The Hockey East is probably college hockey’s deepest conference this year. Even With Boston University and Boston College struggling early the rest of the conference has been strong. As we inch toward the NCAA tournament every weekend has big implications.

Arguably the biggest matchup in Hockey East play this weekend was the Providence Friars taking on the Northeastern Huskies. Both teams have been great all season and rightfully earned their top-15 rankings in the USCHO poll.

Providence swept two hard-fought games. They now sit at 15-7-4. However, their conference record of 8-5-1 is only good for sixth in the conference. They’ll need to string together a few more weekends like this and carry that momentum into the conference tournament.

Northeastern still sits two points above the Friars in Hockey East standings. The big thing here is that two-point difference is good enough for third in the conference. The Huskies are still a top-ten caliber team that will be just fine down the stretch.

A tale of two halves

The top-6 of the Hockey East is significantly better than the bottom six. Sure, New Hampshire is kinda hanging around but after them it’s flat-out ugly.

Maine, Merrimack, Vermont and Connecticut are downright putrid. The two outliers here are BC and BU. Both teams have overcome horrendous starts and turned in pretty good conference records so far.

It looks like the Hockey East is gonna come down to the wire and Providence has put themselves in a great position to be in the mix to win the damn thing after their great showing this weekend.