This weekend of Big Ten hockey saw Minnesota finally earn its first win of the season. The Gophers swept Northeastern, but Wisconsin and Ohio State were both swept by their opponents. This means the Badgers and Buckeyes are now the only winless teams in the conference.

Wisconsin and Ferris State were locked in a high-scoring, 5-5 affair on Friday night. The Badgers then dropped Saturday’s contest 2-1. The Buckeyes dropped both games to Providence, but the scores were close. Ohio State fell 2-1 on Friday and 6-4 on Saturday.

Elsewhere, Michigan earned a tie and a win in New York. There were some struggles for the Wolverines, who scored five goals in both games. Michigan tied Union in the first contest amidst some back-and-forth scoring and beat RPI 5-2. The Wolverines are unbeaten on the season, but there are some issues that will hurt Michigan when it plays stronger competition.

Penn State’s offensive success continued against AIC, and the Nittany Lions finished the series with a sweep. Penn State has now scored four or more goals in all games this year, and at least five over the last three.

The Spartans received a boost with Michael Ferrantino’s return over the weekend, but still split its series with Lake Superior. The Lakers won the first game 4-2 before Michigan State won the second 2-0.

(After the jump: Belief in Eric Schierhorn, mistakes from the top teams and Penn State’s offense.)

Belief in Eric Schierhorn

Minnesota swept Northeastern over the weekend, finally earning its first win. The Gophers won 4-0 the first night and 4-3 the second, and Eric Schierhorn started both games. The freshman netminder might’ve earned the wins, but he certainly worked for them. Although the Gophers shut out the Huskies the first night, Scheirhorn had to make some big saves.

It was the same the next night, as Schierhorn faced several breakaway chances and some scoring opportunities caused by giveaways (like this save on Sam Kurker.) After watching the games this weekend, I do believe Schierhorn is a solid player. His .924 save percentage is second in the conference behind Jake Hildebrand.

The Gophers, a very young team that will make mistakes (and has been making plenty so far) needs a strong netminder to help as the team gets acclimated. So far, Schierhorn looks like he’s it.

The worrisome mistakes

As I mentioned above, Minnesota has had some issues. They’ve had trouble holding onto the puck at time, have committed one too many turnovers and allowed a few odd-man rushes and breakaways the other way. Lucky for the Gophers, they have Eric Schierhorn to stop them.

And after watching Michigan face RPI this weekend, I saw some similar issues with the Wolverines. Michigan managed to beat RPI even without Boo Nieves in the lineup, and has shown – like last year – offense really isn’t the problem.

However, much like Minnesota, there were times when Michigan struggled to hold onto the puck and gave it away too easily. My worry for Michigan is that it doesn’t have the goaltending to constantly fend off breakaways and odd-man rushes. I haven’t seen enough of the defense to believe it’s made a huge jump yet, either.

The fate of Penn State’s offense

The Nittany Lions not only lead the Big Ten with 5.6 goals per game, but also the country. Penn State has put up five goals or more in each game but one this season, and all of them were wins. But those games were against Canisius, Notre Dame and AIC. Which made me wonder – will Penn State’s offensive numbers hold?

We saw a similar trend last year with Michigan’s offense. During one stretch the Wolverines were averaging seven goals per game, but that was against teams like Ohio State and a Jason Kasdorf-less RPI. But the Wolverines also had the offensive talent, and the Nittany Lions lost a lot of theirs when Casey Bailey left early.

Now, Curtis Loik is leading the way. He has 10 points so far, while freshman Chase Berger has seven. Alec Marsh, Kenny Brooks and Penn State’s leading returning scorer David Goodwin, also have seven. As unlikely as it seems Penn State will keep throwing up these numbers, there’s a good chance the Nittany Lions probably will.

Penn State’s out-of-conference schedule isn’t particularly difficult, and there aren’t many strong defenses in th conference.

Monday, October 26th, 2015 - 9:00 am | Big Ten, Blogs, Notes, Thoughts, Ramblings