Big Ten play has been picking up, although not every team in the conference has faced off yet. All teams, except for Michigan, have now played at least six league games. Minnesota leads Big Ten play with a 7-0-1 record over eight games.

Michigan and Wisconsin were idle over the weekend, while Michigan State swept Penn State and Minnesota swept Ohio State.

With the limited amount of conference games, it’s hard to tell which teams — aside from the Gophers — are elite in Big Ten hockey. But the Buckeyes proved over the weekend they’re capable of playing against the best.

The Nittany Lions are still searching for their first conference win, and their four wins this season have all been against Atlantic Hockey teams. In Saturday’s contests against the Spartans, Penn State lost 3-2 but played well and tied the Spartans twice during the game.

But the rest of the season is only going to get harder for the Nittany Lions, who resume against Boston College. The Eagles defeated Penn State 8-2 earlier in the season. After that, Penn State will play 14 games against Big Ten teams.

(After the jump: Minnesota’s offense, Ohio State’s goalkeeping and Ryan Dzingel) (more…)

Durham, NH – While it was snowing outside, New Hampshire and Union put on a show in front of smallish crowd at the Whittemore Center. Union opened the scoring at 15 minutes, five seconds of the first period when Mark Bennett put in a goal from zero angle on the backhand to give the Dutchmen a 1-0 lead. UNH responded seconds after its star defenseman, Trevor van Riemsdyk, went down with an apparent right leg injury, as Kyle Smith sent a pass to Tyler Kelleher to send the game into the first intermission tied at one.

The second period was a sluggish period of hockey, at best, by both teams. Union scored the only goal of the second period at 17:26 off a beautiful tip from Max Novak. The Dutchmen took the 2-0 lead into the third period, looking for its second win in as many nights against UNH. Union added an empty netter in the third period to cap the 3-1 win, securing the weekend sweep at UNH. Union improves to 15-4-3 on the season, while UNH falls to 13-12-1.

(more…)

Allston, MASS- Cornell came out flying in the first period in front of a rare, packed house at the Bright Landry Hockey Center. The Big Red held the Crimson without a shot for nearly ten minutes of the first period, and were rewarded by a short-handed goal on a breakaway by Madison Dias at the six minute, 22 second mark of the first period. The lead was doubled with just four seconds remaining in the period, as Joakim Ryan picked up his second assist of the night on a beautiful individual effort on a 2 on 1 break by Christian Hilbrich. Cornell held the Crimson to just five first period shots, and the Crimson struggled to possess the puck on the much bigger Big Red.

Harvard played a much better second period and came charging back in the period. Sean Malone brought the Crimson to within one, while getting tripped in the slot on a feed from Jimmy Vesey at 10:17 of the second period. Devin Tringale scored his first collegiate goal to tie the game, short-handed, five minutes later. But Cornell scored another last minute of a period goal, when Brian Ferlin fed a pass to Dustin Mowrey all alone in front of Steve Michalek sending Cornell into the second intermission up 3-2.

Cornell would hold on, literally, in the third period for the win. Harvard arguably gave its best performance of the season, as it outshot the Big Red 11-7 in the third period but it was not to be, as Cornell won the game 3-2. Cornell improved to 9-4-3, 5-3-2 in the ECAC with the win, while Harvard fell to 5-9-3, 2-7-3. Cornell moves within seven points of league leading Quinnipiac, with still three games in hand. (more…)

Ohio State (11-6-1, 1-2-1 B1G) at Minnesota (15-2-3, 5-0-1 B1G): Jan. 17 at 8:07 p.m., Jan. 18 at 5:07 p.m.

The No. 2 and 3 offenses in the country will face off in the Hockey City Classic on Friday, which will be played at Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium. The Gophers average 3.95 goals per game, while the Buckeyes average 3.83 goals per game. Minnesota hasn’t lost since Nov. 24 and holds the longest unbeaten streak in the country.

Ryan Dzingel’s 27 points leads the Buckeyes and the Big Ten in scoring. Three different freshmen — Logan Davis, Christian Frey and Matt Tomkins — have started in net for the Buckeyes this season.

Sam Warning paces Minnesota’s offense with 23 points this season. Adam Wilcox, who’s started all but one game in net, has a .925 save percentage and a 2.13 goals-against average.

This is the first meeting between both teams since 2007.

Prediction: Minnesota sweeps the series

Penn State (4-12-1, 0-4-0 B1G) at Michigan State (6-10-3, 0-2-2 B1G): Jan. 17 at 6:35 p.m., Jan. 18 at 7:05 p.m. (NBCSN)

The Nittany Lions have yet to win a conference game this season and have lost nine of their past 10 games. Michigan State’s lone win over the past six contests came against Michigan at the Great Lakes Invitational.

These teams faced off last season, splitting the series. Penn State’s Casey Bailey and Max Gardiner each had four points, while Mike Ferrantino netted three for the Spartans.

Goalkeepers Jake Hildebrand and Matthew Skoff are both from the Pittsburgh are and played together for the Sioux City Musketeers in the USHL. The two netminders faced off in Penn State’s 3-2 win last season.

Eric Scheid leads Penn State’s offense with 13 points and eight goals. Michigan’s State’s Jake Chelios has 14 points, while Greg Wolfe has tallied seven goals.

Prediction: Series split

Another week and more movement at the top. Clarkson continues its struggle in the second half and plummets in the rankings this week, while RPI, Dartmouth, Princeton and St. Lawrence are really close at the bottom of the rankings. Quinnipiac defeated Union on Friday night in Hamden, in a game that saw the two top teams in the ECAC faceoff. Quinnipiac took back the lead in the league with the win by a measly point, with teams behind them having a ton of games. See this week’s Three Things I Think for that storyline. Without further ado here are my rankings for the week. Feel free to send your opinion by twitter and follow me @JoshSeguin24

1. Union (13-4-3, 9-2-0 ECAC) – Last Week 1

Like I didn’t penalize Quinnipiac for its road loss to Union in the first half, I won’t penalize Union for its road loss to Quinnpiac. At this point, there is no doubt that Union and Quinnipiac are interchangeable at the top of these rankings. The Dutchmen’s loss to the Bobcats on Friday, was its first blemish in ten games. This weekend gets no easier for Union, as it travels to the Olympic Sheet of Lake Whitt on the University of New Hampshire for a pair. Both games will have huge implications for Union in the Pairwise Rankings., which it currently sits sixth. (more…)

College hockey’s winter break came and went pretty quickly. As teams traveled to various holiday tournaments and other series around the country, Hockey East clubs produced some results that, as they often do, offered as many questions as they answered.

Even now, after another weekend of games, it’s difficult to say with any certainty where most teams stand.

The jump into the second half also leads to year-end award discussions. These arguments reveal as much about the league as any of the results on the ice. Within Hockey East, the coach of the year conversations are as wide open as any in recent memory. In the last two seasons, it came down to either Massachusetts-Lowell’s Norm Bazin or Providence’s Nate Leaman. With more than 50 wins in that time, Bazin was the clear favorite.

However, the presence of Jerry York always means there’s another candidate to discuss. Once again, York has his Eagles in great position. BC is atop the Hockey East standings to this point and in equally great shape on the national scene. That was expected, though. The Eagles are among the nation’s most talented clubs, and nothing they do really surprises anyone anymore. York’s the best at what he does. If he won the coach of the year award every season, it really wouldn’t come as much of a shock.

Beyond York, and even Bazin, there are four candidates warranting serious consideration. Leaman’s Providence team is in position to earn a bye in the Hockey East Tournament and an NCAA bid. Again, though, most anticipated a strong year from the Friars led by goaltender Jon Gillies and junior center Ross Mauermann. Outside of Leaman, Northeastern’s Jim Madigan, Maine’s Red Gendron and Vermont’s Kevin Sneddon are all guiding teams currently outpacing their preseason expectations.

Each, of course, comes with some caveats that we’ll get a better understanding of in the next two months. At this point, I’d give Madigan the nod. Northeastern missed the last two Hockey East Tournaments thanks to horrendous regular-season campaigns. While that can’t happen again as a result of a new playoff format, the Huskies are currently tied for second in Hockey East with Providence. NU holds the tiebreaker over PC after defeating the Friars, 2-1, last Tuesday in overtime and playing to a 3-3 tie at Matthews Arena in December.

There are some concerns with Northeastern moving forward (more on that later), but the Huskies continue to prove they’re a legitimate contender within Hockey East play. NU hosts Vermont this weekend for two games (only one is a conference game) before traveling to South Bend, Ind., in two weeks for a pair with Notre Dame. Outside of league play, the Huskies are ninth in the Pairwise.

Like it will for every club, the next few weeks will reveal Northeastern’s true standing. At this point, though, it’s not fair to say they haven’t earned some respect.

(After the jump: Northeastern’s possession problems; BC’s depth; Maine’s coming road test.) (more…)

There were a mix of non-conference games and some in-conference games. In the biggest ECAC game of the weekend, Quinnipiac defeated Union 2-1. The win by the Bobcats propelled them back into first place in the conference. Harvard and Yale played the big stage on Saturday night in front 15,524 paying patrons, a game that Yale won 5-1. Princeton ended its long losing streak over the weekend, defeating another struggling team, Rensselaer, on Friday. But there were other games.

Be sure to check out the CHN standings page for the updates of where your team falls. The Pairwise is also a very good place to see just where your team is nationally, in terms of the NCAA tournament. If the tournament started today the ECAC would place five teams in comfortably, which would be a huge accomplishment for the league. Quinnipiac and Union sit in fifth and sixth place respectively in the Pairwise rankings, while Cornell, Yale and Clarkson are in positions 12-14. I think four of those five teams stay in there and another might find there way in, maybe Colgate? Without further ado here are is what I think this week.

(more…)

This past week is the first time all six Big Ten teams were engaged in conference series. Yes, it’s January. At the same time, this past week also kicked off BTN’s Frozen Friday doubleheaders that are to be a staple in the second half (the conference play half?) of the season.

And I enjoyed it.

The pre-game and doubleheaders, which admittedly I watched after the fact on DVR, weren’t without issues. There was some awkwardness in the analysis. Schottenstein Center couldn’t look worse on television. On the same weekend that Penn State and Minnesota played a Sunday game that wasn’t televised or even on BTN2Go, aka a doomsday “Big Ten is ruining college hockey” argument, BTN had two games which, as dirty as I feel to say, the conference couldn’t have scripted better with a pair of hat tricks.

More importantly, what won me over was the presentation. College hockey often gets shifted to the back pages of the sports section or has national games where, once it ends, gets ignored as the station goes right into the next program. BTN made it feel like an actual event rather than a second-class production.

For once, the discussion that normally happens on Twitter happened during intermission and a post-game show.

That is something you expect to see with sports although it doesn’t happen that often with hockey in the U.S. (CBS Sports Net probably comes closest with the college game). There aren’t many talking heads. The mixture of regional games with national broadcasts is still slanted towards the former or nothing at all.

Of course, one weekend doesn’t make everything hunky-dory. Not even everything this weekend was when it comes to college hockey on TV, yet coming out of the first BTN Frozen Friday broadcast, my thought was why couldn’t the conference give this type of attention towards the first half (aka the non-conference half)?

That’s a good place to be given some of the other problems in the first year of realignment.

This week’s attention shines a light towards the following things: Ryan Dzingel and Michael Mersch both notching hat tricks, Michigan and Wisconsin passing each other like ships in the night, and how Penn State can take a page from Minnesota. (more…)

There has been much change in the ECAC Power Rankings, mainly because the semester is anew and some teams are either making statements or have fallen off. Union hasn’t played since early December and they take the number 1 spot for the first time this season, as Quinnipiac and Clarkson have stumbled a bit. Union sits at the top of the ECAC standings but many teams are within striking distance of the top. Without further ado, here are this week’s power rankings.

1. Union (12-3-3, 8-1-0 ECAC) – Before Break 2

Union has not played since December 14th. It will get a trial by fire on Friday, as it will face Quinnipiac for the top spot in the ECAC standings. If there is one coach that would have his team more ready in this situation than Rick Bennett I would love to see said bench boss’ resume. Bennett will have his Dutch more than ready for this big tilt. (more…)

Boston, Mass – Though winless since Dec. 6 and in the midst of a five-game Hockey East stretch, the Dartmouth Big Green downed Boston University 4-2 Wednesday night at Agganis Arena in the first meeting between the two teams since 2008. Charlie Mosey, Brad Schierhorn, Nick Lovejoy and Eric Neily tallied goals for Dartmouth, while Cason Hohmann and Matt Grzelcyk scored for the Terriers. Big Green goaltender Charles Grant made 26 saves on 28 shots.

What I saw:

– Dartmouth was very aggressive in the offensive zone, attempting 55 shots over the first two periods, also totaling 20 grade-a chances throughout the night.

– Boston’s defense seemed sluggish at times, specifically its backcheck, which led to several Big Green odd-man rushes, and approximately four or five 2-on-1’s.

What I thought:

– Dartmouth came to play, and it was evident from the get-go. The Big Green was winning battles and races at both ends of the ice, and also looked to be skating with a greater sense of urgency. For a team that’s gone just 3-11-2 this season, it was certainly a pleasant surprise.

– Boston struggled in its second game back from winter break; not good for a Terriers team that has gone 0-4-1 in its past five. It definitely feels like Boston hasn’t found its identity yet, which will need to come together soon given the start of the second half.

(more…)