BOSTON -- Good Saturday evening and welcome inside Northeastern University's historic Matthews Arena. Tonight, the Huskies open their 2015-16 season with a 7 p.m. contest against No. 20 Colgate.
NU looks to follow Sunday's 10-2 win over Simon Fraser with a third season-opening victory in four years. Eighteen different Huskies recorded points in the exhibition game while six of their eight goals came off the sticks of freshmen, including three by Jason Cotton in the third period.
Senior Kevin Roy enters the season as the top returning scorer in college hockey, having posted 55 goals and 124 points in his career. He led last year's Huskies with 19 goals and 44 points and posted a goal in last week's exhibition victory.
Colgate's defense ranked sixth in the country last season, but it surrendered nine goals in their second game of the regular season last Sunday at Mercyhurst.
Senior Tyson Spink handed out five assists in the series, which begun with a 5-2 win for the Raiders one week ago, while three of junior Derek Freeman's four points were goals. Freeman hails from nearby Newburyport and is one of three Massachusetts natives on the visitors' roster, along with juniors Tim Harrison (Duxbury) and Jake Kulevich (Marblehead).
The Raiders earned a pair of 3-0 wins to complete a weekend sweep when the teams met last year in Hamilton, N.Y., but tonight's game marks their first in Boston since 2003. NU holds a 27-19-2 advantage in an all-time series which dates back to 1961.
Here are tonight's lines:
RAIDERS (22-12-4, 11-7-4 ECAC in 2014-15)
Tyson Spink - Tylor Spink - Hunter Racine
Darcy Murphy - Mike Borkowski - Sebastian Weberg
Emilio Audi - Mike Panowyk - Andrew Black
Derek Freeman - Evan Peterson - Tim Harrison
Willie Brooks - Jake Kulevich
Kevin Lough - Anthony Sanniti
Brett Corkey - Ken Citron
Charlie Finn
Zac Hamilton
Bruce Racine
HUSKIES (16-16-4, 11-9-2 Hockey East in 2014-15)
Kevin Roy - Dalen Hedges - Mike McMurtry
Zach Aston-Reese - Adam Gaudette - Sam Kurker
Nolan Stevens - John Stevens - Dylan Sikura
Lincoln Griffin - Brendan Collier - Jason Cotton
Jarrett Fennell - Matt Benning
Colton Saucerman - Eric Williams
Jake Schechter - Garret Cockerill
Derick Roy
Jake Theut
Ryan Ruck