Tag Archives: Jim Madigan

Feb 16 2013

Mass. College Hockey: Vermont Skates Past Northeastern, 2-1

By Matt Noonan 

BOSTON, MA – The last time these two squads met, Vermont relied on a pair of goals from Chris McCarthy, which helped the Catamounts get past Northeastern University.

On Friday, Vermont didn’t need McCarthy, but instead one goal each from Jacob Fallon and Ben Albertson to secure a 2-1 win over the Huskies at Matthews Arena.

“Well, congratulations to Vermont for winning and getting the two points,” said Northeastern coach Jim Madigan.

“I thought our effort in the first two periods was awful (and I) was disappointed in some of our older guys and how they played and didn’t step up. It was a key game, a game that was for us a desperation, trying to get back into the playoff hunt and we didn’t respond until we got into the third period, but you can’t win a game in this league by playing one period.”

The Huskies entered the contest looking to avenge Monday’s frustrating loss to Boston College in the 61st Boston Beanpot, but instead squandered offensive opportunities, which allowed the Catamounts to pick up their third road win of the season.

“I think we found a way to win (this game) on the road against a team that was desperate. I think Northeastern is a very good hockey team, I thought they battled their hearts out tonight, and I think our men did the same,” said Vermont coach Kevin Sneddon.

Despite a slow start to their 26th game of the season, Northeastern managed to earn the lead off a shot from Adam Reid on the team’s first power play. Cody Ferriero slid the puck past Vermont goaltender Brody Hoffman (26 saves) in the crease, and Reid wound up not once, but twice, which gave the Huskies a one-goal advantage.

“I didn’t think we had a lot of energy (following our first goal) on the ice and I didn’t think we had a good forecheck going,” said Madigan. “

“I just wasn’t happy at all (during) the first two periods. It was lackluster, it lacked energy for a game of this magnitude where desperation of trying to get points in the league, (and) we’re at home and we haven’t played well lately, (so) that effort is not acceptable.”

Vermont evened the score roughly four minutes later when Fallon deposited a rebound following a shot from Nick Luukko, who slapped the puck from the point, which bounced off the Northeastern netminder Chris Rawlings’ (32 saves) left pad.

The Catamounts doubled their goal total at 11:29 in the second when Albertson received a pass in the zone from Caylen Walls and fired the puck past Rawlings.

Vermont’s second goal proved to be the difference, as it energized the Catamounts toward trying to grow their lead, but unfortunately they were denied by the Northeastern backstop.

“(Chris) played well,” said Madigan. “I thought in the first two periods there he was tested a lot more and I thought he made some key saves for us, and I thought in the third period there was a little less traffic around the net, but a little less in terms of quality chances in the third period, but yeah he gave us a chance, kept us in their like that first goal, (which is) one he probably should have (stopped).”

Northeastern exhibited more energy during the final frame, but also desperation to tie the game, too. It really wasn’t until their final power play of the game where the Huskies created chances, but Hoffman managed to turn away shots from Kevin Roy and Vinny Saponari to seal the victory.

“I thought (Hoffman) was excellent,” said Sneddon. “He actually made (a key save toward the end) and we left the guy to tap in the rebound, so I thought he was again one of our MVP’s if not the MVP tonight. He just gives us a chance to win every time he plays.”

With the win, Vermont improves to 9-14-4 overall and 6-10-4 in the Hockey East, while Northeastern drops to 8-15-3 and 4-12-3.

Both squads will meet for the final time this season tomorrow evening at the Matthews; face-off is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.

Feb 4 2013

61st Boston Beanpot: Madigan, Rawlings And Roy Reflect On Win Against BU (VIDEO)

By NoontimeSports.com 

BOSTON, MA – After their team’s first round win against Boston University in the 61st Boston Beanpot, Northeastern University head coach Jim Madigan, senior Chris Rawlings and freshman Kevin Roy discuss their victory with the media.

Jan 12 2013

Northeastern’s Madigan: ‘We’ll Take The The Point And Then Build On It’

By Matt Noonan 

BOSTON, MA – For the past few seasons, Northeastern University’s men’s ice hockey teams have always had the potential to win big games.

Against Boston College and Boston University, the Huskies elevate their game to another level. Yet, when it comes to some of the so-called, “middle of the road teams,” they stoop to the opposition’s level.

On Friday evening against the University of Maine, Northeastern had numerous chances to pull ahead for good. Their offense should have recorded three or four goals in the opening period, but instead they squandered numerous chances and wound up tying the last place Black Bears, 1-1.

“At home you want to come up with two points every night, but we’ll take the point tonight and then build on it,” said Northeastern coach Jim Madigan. “It’s our first point in the league in 2013, and [we’ll] build on it as we get ready and prepare for our two opponent’s next weekend.”

Friday’s game should have been a win for the Huskies. They won 41 face-offs, tallied more shots on the power play and Chris Rawlings deflected the puck 42 times between the pipes. Yet, they didn’t win the shots on net battle and couldn’t continue their first period momentum throughout the final two frames. And when Bill Norman notched his first collegiate goal for Maine in the second, Northeastern appeared lost.

Cody Ferriero, though, had three chances on various rushes down the right side of the ice during the third, which would have provided Northeastern with the go-ahead score, as well as a much-needed spark. However, his three shots from in front of the net, right circle and left of the slot were all denied by Martin Ouellette, which kept the game tied.

“I thought they got very good goaltending. I thought he made a couple of nice combination saves there later in the third period,” Madigan said.

The Huskies fired 11 shots during the final 25 minutes, which included overtime, and still couldn’t find the back of their opponent’s cage. Maine rifled 15 shots and really only had one particular chance on the left side of Rawlings net to score the go-ahead strike, but Steven Swavely didn’t deliver.

“We had our chances to take the lead, but I thought Rawlings was very good, both teams fought hard, [and] it could have gone either way,” said Maine coach Tim Whitehead.

If Northeastern is going to make any push toward a spot in the conference’s Final Four at the TD Garden in mid-March, they’ll have to be at their best for their remaining contests and put this match away immediately.

Next weekend, Northeastern will have two tough tasks, as they’ll skate against Boston University on Friday and Boston College on Saturday. Both contests will be on the road, and despite only one conference victory away from Matthews Arena, the Huskies know their chances of postseason success would fade with back-to-back losses.

“It’s all about preparation, week to week, and so we’re not going to change our preparation going into this week. It was a point, we wanted two, [but] as I said, we’ll take the point because they’re hard to come by in this league,” said Madigan.

“When you play BU and then our opponent the next night is a team of Boston, [so] when you play those two teams it is easy to get up for them. It’s been that way since I played here in [1981].”

Jan 11 2013

Mass. College Hockey: Maine 1, Northeastern 1 (Game Summary)

By Matt Noonan

BOSTON, MA – The Northeastern Huskies men’s ice hockey team began 2013 with a crushing three-goal defeat to Bentley University.

Roughly six days after their crushing loss, the Huskies tried to rebound with a win against Maine, a squad that’s currently in the Hockey East basement, but instead squandered numerous goal-scoring chances and finished with a 1-1 tie.

“It was a hard fought game by both teams, and for us, I like the way we responded from our game last weekend,” said Northeastern coach Jim Madigan. “I thought we were much better in our defensive zone and at protecting the middle of the ice a lot better.

“I know they had a lot of shots, [but] I thought we did a good job keeping some of the shots from the outside, I thought we did a better job protecting the front of the net, protecting in front of Chris [Rawlings], so those are the things I liked.”

Despite staring the New Year with a loss and tie, Northeastern remains a six-win team, three of their victories coming against conference foes.

Northeastern had a handful of chances once the contest commenced, but various attempts in Maine’s zone were either blocked, misdirected or flicked wide. Although, their effort paid off late in the frame when Kevin Roy slipped the puck past Martin Ouellette on the right side of the crease, which provided the host’s with a one goal advantage.

Maine responded early in the second, as Bill Norman netted his first collegiate goal after collecting a pass from behind the net from Adam Shemansky on the left side, which evened the score at 1.

The Black Bears intensity continued, though, as they outshot the Huskies, 18-8 during the frame, as well as denied the Huskies any goal-scoring chances on two power plays.

“We had some good chances, some good looks [during our power plays], and we didn’t capitalize,” said Madigan. “I didn’t think our last two power plays had a lot of good chances.

“Maine kills penalties well, all teams in this league kill penalties at 84-85-86 percent, so I think we’re hitting at 60 percent, and that’s what we try to tell our guys, ‘don’t get frustrated.’ If you go 0-for-4, hey, don’t get frustrated. If you go 0-for-5, don’t get frustrated because you can go 1-for-6 and that one goal could be the difference, it could be the winning goal of the game.”

Cody Ferriero attempted to put Northeastern ahead on numerous goal-scoring chances once the third started, but Ouellette and the Black Bears defense smothered the junior forward, while the Huskies defense denied Maine’s rushes and shots outside the zone.

Neither team managed to pot the go-ahead goal during the final session or overtime, which provided Maine with their third tie, Northeastern with their second.

Northeastern will attempt to earn their first win in 2013 next Friday when they travel to Boston University, while Maine will travel to Merrimack College tomorrow for a 7:00 p.m. face-off.

NOTE: We will have more from this game on the blog later, as well as video postgame video reactions, too.

Oct 10 2012

Hockey East: Northeastern 3, Merrimack 0 (First Period Reactions)

By Matt Noonan 

BOSTON, MA –  Entering Wednesday’s Hockey East season opener against Merrimack College, Northeastern University second-year head coach Jim Madigan had some questions about his team, especially after their one-goal defeat three days ago.

However, those preseason concerns and worries must have vanished, especially after the Huskies notched three goals off 16 shots in the opening period, which provided Northeastern with a 3-0 lead.

Garrett Vermeersch, Joseph Manno and Kevin Roy each netted one goal, while Chris Rawlings recorded five saves between the pipes.

Merrimack concluded the opening frame with just five shots and two trips to the penalty box. Northeastern capitalized on their second power play with a goal from Roy, which was assisted by Vinny Saponari.

The Warriors scored four goals in their first non-conference match this past weekend against Union College, so it’ll be interesting to see if they can rally to make this a game, especially since it’ll count toward their conference standings.

Make sure to follow @NoontimeSports and @NoonSportsBlog for more updates from the Matthews Arena.

Oct 1 2012

Northeastern’s Madigan Optimistic About Second Season

Northeastern University head coach Jim Madigan is optimistic about the Huskies upcoming season! (Photo Credit: HockeyEastOnline.com)

By Matt Noonan 

Last Tuesday, the college hockey season kicked-off with Hockey East Media Day, which was held at the TD Garden in Boston.

Media members, broadcasters, coaches and players gathered to discuss the past season, and look ahead to this coming year.

Noontime Sports caught up with Northeastern University head coach Jim Madigan, who seemed optimistic about his team this season, which was picked sixth in the preseason coaches’ poll. Below are Madigan’s thoughts on his second season with the Huskies:

“[I’ve got] a much better sense of our team right now. I think some of the things we learned about last year were that we ended up hurting ourselves. We took ourselves out of some opportunities with being undisciplined and some situations we had to deal with not always having our full lineup, and then from on ice we’ve just got to be a little bit better defensively. We’ve got enough offense to score goals and even last year when we weren’t scoring goals there was still some offensive players, [who weren’t always] available to every [game or the past few seasons], which took away from us generating some offense, but I think we’ve got enough offense to score, we’ve just got to be much better in our own zone defensively.

“The nice thing about [having] a year under your belt is that I’ve got a year under my belt, so there’s a reflection period, there’s a year of experience having gone through so we can tweak some things when we need to tweak them. The players know us, we know the players, we put them in better situations right from the beginning of the [current] year and they [won’t] have to wait through the first five-six-seven games to get the lines in the right place like they did last year. We can start off this year right from the beginning with a clean slate of knowing the players the strengths and then knowing us and how we want to respond, so I think from on ice it’s the defensive play, which we’ll need to improve on.”

Feb 13 2012

Boston Beanpot Rapid Reaction: Harvard 3, Northeastern 2

By Matt Noonan

BOSTON, MA – Rapid reactions and thoughts from Harvard University’s men’s ice hockey team’s eighth  win of the season against Northeastern University.

How the game was won: The Crimson tallied three goals, one in each period, which came off the sticks of  juniors Alex Fallstrom and Luke Greiner, and senior Alex Killorn to earn a 3-2 win. The win marks the second year in row that the Crimson have finished the tournament in third place. Also, Harvard received some decent goaltending in the win from freshman Steve Michalek, who turned away 24 shots.

Witt starts in place of Rawlings: In a surprise move, Northeastern head coach Jim Madigan started sophomore Clay Witt, who denied 36 shots between the pipes. He recorded his second loss of the season, while junior Chris Rawlings sat on the bench. Madigan didn’t exactly clarify why he started Witt, but explained that he has been working hard in practice.

What it means: Harvard has now won eight games this season, but still remains in fourth place in the ECAC standings behind Colgate, Cornell and Union. As for Northeastern, this was once again another heartbreaking one-goal defeat. The Huskies have now lost nine games this season by one goal, and currently reside in ninth place in the Hockey East conference.

Stat of the Game: Northeastern’s offense finished the game with 26 shots on net, and only two strikes from junior Robbie Vrolyk and sophomore Luke Eibler.

What’s next: Harvard will return to the ice on Friday when they travel to Brown University, while Northeastern will look snap their three-game losing streak at home against Providence College. Both games are slated for 7:00pm face-offs.

Feb 7 2012

Leftover Thoughts From Day One Of The 60th Boston Beanpot

 

By Matt Noonan 

Here are a few leftover thoughts from Monday’s Boston Beanpot.

* Boston College appeared to be the strongest team in the city on Monday, especially since they defeated a Hockey East conference opponent by six goals.

* Northeastern University appeared dazed and confused, and head coach Jim Madigan stated bluntly that his squad was definitely “schooled.” The Huskies have now lost 12 games this season, and seriously, this has to be one of the most excruciating contests Madigan has ever experienced behind the bench.

* Random thought – did anyone else think that Jerry York’s squad was going to tally 10 goals on the Huskies?

 

* In my honest opinion, Harvard University’s men’s ice hockey team is certainly better than their record, which is 7-7-9. Yet, isn’t it quite amazing that the Crimson have nine ties this season? Against the number one team in the nation, Boston University, the Crimson won the shots on goal battle by rifling 30 shots on Terriers senior goaltender Kieran Millan, who easily turned away 29 of them. BU finished the contest with 25 shots, and three goals.

* Another random thought – I’m not expecting Ted Donato’s squad to lie down against the Huskies next week in the consolation clash. Harvard beat BU last year, 5-4 in the first game of “Championship Monday,” and I wouldn’t be surprised if they beat Northeastern.

* BU head coach Jack Parker should certainly compliment junior Wade Megan, who notched his second and third goals of the historic tournament against Harvard. The junior forward has now recorded three points in his five appearances in the Beanpot, and yes, they’ve all been goals.

* We’re still a few days away from another epic showdown of BC-BU, but if the Eagles play the way they did against the Huskies, then I’m picking the Eagles. However, if Millan keeps the puck out of the net, and assist his offense, then I’m picking the Terriers.

* The Eagles and Terriers have faced-off against one another 20 times in the tournament, and BU has won 12 of those contests. Can they earn lucky number 13 next Monday? We’ll see!

Feb 7 2012

Boston Beanpot Game Recap: BC 7, Northeastern 1

 

By Matt Noonan 

BOSTON, MA – Mark your calendar for another edition of Boston College-Boston University hockey, as the Eagles soared past the Northeastern University Huskies on Monday evening at the TD Garden, 7-1, and clinched a spot in the upcoming Beanpot championship for the 21st time in tournament history.

The victory marks BC’s fourth of the season against the men who sport the red and black sweaters, as well as their 17th overall win in the standings.

“I thought our team came on, and played well in the second and third period,” said BC head coach Jerry York.

“They outplayed us, they outcoached us, [and] they wanted more than us,” said a distraught Northeastern head coach Jim Madigan. “Right from the get-go they just took it to us, and we couldn’t get going.”

BC dominated following the opening face-off, as they registered two quick strikes on 15 shots by senior forward Paul Carey and freshman Johnny Gaudreau.

Northeastern answered by cutting the two-goal advantage in half when sophomore defenseman Anthony Bitetto netted a strike at 12:34 in the first period, which marked the Huskies only points of the evening.

“I thought the first period, certainly, Northeastern had the edge in the play,” said York. “We were back on our heels a little bit, and we’re very fortunate to come out of that, 2-1.”

Following the intermission, BC ramped up the intensity and netted three goals in the middle frame, as junior Steven Whitney logged two scores, while Gaudreau tallied his second of the game.

Northeastern then swapped junior goaltender Chris Rawlings. (24 saves) for sophomore Clay Witt, but the goalie switch didn’t exactly jumpstart Madigan’s offense, who once again watched the Eagles add two more points to the scoreboard when senior Barry Almeida and Carey deposited the puck into the Huskies cage.

“They [were] down two really top-end players, [Cody] Ferriero and [Steve] Qualier, so you take those two out of your line-up, and that affects you in a lot of different ways, and that’s probably one of the contributing factors for sure,” said York.

BC’s seven goals against Northeastern matches a first round record that was set back on February 3, 1997, which was when BU beat-up Harvard, 7-1, too.

“We got schooled today, bad,” said Madigan. “They’re the better team, and congratulations to them.”

Northeastern will face Harvard next Monday in the consolation match before BC and BU will tangle for the 60th Beanpot championship.

The Terriers are 12-8 against the Eagles in the tournament final, so expect the championship clash to be another great chapter in this historic Boston hockey rival.

“Every Beanpot final is just as exciting, [but] playing BU is a little bit of a bonus,” said Whitney. “The past two years have been fun, and I know this year is going to be just as intense, and even more fun because it’s BU.”