60 Days. 60 Teams. 600 Words (or Less): Brown

Brown

2018-19 Record: 15-14-5 (8-9-5, 8th in ECAC)
Head Coach: Brendan Whittet, 11th Year
Top returning scorers: Zach Gluttari (7G-13A), Chris Berger (8G-11A) and Brent Beaudoin (8G-11A)
Top returning goaltenders: Gavin Nieto (Sr.) and Luke Kania (Jr.)

For a week in March, Brown seemed to be on one of those magical postseason runs that catch everyone's attention. The Bears, after previously defeating Princeton in a triple OT classic to end the Tigers' season, swept Quinnipiac inside the People's United Center. A year removed from Princeton winning the ECAC conference tournament as the seventh seed, could another Ivy in the eighth seed pull off the massive upset? Brown was guaranteed a home regional with two more wins.

It didn't happen. The run ran out of magic thanks to Cornell. Still, competing among ECAC's final four was a far cry for a Brown team that began 2018-19 winning two of its first 12 games. Thanks in part to four straight wins, the Bears ended up above .500 since 2012-13 and only the second time in Brendan Whittet's tenure.

What's New: Not hosting a Providence regional that Providence College takes advantage. Not this year or next, at least.

Ten freshmen - six forwards and four defenders - join Brown. (Minnesota Wild 2019 sixth-round draft pick Nikita Nesterenko will not be on campus until 2020.) They hail from Finland (D Samuli Niinisaari) to Parkland, Florida (F Connor Marshall) and all places in between.

The group includes a pair of forwards who led BCHL teams in scoring last season with Bradley Cocca (Merritt Centennials) finishing with 23 goals and Matty Holmes (Chilliwack) ending up with 68 points (20G-40A). Nathan Plessis played junior hockey with Cale Makar, which makes this sentence college hockey's equivalent to a Sean McVay comparison.

The annual Mayor's Cup game with Providence will be held November 30th. Besides facing off with the Friars for Ocean State bragging rights and a cup, Brown also hosts Arizona State at Meehan Auditorium.

Closing Thoughts: Indie hockey darlings don't go to Brown. They end up at cute, small D3 schools who are not known for anything else and then the horrible cycle continues.

That's mostly tongue in cheek. I would have gone with a "Gossip Girl" reference, but Tony Stillwell beat us all to it. The Bears are not the most successful group historically so it'll be interesting if the run was a hint of things to come in 2019-20 or whether it was just that, a run at the right time. Brown loses three of its top seven scorers (one of those being Alex Brink, who becomes the second Bear to grad transfer to Boston University in as many years). The team had a power play that was 58th of 60 teams. (If there's good news, it's that only 3 of the 13 power-play goals graduate. The bad news is that the 10 remaining goals combined would tie for the national lead.)

One of the high points during the run returns in goalie Gavin Nieto. The now-senior returned after missing eight consecutive games with an injury for the must-win Game 2 against Princeton. When he last played before the injury, Brown was in a position to host the ECAC first-round series. However, it didn't matter as the Bears won the next four with Nieto in net. In fact, Brown was 11-6-1 when he started.

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