3 Little Things on the Week That Was in Hockey East
By Brendan Locke - October 31, 2025Hockey East gets bludgoned in non-con play
Northeastern was able to save face, holding on by its fingernails on Saturday night, knocking off a Denver team by a score of 1-0. The same Denver team that ran BC out of their own building the previous night. But regardless of that result, it was a close-your-eyes-and-plug-your-nose opening month from the conference as a whole. Teams from far and wide have come through the New England turnstile and promptly taken their lunch money.
Three, count ‘em, three! Different teams from the state of Michigan came to road environments across Hockey East in the past two weeks.
They went 6-0.
Photo by Christa Romano, The Boston Hockey Blog
All three of these series, Michigan at Providence, Michigan State at BU, and Western Michigan at UMass Lowell, followed a very similar script. A blowout in one of the games, along with a tight game that went into the final twenty minutes, either tied or within a goal for either team. For UMass Lowell, playing against the reigning national champs, playing Western into the late stages of the game is actually a good result. Is getting blown out the following night ideal? Of course not, and I certainly won’t try to convince Norm Bazin of such a take, but with UML having 11 CHL players still adjusting to the college lifestyle, UML is most likely at the ground level of what will be a good season.
For Providence, they got their doors blown on a Friday night in Schnider, to the tune of 5-1, and it could have been about 10-1. The Friars then followed up that performance by getting outclassed in game 2 as Michigan sang Hail to the Victor all the way back to Ann Arbor.
College hockey was shown on ESPN2 for the first time in god knows how long as Porter Martone and Co. came in and faced off against BU. With all eyes on Agganis, the Terriers no-showed spectacularly. Getting absolutely drummed by Sparty in game 1, yet they responded well and were within a chip of ice away from taking game 2 in overtime. It ended up being almost a carbon copy of BU's series against Michigan last season. And well, BU made the natty, and Michigan… well, they probably don’t want to talk about that.
I’m not sitting here saying any of these teams should be pressing the panic button, but when it happens to each of these teams individually within two weeks of each other. It’s a little concerning! It’s a bit of a see something, say something type situation, and I just want to make sure everybody is Ok.
Ok.
All of this to say, a lot can happen, but once is by chance. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a pattern, y’know?
Maine? You Good?
What on earth is going on here…
Maine’s Ben Barr has talked about change, and what comes with success. But he has to be stunned with what has gone on with his team this season.
This is like watching that young promising quarterback that just lit up the league take a massive step step back after their offensive coordinator leaves to take a head coaching job.
Going to Quinnipiac and dropping two games is not an unreasonable outcome for a team with 11 freshman as well as a few changes in the coaching staff. It’s the matter in which they did it, and blowing a 4-1 lead on the road to lose in a shootout, only to follow it with a no show in game 2 really is shocking.
The Bobcats powerplay was lethal scoring three goals in the Saturday night game. Stats are difficult to use in the early stages of a season due to numbers being skewed and all that jazz. And yours truly certainly would not be considered a “numbers guy” HOWEVER.
I do know that having a penalty kill operating at 75% is not good.
As much as this part of the season can be thrown away and you can say it’s not something that matters. Or something that does not matter down the road. But, in the pairwise era if you were inside the top 16 of rankings by November 11th, you had over a 60% chance to make the tournament. It’s a very similar pattern to the dreaded November 1 date in the NHL. Now does this all change with NPI instead of pairwise? Maybe? Probably not? Does it matter?
Because this Maine team followed up a stinker in Quinnipiac with nearly getting swept in Orono by Colgate. Team toothpaste barnstormed the Black Bears and was an overtime period shot away from taking both games.
One thing that great teams always do, (maybe not this year) but usually what great teams do is take care of the teams that they should beat. That is what separates the great from the merely good teams. Last season, Maine didn’t lose a game until mid-November until they went to BC, and they did not lose a game that they should have won until four days after a Christmas and coming off a three week break when they fell to Bentley 4-2.
Oh and Bentley made the NCAA tournament last year?
And probably should have beat BC?
Oh.
I don’t think anybody is beating down the door for the ole’ Raiders to be a tournament team? But maybe?
It won’t get any for Maine either as the Black Bears will travel to Amherst, Chestnut Hill, Denver and Providence this season.
They’ll have a chance every night with Albin Boija in net. But things have to be moving quickly for the team up north.
Speaking of Goalies…
I struggle to think of many people that had a more outrageous six month stretch in 2025 than Mikhail Yegorov. Going from playing on a last place USHL team in Omaha to being the backbone for the national runner up is a well documented journey. This season, “Big Mike” has taken a step back in his young career, now there can be a number of reasons for this drop off. But the fact is that his save percentage has dropped nearly 20 points with his expected goals against remaining about the same as last season.
He also was not his normal sharp self against Michigan State earlier this month. That could be due to the slew of drafted prospected wearing green and white sure. And every goalie in the world is going to have games where it’s just not their night. But back to back nights allowing 4 goals is jarring from someone who we saw as almost impossible to beat just months ago.
Then Yegorov followed those two games up by allowing 6 goals on 26 shots to UConn at home.
Yuck.
It was the first time Yegorov had been pulled in his career as a Terrier. And BU coach Jay Pandolfo called the game “embarrassing” and considered pullign Yegorov after the 2nd period. But him roll back out into the 3rd only to allow 3 more goals on 9 shots.
Has a full off season and more games of advanced scouting give opponents more of a targeted attack? Perhaps, maybe Yegorov was required to be so mentally locked in last season in the midst of the season a full offseason caused a bit a lapse. Regardless it is something that BU must figure out and figure out soon. Maybe Western Michigan cracked the code last spring, lighting Yegorov up for 5 goals in the National Championship including 3 in the final 20 minutes to pull away for a 6-2 victory.
Regardless, Yegorov has big test in a road environment against a struggling Maine offense this weekend in Orono. What was once billed as a potential top 5 matchup between the two best teams in Hockey East a few weeks ago now has the feeling of a must win for both teams to get on track.
Its really easy to question things this early in the season, and there could be a whole host of internal reasons for a sluggish start. But the good thing for the Terriers is that the entire conference appears to sliding with them but somebody has to rise from that pack.
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