Hockey East race about to get interesting

After a week in which non-league games are on the Thanksgiving menu for just about everyone, this coming weekend will feature a healthy helping of intra-conference matchups. None are likely to be more impactful in the long term than what's pending in Hockey East.

There, five teams are rather tightly grouped at the top of the league, and four of them will play each other head-to-head on Friday and Saturday. Just two standings points separate first-place Providence from tied-for-third Northeastern, and they will face each other. UMass Lowell and UMass will also play this weekend, separated by a single point for second and third.

The wrinkle in the standings is that Providence is up a point on UMass with one extra game played, and that's after the Minutemen swept a head-to-head weekend series i