC because they have to jump from their present #20 ranking in the College Hockey NPI poll to at least #14 or #15 by the end of the year.  That is going to be difficult because the NPI poll considers not only wins, but strength of schedule.  Hockey East is not a dominant conference this year, so wins for PC against Hockey East teams will count less than in previous years.

Looking at the College Hockey poll, the Big Ten and the National College Hockey Conference (NCHC) have the dominant teams this season.  Those two conferences will provide the majority of the 10 at-large selections.

Hockey East is likely only going to have 2 or 3 teams in the NCAA this year—the Hockey East tournament champ and 1 or 2 at-large teams.  PC may have to win more than the 14 wins in Hockey East that I am projecting, or win the Hockey East tournament championship, to be selected to the NCAA tournament this year.

This Friars’ play on December 9th, when they face Brown at Meehan Auditorium. Puck drop is at 7 PM.