NORTH ANDOVER — Merrimack began a home-and-home series with a 5-1 loss against Northeastern on Friday night at Lawler Arena.
The Warriors fell to 15-8-1 on the season with the loss. Northeastern improved to 11-9-3 and has now won three straight games.
Inside this post is everything you need to know from Merrimack’s 5-1 loss, including TMR insight and analysis:
Northeastern scored a pair of first-period goals (the first coming just 3:19 into the game) which jumped the Huskies out to an early 2-0 lead. Sam Colangelo scored on the power play and Matt Choupani doubled the lead to 2-0 just 4:23 later.
Midway through the second period the Warriors got on the board and had some life when Filip Forsmark scored his fifth goal of the season. But, Aidan McDonough found the back of the net about three minutes later to give the Huskies their two-goal lead back.
Northeastern extended its lead to 4-1 on a Justin Hryckowian just 17 seconds into the third period.
“That third-period goal was a back-breaker,” said Merrimack coach Scott Borek.
Former Merrimack forward Liam Walsh twisted the knife with his second goal of the season at the 13:14 mark, which gave the Huskies a 5-1 lead.
THUMBS UP
Merrimack’s power play … Don’t look at the conversion rate.
Let’s be real. Anyone can look at the success rate of a power-play (or the final score of a game) and come up with some opinion. I like to look a little deeper than that. There’s so much nuance to the game.
Power-play conversion is one of the worst stats in hockey. A shortened 10-second power play counts the same as a five-minute major.
If a team ends up with a major power play, they can score six goals in the five-minute advantage and end up 6 for 7.
It doesn’t make sense.
I always judge power plays on goals per minute, SOG/shot attempt rate, and scoring chances. From a scoring chance standpoint, the Warriors’ power play looked good on Friday night. The 4-on-3 power play in the first period — which isn’t something teams generally practice — looked outstanding.
The game comes down to scoring chances. Create more than the other team, and you’ll usually score more goals. Merrimack’s power play didn’t find the net on Friday, but the Warriors created multiple chances. It felt like a big step for that unit.
Merrimack’s offensive push after first period
After Northeastern went up 2-0 in the first period the Warriors outshot the Huskies 10-3 over the final 12 minutes. Then Merrimack had a 12-7 edge in shots in the second period for a 22-10 edge in shots in the 32 minutes following Northeastern’s 2-0 lead.
“After we gave up the second goal, the next 30 minutes we played hard,” Borek said. “We created a lot of opportunities, but we weren’t able to finish.
“(Devon) Levi is a good goaltender and they defended hard. I was pleased with how we came back. We got the first one but just couldn’t maintain it. The game was weird, I’ll have to watch the film, but we had 30-40 minutes of good hockey. We were getting three chances they were getting one and it was in our net. That’s not on our goalie, we gave them a grade a chances.”
We all know what Bookman can do with the puck on his stick, and he showed that off on Friday night (particularly on the power play). He was a quarterback on the 4-on-3 power play.
But I was impressed with Bookman’s play away from the puck on Friday night. He led the Warriors with four blocked shots, including a big block in the third period where he remained down for several minutes and appeared to be holding his arm when he was finally able to get back to the bench. However, later in the period, he returned to the ice to finish the game.
THUMBS DOWN
The Warriors start slow yet again
The first period has been a struggle for the Warriors since they returned from the semester break. The Warriors have allowed a first-period goal in every game except the shutout against Providence last week. Moreover, the Warriors have allowed multiple first-period goals in five out of seven games since returning from the break.
“We took a penalty early on which we knew we couldn’t do,” said Merrimack coach Scott Borek. “We needed to be more disciplined in the first 10 minutes of the game.”
In the first half of the season, the Warriors only allowed more than one first-period goal once in 17 games.
By comparison …
First Half (17 GP): 8 first-period goals allowed in 340 minutes.
Second Half: (7 GP): 12 first-period goals allowed in 140 minutes.
The Warriors have trailed after the first period in four out of seven games since the break.
It’s hard to play from behind. And the Warriors have had to do a lot of that in these seven games.
The early goal in the third period was a dagger
Borek called Hryckowian’s goal a back-breaker, and it was.
At the time the score was 3-1 and Merrimack had to feel like it could get back in the game if they were able to pop in a goal sometime in the first 10 minutes of the period.
That next goal was going to be big either way. There’s a huge difference (from a mentality standpoint) between 4-1 and 3-2.
PLAY OF THE GAME
I thought Hryckowian’s goal was the biggest goal of the game. At the end of the second period, Merrimack was pushing back after the Huskies made it 3-1. This goal felt like it put the game away for the Huskies.
PAIRWISE IMPACT
This one stings for the Warriors.
The loss dropped Merrimack to No. 16 in the Pairwise, which now has them on the outside looking in at an NCAA Tournament spot. Merrimack entered the game No. 11. The big drop was due in part to teams around them — Cornell, Michigan Tech, Minnesota State, and Notre Dame — all winning.
It’s been a crazy few weeks for Hockey East. The league had six teams in NCAA positions a month ago. As of Saturday morning, with the Warriors dropping out, the league is down to just one team in an NCAA position (BU).
That’s WILD.
At the moment, the Warriors would be the first team out of the tournament. So, a win on Saturday night (especially where it’s on the road) would likely jump them back into a tournament spot.
Taking into account only Saturday’s game (without other results from Sat. night):
Regulation Win: 15th
OT Win: 16th
Regulation Loss: 17th
OT Loss: 16th
Tie: 16th
UP NEXT
Merrimack begins a five-game road trip tonight against the Huskies at Matthews Arena. After Saturday’s game, the Warriors will travel to Vermont for two games next weekend. Then they’ll finish up the road trip with games at UNH (Feb. 3) and Maine (Feb. 5) before a bye week
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