Thursday, May 08, 2014

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BU’s 2014-15 schedule is yet to be announced, however the dates of a few non-conference games have been confirmed.  The BU-Harvard game on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving is back on the schedule after several seasons’ absence. This year’s game is at BU on Nov. 25. Terriers will head west on the Mass Pike to take on Rensselaer on Dec. 13. And just after New Year’s, on Jan. 3, newly-crowned NCAA champion Union will visit Agganis Arena.

Looking ahead
Two Terrier recruits were selected during phase 2 of the USHL draft this week. 2015 recruit Sean MacTavish, a right-shot center, was the first-round choice of the Waterloo Black Hawks. MacTavish spent the past two seasons with the Sherwood Park Crusaders, finishing last season with a 28-44-72 scoring line, third best in the AJHL. Crusaders’ Coach Tim Fragle:

"[Sean] has just really exceeded our expectations offensively. He’s such a smart player offensively, he’s got a good shot and people have taken notice. It sure helps that he’s had a good start, but he also comes from a good hockey background. He’s definitely come in and has played well for us.”

In the ninth round, the Tri-City Storm selected 2016 recruit Johnny McDermott, a left-shot center who played for the Westminster School last season and the Connecticut Oilers the previous season.  USHR on McDermott:

McDermott has size, is an excellent skater, is a pure athlete, and makes plays. At 6'2', 178 lbs., he will fill out more before the fall of '16 and will keep getting better. A good playmaker to go along with his skating, he is a power forward with finesse and has a lot of upside. More than willing to set up his teammates for scoring chances, he uses his size and reach to disrupt defensemen on the forecheck and create scoring chances at the other end. 

2016 recruit Hank Crone wasn’t picked in the USHL draft as he’d already signed a tender with Omaha and will spend the next two seasons providing offense for the Lancers, whose scouting director, Rick Comley, says: "Hank has an elite skill level and hockey sense. We fully expect him to develop into one of the premium forwards in the USHL over the course of the next few seasons."

While Crone’s hockey skills have pegged him as one of the top U.S. born forwards for the 2016 NHL draft, he comes from a baseball family. His father is a major league baseball scout for the Tigers and his grandfather, Ray Crone, was a right-handed pitcher for the Milwaukee Braves and the New York Giants during the 1950s. Earlier this spring, a Wall Street Journal article cited Crone as an example of the growing number of young athletes who find baseball to be simply to slow and turned to more fast-paced endeavors, including hockey.

Looking back
All-American defenseman Tom Poti has retired after 14 NHL seasons. After a standout career at Cushing Academy, the tall defenseman from Worcester, Mass., spent two seasons on the Terrier blueline, scoring 21 points as a freshman, earning Hockey East All-Rookie honors,  and 42 points as a sophomore (First Team Hockey East All-Star) and helped BU reach the NCAA championship game in 1997. He was a third-round draft pick of Edmonton and also played for the Rangers, Islanders and Capitals, scoring 327 regular season points and another 19 in the playoffs.

"I was very fortunate to play in the National Hockey League for 14 years. It was a dream come true and I had an awesome ride and met so many great people along the way," Poti said in a statement released through the NHL Players' Association. "I'd like to thank my family and my wife and children for all their love and support."
●Greatest Hockey Legends.com report

The Hockey News examined up and coming candidates for NHL general manager job, including former Terrier forward Paul Fenton, the Nashville assistant GM who had been under consideration for the Buffalo job earlier this season.

Paul Fenton, 54:The time has come for Fenton to find work as a GM because there is basically nothing he hasn’t done in every other capacity. Fenton is supremely confident in his abilities to run an NHL hockey department. Earlier this season he told thn.com: “I helped build Anaheim from the bottom. I’ve broken down this team when ownership declared that they were going to sell the team and move and then built it back up to hopefully a contender. I believe that I’m ready and I hope that somebody else does. There’s nothing that I haven’t done in this business to say that I’m not ready to be a manager,” Fenton said. “I make decisions. I have been put on the spot to make decisions on everything from free agency to drafts to trades to any type of acquisition. I live it every day, so for me I think it’s a natural progression.”
His previous experience with the Ducks and 16 years with the Predators has been marked by a lot of success in player procurement. He could probably dine out on the Predators 2003 draft alone, when they got four defensemen – Ryan Suter, Shea Weber, Kevin Klein and Alexander Sulzer – who have all ended up playing in the NHL.
Probable destination: Predators GM David Poile, at some point, moves aside and Fenton takes over.

Women’s Team
The Daily Free Press looks at the four-year career and winning legacy of 2013-14 captain Louise Warren.

2014 recruit Erin O’Neil is among the goalies invited to the prestigious Warren Strelow goalie camp opening today in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A standout netminder for Hopkin High School in Minnesota, O’Neil played for Team USA in the recent Women’s U18 championships.

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