Morning Skate: Commonwealth

A win for UMass.

Welcome to Friday, folks!

Hopefully you’ve had a decent week up to this point. If nothing else, you are free from having to watch the Bruins slog their way through the West Coast.

Positives, right?

The B’s aren’t back in action until tomorrow night, when they’ll face the Detroit Red Wings in Detroit.

The Red Wings are still very much in the hunt for the second wild card spot in the East, just two points behind Montreal — but the Blue Jackets, Rangers, and Islanders all stand between the Wings and that spot.

Detroit dropped a big game on Thursday night, losing to the Ottawa Senators in regulation, so Saturday’s game against the Bruins is pretty much a must-win for Detroit’s fading playoff hopes.

Elsewhere, Brad Marchand is expected to make his Panthers debut tonight against Utah. Utah will be playing its second game in as many nights, after they got pasted by Tampa last night, 8-0.

Finally, if you were looking for a local hockey fix last night, UMass had just what you needed — the Minutemen beat Minnesota, 5-4, in a wild NCAA tournament game in Fargo.

UMass was down 3-1 in the third period, then stormed back to take a 4-3 lead; they gave a goal back in the last five minutes of the third, but then won it midway through overtime.

Along with the “flagship university of the Commonwealth” angle, there was a Bruins angle too, with draft pick Dans Locmelis featuring all over the scoresheet for the Minutemen.

Locmelis had two assists, including on the game-winner, and may have actually scored the fourth UMass goal (it was hard to tell if it was a double-tip or not).

Boston University also steamrolled Ohio State yesterday, then Boston College and Bentley play today.

If you want to expand things to include New England, teams also in action today include Providence, Maine, UConn, and Quinnipiac.

You can see the full schedule here.

What’s on tap for today?