Much like the teams themselves, my power rankings are back from break. There isn’t much movement at the top, although it’s worth noting that BC and Merrimack haven’t done a whole lot lately to distance themselves from the pack. There’s plenty of shuffling going on between the five and nine spots, though, as none of those teams are in the same place as they were before break.

1. Boston College (13-7-0, 9-4-0 HE) — Before break: 1

BC opened the second half with a 4-2 loss to Michigan in the first round of the Great Lakes Invitational, but bounced back with a 2-1 win over Michigan Tech in the consolation game. The Eagles are just 6-6-0 over the last two months, but they still rank in the top two in Hockey East in offense, defense and special teams net. After freshman Brian Billett had started four straight in net, junior Parker Milner got the start and win Friday.

2. Merrimack (11-3-3, 7-2-1 HE) — Before break: 2

Merrimack lost 3-1 to Union just before break, then started the second half with a 6-6 tie against St. Lawrence and 3-0 win over Holy Cross in the Ledyard Bank Classic. The Warriors finished December with a 2-3-2 record, but those are their only three losses of the season. Shawn Bates tallied two goals and three assists over the weekend and now has a five-game point streak. Merrimack continues to lead the country in defense with 1.88 goals against per game. (more…)

With the WCHA at it’s true midway point for the next couple weeks, I thought it’d be fun to take a look at how I would vote these awards at the halfway point of the season. Obviously, there is a ton of hockey left to be played, and this is just one man’s opinion… but here is how I’d vote if the ballots were due today. I’m sure I’ll have no trouble soliciting some opinions — especially from North Dakota fans.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everybody. Rip away!

First Team
F — Jack Connolly (UMD)
F — Nick Bjugstad (MIN)
F —  Rylan Schwartz (CC)
D — Justin Schultz (WIS)
D — Brad Hunt (BSU)
G — Kent Patterson (MIN)
Here’s why: Connolly, Bjugstad and Schultz are no-brainers. Schwartz is tied with Bjugstad for the league lead in goals (16) but has also been clutch: He is second in power play goals and fourth in game winning goals. I love what Hunt brings; he is underrated on both ends of the rink. Patterson has already tied the school record for shutouts in a season.

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Michigan Tech winning in Minneapolis? Alaska-Anchorage winning in Colorado Springs? Yeah, this was a crazy weekend.

Of course Minnesota and CC showed why they’re perennial contenders — finishing games in the third period Saturday night to salvage splits.

There is plenty to love if you’re a Michigan Tech fan though. My Monday feature is on the Huskies and how they’re close — but there’s still some things to learn.

Like handling success with aplomb. Daniel Sova tied the game tonight and shushed the Mariucci crowd. That didn’t sit well with a couple of Gopher players I chatted with after the game. They showed it too, blowing the doors off Tech with four goals in the next 17 minutes. But they’ll learn — and Pearson is a heck of a coach.

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Boston – The Northeastern Huskies picked up their sixth straight win Saturday night, ending the hot streak of Mass. –Lowell, a team that was on a five game winning streak of their own. The 3-2 loss for the River Hawks brought them to 7-4-0 in Hockey East, 10-5-0 overall, where the Huskies have just hit .500 for the first time this season with a 7-7-2 overall record and 4-7-3 in the conference.

What I saw

Mass. –Lowell is every bit the team their standings and buzz suggest they are. Their forwards are quick to the puck and aggressive, and the talent is clearly there. The number of shots this team takes is outstanding, and it’s certainly one of the reasons they’re the nation’s tenth best offensive power right now. The River Hawks are a young team right now, but early success only means good things for them moving forward as tonight’s goals came from freshman Scott Wilson and sophomore Derek Arnold.

The goaltending in this matchup, on both sides of the ice, was fantastic. Northeastern’s Chris Rawlings is finally proving himself to be a consistent, confident force on this team. He made 38 saves tonight and his stats during the Husky six game win streak are 1.28 GAA and a .951 save percentage. The River Hawks’ Doug Carr showed why he’s the sixth best goaltender in the country, even with this loss. His GAA on the season is 1.82 with a .934 save percentage. Both Carr and Rawlings were impressive tonight when it came to knowing when to hang back and when to come out of the crease.

Northeastern still isn’t taking enough chances and shots. While they are on a hot streak, they still have work to do. The Huskies are still being outshot by their opponents and shots tonight were 40-32 in favor of the River Hawks. Some nights, like tonight, they can get away with it, but if they’re looking for long-term success capitalizing on opportunities is something the team needs to improve upon as a whole.

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Hi folks, I wanted to hop on and give my power rankings for the week… There is some sort of illness traveling around the Myers household this weekend however (Ebola, it seems like), so this won’t be long.

I will blog again at some point this weekend and I am very excited to take in my first live Michigan Tech game this season (something I thought I’d never say).

Here we go:

1 — Minnesota Duluth (Last week: 1)

They kept winning. They stay here.

2 — Minnesota (Last week: 2)

Read above.

3 — Colorado College (Last week: 4)

They won and didn’t lose, so they moved up.

4 — Denver (Last week: 5)

They lost, but they still moved up. You’ll see why below.

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The series between Boston College and Boston University received most of the attention this weekend as the Commonwealth Avenue schools split a pair played at both ends of the road. But it was a pair of sweeps — one completed in Durham, N.H., the other in North Andover, Mass. — that really cemented a pair of clubs as contenders in the 2011-12 Hockey East season.

UMass Lowell is a contender for more than just fourth place

The River Hawks defeated New Hampshire twice this weekend, and the wins clinched the season series for Norm Bazin’s club. It was a loss to UNH last month that many used to claim Lowell was little more than a mid-level club incapable of building on the three-game winning streak it had put together at that point. Since, UML has won four consecutive games with the pair over UNH coming most recently.

This weekend didn’t cement Lowell as a good team. We knew that before its game with UNH on Friday. What we — or maybe just I — gleaned from the results it post on Friday and Saturday is that Lowell can win this league. Sophomore Doug Carr continued his brilliance with 45- and 33-save efforts this weekend, and the Lowell offense continued to display its depth with six different players scoring. Currently, eight different Lowell players have at least 10 points on the season. (more…)

Another change at the top as the red-hot Bulldogs steamroll into December on a mighty-large unbeaten streak:

1 — Minnesota Duluth (Last week: 2)

The Bulldogs are a buzz saw right now and jump up in this week’s rankings despite being idle last weekend. It will be interesting to see how UMD handles their time off and if any rust developed over their 13-day layoff. Their road trip this weekend to Houghton won’t be easy either — the Huskies have lost just once at home this season. But UMD is 8-0-2 over their last 10 contests and have won five in a row, thrashing helpless Minnesota State (ironically the one team to beat Tech in Houghton this season) two weekends ago.

2 — Minnesota (Last week: 1)

The Gophers have struggled on Fridays lately, falling behind early and losing each of their last series lid-lifters against Wisconsin, St. Cloud State and Michigan State. All of those games came on the road however, and the Gophers find themselves with a giant meatball this weekend back at home against Minnesota State. After spending much of the first part of the season on the road — including five of their last six games — Minnesota won’t leave Mariucci Arena until mid-January and play only two road games through Jan. 27.

3 — Nebraska-Omaha (Last week: 5)

If Minnesota and UMD are the top-tier right now, UNO and the next two teams are in that next level. The Mavericks jump up this week because they scored a three-point weekend over St. Cloud State at the CenturyLink Center. If not for a late Ben Hanowski goal Saturday night, it would have been four points. All of the sudden, UNO has a full-blown goaltender controversy. John Faulkner — an All-WCHA pick from a year ago — didn’t even play last weekend and has been supplanted by freshmen Ryan Massa and Dayn Belfour. Perhaps our friend Chuck Schwartz was indeed seeing things clearly about Mr. Faulkner afterall.

4 — Colorado College (Last week: 3)

Yes, they were swept last weekend. But losing a pair of one goal games at Ralph Engelstad Arena is nothing to be ashamed about (although maybe this year it should be… KIDDING of course Sioux fans). I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team get a hat trick from one guy on two consecutive nights and lose both games. CC will get to take their frustrations out on their rivals from the north. If the Gold Pan means anything to these guys, and it does, they’ll need a win Friday at World Arena.

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Sorry for the late post, here. I am in Milwaukee visiting friends and family for the holiday (I normally work out of the Twin Cities), so I haven’t been around my computer much. But I did want to hop on and do my power rankings, because unlike some people (like myself), the WCHA is definitely NOT on break this weekend. Ten of the league’s 12 teams will be in action this weekend, with eight beginning play tonight. This weekend’s docket also includes a trio of conference series:

1 — Minnesota (Last week: 1)

The Gophers have split their last two weekends, I think a disappointing result because the Gophers are clearly better than both teams. Three of those games were on the road however, and the one that was at home was never really close. I still give Minnesota the edge over UMD because of the head-to-head meeting in October, but this gap is narrowing weekly.

2 — Minnesota Duluth (Last week: 2)

A very impressive weekend by UMD — not because they swept Minnesota State — but because they did it convincingly. Clearly, there is still a ton of firepower in Duluth and if they get continued solid play from Kenny Reiter in goal, they will be up here all season. That Frozen Four run last season has done wonders for his confidence, and it shows.

3 — Colorado College (Last week: 3)

Speaking of taking care if business at home, the Tigers rolled over Wisconsin at World Arena last weekend keeping pace in the WCHA marathon. The key to the weekend was the first period, as CC scored five of their eight goals in the opening 20 minutes — including three on Saturday, virtually ending the Badgers’ hopes of a split.

4 — Denver (Last week: 5)

The Pioneers played one of the oddest games you’ll ever see last Friday against Omaha. The two teams combined for 10 goals through two periods — DU led 7-3 — when all of the sudden, someone turned off the scoring spicket during the second intermission. Neither team yielded a goal in the third and the Pioneers jumped ahead. They ended up taking three big points against a Maverick bunch they will be neck-and-neck with all season.

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Three Up

Ludwig Karlsson, Freshman, Forward, Northeastern

After a winless month, Northeastern finally found their groove with a Homecoming sweep of Providence and Vermont, leaving the Huskies with 4 points on the weekend. Karlsson has been hot in the last three games for Northeastern with a three game scoring streak and a pair of goals in the team’s 4-1 victory over Vermont Saturday. This week’s Hockey East Player of the Week, he currently leads the Husky offense with 6 goals and 4 assists, and if he can keep up this pace he could have a huge impact on his team’s success.

Garrett Noonan, Sophomore, Defenseman, Boston University

Boston University came out of this weekend with a pair of wins, 4-3 against Vermont and then 4-1 against New Hampshire, bringing the Terriers to 6-4-1 on the season. Noonan showed up both defensively and offensively for BU, especially on Friday against Vermont netting a power play goal. He’s one of the reasons BU sits in third place in Hockey East rankings right now, and the fact that he’s still relatively young means his play will probably only get better.

Karl Stollery/Ryan Flanigan, Senior Captains, Merrimack

This nod really goes to the entire Merrimack hockey program, but we’ll give credit to the team’s two senior captains, Stollery and Flanigan. For the first time in program history Merrimack was voted the national No. 1 hockey team in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine’s Men’s Poll. With an 8-0-1 record, the Warriors are nearly perfect on the season and it’s at least partially due to the team’s veteran leadership. Flanigan and Stollery lead the Merrimack offense with 10 and eight points, respectively, and are surely due credit for garnering the program national recognition.

Three Down

Rob Madore, Senior, Goaltender, Vermont

Hate to pin Vermont’s misfortunes on any one player, but if their last weekend of play is broken down, Madore allowed eight goals in just two games. With a .856 save percentage, and an average of 4.6 goals against, Madore just isn’t playing up to D-1 Hockey East veteran goaltender standards. Madore’s goaltending isn’t the reason the Catamounts have yet to see a Hockey East win, but it’s a piece.

Joey Diamond, Junior, Forward, Maine

Getting benched for reckless, selfish play usually teaches a player a lesson.  Apparently not so for Maine’s Diamond, who even after being forced to sit out a Fighting Sioux game by coach Tim Whitehead garnered penalties for grabbing a face mask and hitting from behind, the latter coming in Maine’s only game this weekend against Massachusetts. It’s a simple and common problem, when your best offensive players take stupid penalties; they’re not on the ice making great offensive plays. Diamond needs to get his play under control so that he can contribute as much as possible rather than wasting minutes sitting in the box, but with Diamond’s recent play, it looks like that might not happen without another nudge from Whitehead in the form of more bench time.

Steve Mastalerz, Freshman, Goaltender, Massachusetts

Again, this is more of a group problem than an individual one, but the young Massachusetts goaltending is looking just that right now – young. Mastalerz has a save percentage of just. 872 and has a win and a loss. You’d think his fellow goaltenders, Kevin Boyle and Jeff Teglia might be fairing better, but at 3-2-2, Boyle has the best record of UMass’s three young goaltenders, but a save percentage of .833. Teglia has the best save percentage with .903, but at on the season 0-2-1, he hasn’t seen a win. If the Minutemen’s goaltending shapes up a bit more, the chances of them seeing more success again, like beating Boston College, is likely.

Killing some time before they kick me out of the Mariucci Arena press box tonight, here are some random thoughts on this weekend from around the WCHA.

• Nick Bjugstad is good. Really good. And with his size and skillset, he’s virtually unstoppable. Paired with Kyle Rau, Minnesota has the best line in the WCHA right now, bar none. Yes, Connolly-Oleksuk-Brown is rock solid. But these two guys in Minneapolis can flat out play and they complement each other perfectly. I will have a feature story on Bjugstad on the website either Sunday or Monday.

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