The Final Countdown: Part 3 of 5

Black Bears Look to Deny The Minutemen a Trip to the Playoffs

If the season didn't have this pesky little final weekend to play out, Maine would spend the first weekend of the postseason in Orono hosting the Huskies.  The Minutemen would be sitting at home.

While the scorching Black Bears have undeniably been cooled off a bit after their 15 game unbeaten streak with their starting goalie in net, the once 9-2 UMass Amherst squad has gone absolutely ice cold.  As a result, they will spend this final weekend trying to earn it, as they no longer control their own playoff destiny.

Each team boasts a Hobey Baker candidate, but it seems like only one will be extending his campaign deep into March, and maybe even into April.

Can Toot Cahoon right the ship for a two-game set at Alfond Arena?  Or will it be the Black Bears going into the playoffs on a high note?

Toot Is Confused

Gustav Nyquist, despite what he did in Maine's ugly two game visit to Agganis, is an absolute monster. He leads the nation in scoring with 54 points, including 37 assists, and a stout 4 game winning goals. He has to be considered the favorite in the Hobey Baker race. He has put up 23 points in his last 11 contests, but that's not really a surprise at all.

Nyquist has only been held off the scoresheet in 5 games this entire season.  That means the Sweedish Sensation has scored at least one point in 27 games this year.  BU fans got excited about a 10 game point streak for Nicky Bonino, but Nyquist has a 10 game, 7 game, and two separate 5 game point streaks over the course of the season. 

Nyquist's best performance of the season came in a resounding 8-4 bounce back victory over Lowell.  Coming off of a two game sweep at the hands of the Terriers, the Black Bears needed a boost, and Gustav delivered, scoring a goal and helping on 4 more.

If you want to beat Maine, you have to neutralize Gustav.  The Terriers were somehow able to stop him, and as a result, the Black Bears were an average team.  Maine is good.  Tanner House is an above average player and a good captain.  But Nyquist is great.

As a result, Maine's offense is off the charts.  They lead Hockey East in scoring offense, and they rip their opponents' hearts out with their power play. 

In addition to a trio of explosive forwards, the Black Bears have an overrated goaltender in Scott Darling.  Scotty has a 3.10 GAA and he saves .895% of all the shots he sees.  Translation:  he's average.  That's it.  Not horrible, but definitely not great.  Scotty and his awful back-ups have led the way to the worst scoring defense in all of Hockey East.

But Darling is probably good enough to shut down UMass Amherst. 

The Minutemen have lost six consecutive games, including two to Merrimack.  Amherst has also managed to lose 8 of the last 9 games they've played.  On January 23, Amherst was a 15-8 team, and was a popular sleeper pick for a lot of people to come out of Hockey East as a contender.  Now, they're 16-16 and they're battling for the right to be the 8 seed.

So what happened to Amherst?

Basically, they forgot how to score.  They have 6 goals in the past 6 games, dropping their season average to just 2.78 goals per game.  This despite the fact that they also have a Hobey Baker candidate at forward.

All-American James Marcou, like the rest of his team, has gone M.I.A. as of late.  He has just 3 goals and 3 assists in his last 10 games as his team has plummeted to the depths of the Conference.

Unfortunately for UMass, there's not a whole lot of other options to pick up the slack for their leading man.  While Casey Wellman has had a soild year, it just about stops there.  Amherst has 9 forwards on their roster who have logged at least 20 games, but have failed to notch doble digit point totals. 

However, despite all the misery and failure in Amherst over the past 6 weeks, the mess that is Hockey East is still wide open enough that they just could sneak into the playoffs.  They sit one point behind Merrimack for the final spot.

Before we get to the predictable predictions, let's compare these two clubs.

OVERALL RECORD

UME: 16-13-3    UMA: 16-16-0

GOALS / GAME

UME: 3.78   UMA: 2.78

GOALS ALLOWED / GAME

UME: 3.38  UMA: 3.16

POWER PLAY

UME: 28.9%  UMA: 19.5%

PENALTY KILL

UME: 79.9%   UMA: 78.8%

We talked about desperation in the UVM -- UML match-up.  All the desperation in the world isn't going to be enough for Amherst this weekend. 

THE PICK:  Make it 8 losses in a row to close out what began as a very promising year for the Minutemen.  As a result, they will miss the playoffs entirely, and Marcou may not be all that eager to return for his senior season in Amherst.