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Chris Knowlton, Forward, Denver

Knowlton had a very respectable year in 2011-12 – he recorded 19 points in 30 games – but his stats to this point in 2012-13 are blowing those out of the water. Through 10 games, Knowlton has eight goals and 13 points, including seven points in his last three outings. His breakout is one reason why the Pioneers are the WCHA’s best team at this point in the season.

Adam Wilcox, Goaltender, Minnesota

After letting four pucks past him in a Saturday night loss in Mankato a few weeks ago, Wilcox has been lights out. In the four games since then, he’s allowed just five tallies and he’s making game-changing stops to help Minnesota pull out wins even when it hasn’t played its best hockey.

Danny Kristo, Forward, North Dakota

With North Dakota trailing UMD in Saturday night’s third period, Kristo did what Kristo does best and simply made plays. When the Danny Kristo show was over, UND had pulled out a come from behind overtime win to salvage a three-point weekend against the Bulldogs. For the series, Kristo had five points and was the best player on the ice for either team whenever he stepped on it.

Down

Josh Thorimbert, Goaltender, Colorado College

Thorimbert hasn’t seen a lot of rubber in the past four games (only 88 shots, or about 22 per night), but he’s let quite a few pucks behind him during that stretch (13 goals against, good for an .852 saves percentage). For a team that thought it had the problem of two good goalies, the Tigers have to be hoping for more out of the Thorimbert-Joe Howe duo in the near future.

John Ramage, Defenseman, Wisconsin

Wisconsin’s best defender has exactly zero points as his team reaches Thanksgiving, but that’s not the player he is asked to be and no one is expecting Ramage to be a point-per-night guy. Instead, he’s supposed to be the shutdown, in your face blue-liner that plays the hard minutes against the other team’s best forwards. So how well is Ramage doing his job lately? In the last three games, he’s been on the ice for five of the eight goals the Badgers have given up, including the game-winner on Saturday against Minnesota when he went for a big hit, missed and allowed the Gophers the time and space to capitalize in crunch time.

BOSTON — New Hampshire earned its fourth straight win Sunday, beating Boston University 3-1. Before giving up BU’s goal, the Wildcats broke the program record for longest shutout streak. UNH opened the scoring with 8:26 left in the first when Dalton Speelman forced a turnover in the BU zone, allowing Kevin Goumas to grab the puck in the high slot and beat Matt O’Connor glove-side. Maxim Gaudreault added to the lead a few minutes later when he collected a rebound off Justin Agosta’s point shot and put it home for his first collegiate goal.

The Terriers (6-4-0, 5-3-0 Hockey East) cut the lead in half 4:40 into the second when Matt Grzelcyk led a rush down the right wing and put a shot on net that produced a rebound for Danny O’Regan to bury. BU badly outshot UNH (8-1-1, 6-1-1 HE) the rest of the way, but couldn’t manage to get another one past DeSmith. Goumas sealed the victory with an empty-netter. (more…)

Lowell, MA.- The first 35 minutes of the game were played to a scoreless tie, until Trevor van Riemsdyk worked his way down the right slot, received a pass from Kevin Goumas and roofed it to give UNH the 1-0 second period lead. UNH would increase that lead midway through the third period on a goal by Grayson Downing. From that point on the game was never in doubt and UNH would win it 3-0.

Casey Desmith shutout his third straight opponent, becoming the first UNH goaltender with three consecutive shutouts since the 1928-1929 season. The 178 minutes, and 52 seconds of shutout hockey is also the longest such streak for UNH in over 40 seasons. UNH improves to 7-1-1, 5-1-1 in Hockey East, while the River Hawks fall to 2-5-1, 1-4-1.

What I Saw

• Both UNH and UML played a desperate defensive game. Both teams were willing to put body and limb on the line to block shots. The teams combined for 28 blocked shots in the game, with UNH having the edge with 18 of those. Many of them would have been quality opportunities on net if they had gone through, but both defenses played committed on this night.

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Last weekend kept Hockey East in a rank and file Boston College, Boston University and New Hampshire world. This weekend is filled with lots of conference matchups and a weird scheduling quirk, as no teams will play on Saturday night. It will be highlighted by one matchup, on Sunday, which will pit Boston University and New Hampshire at Agganis Arena. Here’s to my weekly try of previewing the games: (more…)

Last week may have been one of the strangest weeks that the ECAC could ever have because few expected to win did so. In some ways it should just be a wash because of the strange results, but we did learn some valuable lessons from the weekend. These realizations have changed the rankings immensely.

I am convinced after their win against Union that Dartmouth is a contender and have thus moved them up to the top spot. Harvard is better than their recent results and so is Cornell. But Power Rankings are based more on a what are you doing for me now than what we think of the particular teams. Conference wins and losses also have much more weight than non-conference wins because it is easier to compare teams when they play each other. These concepts leave us with a lot of movement this week.

1. Dartmouth (5-0-1, 4-0-0)- Last Week 4

The Big Green are the final undefeated team remaining in the country and have proven to most casual observers that they may in fact be for real. With a big win against Union under their belt, Dartmouth will hit the road to take on Colgate and Cornell this weekend. They have won five games in a row led by a balanced attack on both offense and defense. The defense is ranked second in the country, allowing a meager 1.50 goals per game. The scary thing about Dartmouth is that their diamond in the rough, Dustin Walsh, has been gaining strength and has seen his playing time increase. Last weekend he was moved up to the second line with proven scorer Eric Robinson. This could be an indication they could be in this position for a while as Walsh will only get better and so will Dartmouth. (more…)

What we have here is a conference split in half. Denver maintains a strong grip on the top spot, but the next five are all very close. Then there’s a big drop-off to the bottom six, where everyone is searching for wins in hopes of breaking into that top tier.

1. Denver (7-1-0, 5-1-0 WCHA) — Last week: 1
The Pioneers were certainly challenged by Minnesota State, but they still managed to come away with a sweep, winning 4-3 on Friday and 3-2 on Saturday. Daniel Doremus and Chris Knowlton each had two goals on the weekend, with Doremus scoring Friday’s game-winner and Knowlton scoring Saturday’s. Denver went 0-for-12 on the power play in the series, but it’s still at a healthy 20 percent on the season.

2. Minnesota (6-2-1, 3-2-1 WCHA) — Last week: 2
The Gophers took three of four points at Alaska-Anchorage, winning 4-0 on Friday before tying 2-2 on Saturday. That’s enough to hang onto the second spot for another week, but the four teams behind them are certainly knocking on the door. Erik Haula had three points in the series, while Kyle Rau, Travis Boyd and Nate Schmidt all had two. Minnesota went 5-for-11 on the power play and is now at 28.6 percent on the season. (more…)

A lot can and will change over the next few months, but it’s starting to look like Hockey East features a clear top three, and then a bunch of question marks. Lowell was in that top tier before the season, but didn’t hang around too long. Northeastern, Providence and Merrimack have all fumbled away chances to join the club. Now it looks like UMass might be the closest, but the Minutemen still have some work to do — getting over .500, for one.

1. Boston College (8-1-0, 7-1-0 HE) — Last week: 1
The Eagles extended their winning streak to eight by beating Notre Dame 3-1 on Friday and BU 4-2 on Sunday. Johnny Gaudreau scored three goals on the weekend and now has a 12-game point streak dating back to last season. Pat Mullane, Bill Arnold, Kevin Hayes and Patrick Wey all had two-point weekends. BC has now allowed just 10 goals in its last seven games. The only negative this weekend was that the power play, which came in at 40 percent, went 0-for-12.

2. New Hampshire (6-1-1, 4-1-1 HE) — Last week: 2
The Wildcats beat Vermont 4-0 on Saturday in their only game of the weekend, marking their second straight win by that score. Casey DeSmith stopped all 27 shots he faced to earn his third shutout in the last four games. He now leads Hockey East with a .953 save percentage and 1.36 goals against average. Austin Block scored twice on Saturday, and Kevin Goumas had three assists. Block is tied for the league lead in goals, while Goumas is first in assists. (more…)

This past weekend went well for a pair of WCHA teams who completed back-to-back sweeps at home. Out in Colorado Springs, Colorado College took down Bemidji State to remain undefeated in WCHA play. Meanwhile in Omaha, last week’s CHN team of the Week, the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks continued their hot streak by sweeping Minnesota Duluth in a Saturday-Sunday series.

There were a lot of similarities between how the Tigers and Nebraska-Omaha got things done. They each defeated teams from the state of Minnesota (the great state that it is) and even had matching 3-2 and 6-3 scores.

With a number of teams in WCHA looking uneven and parity splitting the conference into two tiers – there seems to be an even cutoff between the top and bottom six – getting off to a good start is that much more important for two teams picked to finish in the middle of the pack. That’s been the case so far; currently the Mavericks and Colorado College are second and third, respectively. It’s a testament to both teams finding their way despite losses and for all of this, they should be happy with their early November performance.

After the break, Denver begins to separate from the pack, Minnesota-Duluth is in the WCHA cellar and I make a not-so-bold prediction about North Dakota (more…)

BOSTON — Boston College came away victorious in the first edition of this year’s B-Line Rivalry, beating Boston University 4-2 at Agganis Arena on Sunday. With the win, the Eagles extended their winning streak to eight and completed a weekend sweep of two of their biggest rivals, as they also beat Notre Dame on Friday.

BC (8-1-0, 7-1-0 Hockey East) opened the scoring just 43 seconds in when Kevin Hayes carried the puck behind BU’s net behind before finding Destry Straight at the top of the crease for an easy tap-in. The score stayed that way for the next 50 minutes before Hayes and Johnny Gaudreau scored 1:22 apart midway through the third to make it 3-0.

Matt Grzelcyk gave BU (5-3-0, 4-2-0 HE) a glimmer of hope when he scored with 4:40 remaining, but then Bill Arnold sealed the BC win with an empty-netter. BU’s Alexx Privitera capped the scoring with 1:17 to go. Despite not seeing a ton of shots, both Parker Milner (25 saves) and Matt O’Connor (20) made a number of big stops when their teams needed them to. (more…)

LOWELL, Mass. — Maine hung onto a 4-3 win over Massachusetts-Lowell on Saturday, bringing an end to a miserable seven-game losing streak. Kyle Williams, a freshman defenseman-turned-forward, scored the winning goal with 8:50 left in the game when he tipped home a Mike Cornell shot from the point.

Lowell (2-4-1, 1-3-1 Hockey East) opened the scoring 10:09 into the game when Derek Arnold redirected a Joseph Pendenza pass. Maine (2-9-0, 1-5-0 HE) scored the next three, though, as Connor Leen, Adam Shemansky and Devin Shore all found the back of the net. The River Hawks came storming back late in the second and got goals from Riley Wetmore and Pendenza to tie the game heading into the third. (more…)