Merrimack's season ends after playoff loss to Northeastern
BOSTON—Merrimack's season ended on Wednesday night at Matthews Arena with a 4-0 loss to Northeastern in the opening round of the Hockey East playoffs.
The loss ended what started as a promising year for the Warriors, but the season derailed after tough losses and long-term injuries piled up. The Warriors lost 152 man-games to injuries this season, six times more than the 2022-23 season when the Warriors lost only 25 man-games due to injury.
"We came in 10th place. We lost our last game," Scott Borek said. "I love our group. We have a good group of young men that handled [the adversity of the season] really well. But at the end of the day, we just weren't good enough.
"I think we passed up shots in the first half of the game. We were actually playing really well in the first two periods, but I felt that we had some really good looks, and we didn't challenge them enough. We should have shot the puck more and got a little cute and we shouldn't have been. That's not our game."
Wednesday's loss at Northeastern was a microcosm of the season. The Warriors and Huskies played a relatively even game — shots were 26-22 Northeastern — but the Huskies generated a few more scoring chances and found the net four times while the Warriors couldn't get a puck past Cameron Whitehead.
"We had to defend too much, and we really needed that first goal," Borek said. " Giving that up was a difficult thing to do. It was a situation we should have been able to handle, but we didn't. We let them get out ahead of us, and they are a tough team to chase. We chased it the rest of the night."
Northeastern killed two penalties in the first period, which proved critical. After Alex Campbell gave the Huskies a 1-0 lead, Pito Walton was called for interference, and Hunter MacDonald was called for high sticking. This gave the Warriors a pair of power plays, during which they hit the post twice.
"Those kills were huge," Northeastern coach Jerry Keefe said. "Obviously, if they make it 1-1 there, it can be a different game. I know they hit that one post with Jefferies, which was really close. Those kills set a tone for us."
The loss ended the collegiate careers of Ben Brar, Filip Forsmark, Liam Dennison, Mac Welsher, Chase Stevenson, and Mark Gallant.
Seniors Alex Jefferies, Zachary Borgiel, and Christian Felton all have a fifth year of eligibility due to the COVID season in 2020-21, but there's no telling if they'll use it.
"It was an honor to coach those guys," Borek said. "I feel emotionally guilty for the year we had because [the fifth-year players] all decided to return. I didn't do a good enough job for them to be successful, and it kills me."