As the final weekend of the regular season arrives, every team in Hockey East can still earn either a bye or home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs, which begin next week.
The top five teams in Hockey East get byes in the first round. The sixth, seventh and eight seeds get to host the best-of-three first-round series.
UMass heads into its final two games — Thursday night at UConn; Saturday vs. Providence at the Mullins Center; both at 7 p.m. — just a point out of hosting a series next week.
UMass (7-13-2 Hockey East) sits ninth with 16 points. It can finish as high as seventh, but that would require a tie with three or more teams.
A more realistic goal is eighth. The Minutemen are a point behind Vermont (17 points, 6-11-5). The Catamounts play their final two games Friday and Saturday at Boston University, which has a first-round bye still to play for.
If UMass and UVM finish tied, the Minutemen would earn the higher seed because they won the regular season series.
New Hampshire (15 points, 5-12-5) is just a point behind UMass and holds the tiebreaker over the Minutemen if the teams are tied. UNH has a home-and-home series with Northeastern, which is still in contention for the regular-season title.
Merrimack (6-14-5) is in last, but with 14 points, the Warriors can still climb as high as eighth with some help. They have a home-and-home series with UMass-Lowell.
The Minutemen will be without Johnny Leonard. The freshman sniper suffered an upper-body injury in Thursday’s loss to Boston College and won’t play this weekend.
UConn (11-11-1, 23 points) is as hot as any team in the conference coming in. The Huskies have won seven straight games and could finish as high as fourth.
The teams split their previous two meetings with UMass winning 4-2 in Amherst, while UConn prevailed 8-2 at the XL Center. Senior goalie Tanner Creel has backboned the run after replacing injured starter Adam Huska.
Thursday’s game is the Huskies’ final regular season game.
Providence (13-6-4, 30 points) also has just one game left. Depending on what happens in other games, the Friars, who are in second, could arrive in Amherst with a chance to win the regular season title.
PC is two points behind first-place BC, but would hold the tiebreaker if they end up tied.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage