Hockey East parity has NHL origin

You’re looking at the Hockey East standings and scratching your head. Northeastern University is leading the league and Maine is in last place.

Maine swept a two-game set from Northeastern in Boston.

The Black Bears are just six points out of second place.

It is still very early. Nobody has played more than 11 of its 27 league games, yet everybody has at least two losses and a tie. UMass is the only team with two losses but it is just 3-2-4.

Preseason co-favorites Boston College and New Hampshire are 4-3-4 and 5-3-1, respectively, in league play. Boston University, which has finished no lower than third in each of the past three seasons, is 3-5-1.

So what’s happening?

It’s called parity.

If you look at perennial NCAA title contenders BC, BU, UNH and Maine, two of them had to replace goaltenders who were first-team All-Americans in BC’s Cory Schneider and BU’s John Curry.

Maine has had to find ways to overcome the loss of players who scored 67.7 percent of its goals a year ago and UNH lost four of its top seven scorers.

Maine coach Tim Whitehead said one of the primary reasons behind the parity is the fact “the NHL is taking more players early like first-team All-Hockey East players.”

BC has received surprisingly good goaltending from freshman John Muse, but it would certainly have a better record if Schneider hadn’t passed up his senior year to sign with Vancouver, who drafted him in the first round in 2004.

UMass would love to have goalie Jon Quick back, but he left early to sign with the Los Angeles Kings.

Maine’s goal-scoring problems and dismal power play certainly would have benefited from the return of Hockey East Rookie of the Year Teddy Purcell, who signed a free-agent contract with the Kings.

Every program loses players early and it’s worse now because of the NHL’s 2005 collective bargaining agreement.

Under the former deal, signing bonuses were capped at 50 percent of the base salary given to an entry-level player.

For example, if his contract called for him to be paid $800,000 a year, his signing bonus could be as high as $400,000.

Now signing bonuses are capped at 10 percent of the base salary. The maximum an entry-level player can make is $850,000 so his signing bonus wouldn’t be higher than $85,000.

Northeastern coach Greg Cronin, a former Maine assistant and interim head coach, said before the current CBA was signed, NHL teams would wait longer on a player to make sure he was going to be worth the lucrative investment.

“Now they can be more aggressive signing kids [because the financial investment is so much lower],” said Cronin.

“They’re more willing to take a chance on a player now,” said Whitehead.

Whitehead said the other factor is the “quality of coaching and recruiting has elevated. When I was an assistant at [UMass] Lowell and Maine, I’d go recruiting and wouldn’t see anybody [rival recruiters]. Now you can’t go to a game without seeing somebody.”

Cronin agreed and also said it’s easier to recruit now because there’s “more information available” on computers.

He added that there aren’t as many “impact freshmen.”

“You used to have two or three on a team, but now you’re lucky to have one,” said Cronin, who noted the top teams used to get the most impact freshmen, creating a talent gap.

Larry Mahoney can be reached at 990-8231 or at 1-800-310-8600 or by email at lmahoney@bangordailynews.net