Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all games were played on campus locations, rather than the semifinal and final match traditionally being hosted at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts.
The UMass Minutemen defeated the UMass Lowell River Hawks to earn their 1st Hockey East tournament championship, and earned the conference's automatic bid into the 2021 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament.
Due to the difficulties of scheduling during the regular season, it was announced in late 2020 that all 11 Hockey East teams qualified for the tournament.
After further complications and cancellations throughout the season, a formula-based ranking system called the Hockey East Power Index (HEPI) was implemented to determine seeding.
[1] On March 5, it was announced that Merrimack would be unable to participate in the tournament due to a late positive test result among the team's Tier-I personnel.