The final weekend of the Division 1 men’s college hockey season is here.
A long journey that began in October comes to an end this weekend, with Boston University and Quinnipiac standing among the nation’s elite teams heading to the Frozen Four in Tampa, Fla.
To advance to the Frozen Four, the two teams won NCAA regional championships in their home region in Manchester, N.H., and Bridgeport, Conn., respectively.
BU will face top-seeded Minnesota (5 p.m.) and Quinnipiac will take on Michigan (8:30 p.m.) in Thursday’s semifinal games at Amalie Arena. The national title game is set for Saturday at 8 p.m.
Here are five New England storylines to watch during the upcoming Frozen Four:
It's a star-studded field
This year’s Frozen Four field features three No. 1 seeds, including Quinnipiac, as well as the Hockey East regular-season and tournament champions in BU.
The four teams boast a combined 41 NHL draft picks and six of the 10 Hobey Baker Award nominees, though BU freshman Lane Hutson was not among the three finalists despite leading the nation’s defensemen in scoring with 48 points.
Two of the Hobey finalists were Quinnipiac sophomore forward Collin Graf (Lincoln, Mass.) and goaltender Yaniv Perets, whose 10 shutouts are tied for tops in the country and has a second-in-the-nation .932 save percentage. Graf has 20 goals, and his 56 points are third nationally behind Michigan’s Adam Fantilli and Minnesota’s Logan Cooley, whom the Bobcats’ Rand Pecknold (Bedford, N.H.) coached on the 2023 bronze medal-winning U.S. World Junior Team.
As for draft picks, BU has 12 on its roster and Quinnipiac just three. BU sophomore defenseman Ty Gallagher is the lone Boston Bruins prospect in the field.
Historic programs
These teams have plenty of history. BU, Minnesota and Michigan have combined to win 19 national titles, with BU’s most recent coming in 2009. The Terriers have reached the title game in their last three Frozen Four trips.
Quinnipiac has played in a pair of title games, last losing to North Dakota in 2016. Among the members of that Pecknold-led Bobcats team was current Bruins defenseman Connor Clifton.
“It's not easy to get (to the Frozen Four). It's not easy to get back. It's really hard,” Pecknold said. “To me, this group compared to my other two Frozen Four teams, there's more similarities than differences. And I think it's really about our culture, just a great group of guys that are willing to be selfless and willing to buy into what we need to do to be successful against teams that are probably going to have more talent than us."
The Bobcats were the New England team that came closest to making the Frozen Four in Boston last April, but their run came to an end in the Allentown (Pa.) Regional against the same team it will be playing Thursday: Michigan, which was then led by a star cast that included current Seattle Kraken forward Matty Beniers (Hingham, Mass.).
Senior Ethan de Jong, whose 60 career goals and 143 points are the most among active Frozen Four players, has a goal and five assists in seven career tournament games.
BU coach Jay Pandolfo reached four Frozen Fours while playing for the legendary Jack Parker from 1992-96. Two of Pandolfo’s Terriers teams beat Minnesota during playoff runs, including the 1995 club that won the national title.
Coming in hot
The two hottest of the Frozen Four teams, BU and Quinnipiac, have each won 18 games since Christmas and boast 9-1 records in their last 10 games. At 32-4-3, Quinnipiac has the most wins of any team in the country.
The Terriers are in the midst of a nine-game winning run that dates to Feb. 18 against Merrimack, including five straight wins between the Hockey East and national tournaments.
Senior Ethan Phillips stepped up in a big way during the last round, netting two goals and two assists as the Terriers won the Manchester regional.
“We have a great mix of veteran players and clearly we have a great group of young players,” Pandolfo said. “They’ve come together, they’ve worked together and we found our game again in the last month or so. I'm really proud of them. We went through a little bit of a stretch there in mid-February. We weren't at our best. We've come out the other side.”
For Quinnipiac, stellar freshman Sam Lipkin had a goal and three assists during the regional run in Bridgeport, Conn., where the Bobcats beat Merrimack and Ohio State. Sophomore Jacob Quillan scored twice in the first NCAA game.
Perets and BU counterpart Drew Commesso (Norwell, Mass.) were the Most Outstanding Players during regional play. Commesso has a .914 save percentage, with his busiest NCAA game coming against Western Michigan in the semifinals when he made 24 saves. The Terriers then put on a defensive clinic, holding Cornell to 14 shots.
What's the deal with Minnesota and Michigan?
While the Minnesota and Michigan rosters are loaded with talent from their own states, there is one New England native between the two teams in Mackie Samoskevich (Sandy Hook, Conn.), a sophomore forward who looks to help Michigan become the first team in Division 1 hockey history to win 10 national championships.
A Big Ten All-Rookie selection last year, Samoskevich has assumed a crucial top-six role for Brandon Naurato — the head coach whose interim title was removed this week — and the Wolverines. The right winger is third on the team with 43 points, 20 of which have been goals as part of a potent team that scores a nation-leading 4.23 points per game.
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“I had so much faith in the guys that were coming back. I had so much confidence in them,” Samoskevich, a former first-round pick of the Florida Panthers, said, referring to the fact that 14 players graduated or signed pro deals after last year’s Frozen Four. “I knew we were going to be a pretty special team and I knew we were going to be a different team and I think the right team.”
Samoskevich has scored six times on the power play this season and joined Fantilli as the team’s second 20-goal scorer at the most important time, netting the overtime game-winning goal against Big Ten rival Penn State in this year's Allentown Regional to send Michigan to Tampa.
Brotherly love
All four teams in the Frozen Four have a pair of brothers on their rosters. That includes Lane and forward Quinn Hutson for BU, and Joey and Anthony Cipollone for Quinnipiac.
While Lane tops the point-scoring charts, Quinn Hutson has been a crucial producer for the Terriers with 15 goals on the season, seven of which have been game-winners. He scored his second deciding goal against Western Michigan. Lane has scored five more winning goals, including the tally that won the Hockey East championship for BU.
WHY THEY'RE HERE: 5 reasons why BU and Quinnipiac are in the Frozen Four
The combined 76 points between Lane and Quinn are the most among all the brother duos in the field.
The Cipollones haven’t been top scorers for Quinnipiac, but Joey — a former Vermont transfer and Loomis Chaffee product from Purchase, N.Y. — has netted seven goals and 13 points while playing in every game for Pecknold’s team. He scored a goal against Merrimack.
