College Hockey Series of the Week: No. 7 Quinnipiac Bobcats vs. No. 9 Maine Black Bears

Another week of college hockey is in the books, and the series of the week features a team that Penn State men's hockey took on last weekend.

The Quinnipiac Bobcats and Maine Black Bears will face off in a clash of top 10 teams this weekend.

The Bobcats enter into the matchup ranked at No. 7 in the country moving up a spot after last weekend.

As for Maine, they sit at No. 9 after the first week of games.

Through only one game played this season, Maine’s Nolan Renwick and Taylor Makar both have two goals to start off the 2024-25 campaign.

The six goals the team scored in their opening game is the most they’ve had to start a season since the 2018-2019 campaign where they amassed six goals against the University of Prince Edward Island.

The Black Bears sustained success and hopefully will continue to grow under the fourth year of the Ben Barr program.

When Barr took over back in 2021, Maine finished the 2021-22 season with a horrendous 7-22-4.

Just two years later he was able to move the goalposts for his squad and get them back to the NCAA tournament for the first time in over a decade when they went back in 2012.

While Barr is fairly new now entering his fourth season at the helm, Quinnipiac’s bench boss Rand Pecknold has been doing the gig for a while now.

He’s seen his fair share of hockey.

Pecknold enters his 31st season after being hired way back on May 5th, 1994. Quinnipiac has one four NCAA tournament games in the past five seasons (only Denver and Minnesota Duluth have more).

Young versus old will be an interesting feature of this game, with two coaches who have different visions of coaching at the Division I level.

Quinnipiac has also only played a single game to start the season, and Jeremy Wilmer is the key for the Bobcats.

He had a tremendous weekend against Penn State tallying two goals in the 3-2 contest that started off their season.

Quinnipiac, the national champions of college hockey back in 2022, is looking to regain that magic they sustained that year and capture it once again.

The returning Bobcats squad is young with 15 total sophomores and freshmen on the team. The young squad does mean success could take time, but Quinnipiac is ready to prove that their title win in 2022 was no fluke.

As for Maine, they finished last season 23-12-2 overall on the campaign, losing in the first round of the NCAA tournament at the hands of Cornell.

Maine adds a fairly young class of their own in this battle with 14 underclassmen on the roster this season.

The battle of the young guns is going to be at the center point this week, as both Quinnipiac and Maine are looking to establish themselves before facing more tough competition.

After this matchup, Quinnipiac will host New Hampshire at home next weekend on Oct. 25th and 26th.

As for Maine, they will take a trip down to Boston to take on the Northeastern Huskies.

Giustino Racchini is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him please email him at gar5448@psu.edu.