For the first time since he helped found the conference, Providence College won’t be the Hockey East team that Lou Lamoriello watches most intently this season.
Well, alright, maybe it won’t be that easy to get the Islanders general manager away from his alma mater. But Islanders fans who haven’t had a good reason to tune into college hockey in a pretty long time should be paying attention to Boston University after last week’s draft brought rising freshman winger Cole Eiserman and rising freshman center Kamil Bednarik into the fold as the No. 20 and No. 61 overall picks.
It is not a matter of coincidence, either, that BU coach Jay Pandolfo and Lamoriello are long-standing associates, with Pandolfo playing most of his NHL career with the Devils, where he won a pair of Stanley Cups while Lamoriello was running the front office. On the draft floor, Lamoriello made repeated mention of Pandolfo’s ability to develop talent.
“We’ve been in touch since I’ve stopped playing,” Pandolfo told Sports+ by phone this week. “I wouldn’t say we talk on a regular basis. Certainly any time we run into each other, we’ve had some conversations, especially when I was going back to BU. I just had some conversations with him about that, because I was coaching in Boston [with the Bruins], was bouncing some stuff off him if he thought that was a good decision [to go to BU].
