CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — The first period looked good for Massachusetts, but the second was terrible and the third got worse, as the Minutemen dropped a decision to Boston College, 4-2, at Conte Forum Friday night.

UMass skated with BC for much of the first period before a series of bad penalties and largely ineffective power plays allowed the Eagles to pad their lead. The loss dropped UMass’ record to 1-2-1 on the season, and the Minutemen are still without a win in three Hockey East games.

What I saw

• The Minutemen played an even first period with BC until they started taking bad penalties. As the massive sophomore class continues to grow, the Minutemen will improve their game immensely. Still, bad penalties taken by experienced players are unacceptable for a club so heavily weighted toward underclassmen. Senior captain T.J. Syner took three minors in the game and received a 10-minute misconduct late in the third period after complaining about a call on fellow senior captain Danny Hobbs, who had his own problems with penalties, spending four minutes the box.

• Jeff Teglia is the only reason the score wasn’t far more lopsided. In the second period, the Eagles outshot UMass, 14-2. The sophomore goaltender whose freshman season ended with dreadful numbers due to injury and wildly inexperienced team in front of him when he was healthy. Cahoon believes Teglia is the type of goaltender that can win championships in this league, pointing out the Clark Cup he won with the Omaha Lancers of the United State Hockey League. He finished the game with 31 saves, receiving little support from his teammates. Two of the Boston College goals came on the power play, and Bill Arnold’s second, which made it 3-1, came just as another penalty expired.

• UMass’ top five forwards are capable of keeping this team in games, but the team as a whole lacks true centers to direct the offense. Also, despite success last weekend, Cahoon opted to juggle his lines against BC to help create more balance throughout his lineup. Branden Gracel is developing and centered Syner and Hobbs on Friday. Last weekend, when sophomore Mike Pereira centered Syner and Hobbs, the trio combined for 15 points in UMass’ two games. Following the loss to BC, Cahoon said he chose to split the dynamic trio up in hopes of making his offense deeper. On Friday, Pereira shifted to the left wing beside center Eric Filiou and right wing Conor Sheary. The group failed to produce much offense for UMass. It will be interesting to see the combination Cahoon sends out next weekend when the Minutemen play a home-and-home with Boston University beginning Friday night in Amherst. (more…)

First off, apologies for the lack of content this week. Anyone who has followed my blog for the few years before moving exclusively to CHN knows I also coach high school football. And anyone who reads a sports page here in Minnesota knows the high school football season is ramping up, meaning time to update the blog as regularly as I’d like to is just not an option right now. No worries though, as the team here at College Hockey News will keep you updated with all of the latest news I may not get to during the hectic time in this guy’s life. Fortunately, I will be around to watch plenty of WCHA puck this weekend, so follow along on Twitter (@CHNDanMyers) as conference play kicks into high gear with four league series in action.

All that said, here are my updated conference power rankings as the college hockey season hurdles into its third weekend of play this weekend:

1 — Colorado College (Last week: 1)

After winning 3-1 on Friday, Tigers goalie Joe Howe entered the game Saturday with his team trailing to Bemidji State and in danger of dropping a couple of points to a team they should sweep at the World Arena. Howe came into the game stopped 11 straight shots and waited for his team to pick him up. They did, and CC rolled to a sweep. All Howe has to do is keep his team close, because the Tigers have more than enough offense to pick up the slack.

2 — Minnesota (Last week: 3)

Somehow, the Gophers allowed 100 shots, on the road, against the defending national champions… and got 4 points. Minnesota rallied from a late one goal deficit to secure overtime, where the Gophers scored a late goal to win 5-4. UMD jumped ahead early again Saturday, but Minnesota rallied with five straight goals. It would have been easy to be happy with two points on the road, but credit is due for the gutty effort to respond. Keep an eye on that Minnesota power play: The Gophers went 6 for 9 with the man advantage last weekend, and if they can keep it going, Minnesota is going to be tough to stop.

3 — Denver (Last week: 2)

The Pioneers should be happy with a road split in Boston. Few teams in the country would be able to boast such a fact after facing Boston College and Boston University on consecutive nights.

4 — North Dakota (Last week: 4)

UND will have to accept a three-point weekend to avenge last season’s sweep at Maine. Brad Eidsness’ victory Friday — he made 30 saves — will make Aaron Dell’s already tenuous hold on that goaltending job even more delicate.

5 — Alaska-Anchorage (Last week: 8 )

The Seawolves just keep on rolling. After shutting out conference foe Nebraska-Omaha in a nonconference game, UAA hammered Mercyhurst 6-2. It’s been a balanced offensive effort and now the Seawolves may have not one, but two goaltenders going strong. An intriguing rematch with Omaha in Nebraska awaits this weekend where we should learn a lot more about where the Seawolves stand.

6 — Minnesota Duluth (Last week: 5)

UMD put 100 shots on Minnesota goaltender Kent Patterson and scored eight goals last weekend but got swept. Saturday, Kenny Reiter made just 11 saves on 16 shots. There’s still enough offense to get it done in Duluth, but Reiter needs to channel his playoff self in order for the Bulldogs to compete for an upper half spot.

7 — Nebraska-Omaha (Last week: 6)

How big of a loss has Alex Hudson been? After scoring five goals in their first game — a win over Mercyhurst — UNO has scored just four goals over their last three games — all losses. Whatever ails them, UNO better figure it out quickly. The Mavericks are in the midst of a stretch where they play games on 10 straight weekends.

8 — Michigan Tech (Last week: 12)

Are the Huskies for real? They’ve already equaled their win total from ALL of last season. Just one victory this weekend would equal the number of points Tech had ALL of last season. At Bemidji Friday and Saturday, this is the first time the Huskies will play away from MacInnes Ice Arena this season. And the Tech power play? An impressive 29 percent thus far — 14 percentage points better than last season.

9 — Bemidji State (Last week: 9)

The Beavers were in line for a split at Colorado College last week, but ran into a bit of a wall (named Joe Howe) in the third period Saturday. The Tigers won that game 6-4, and the Beavers won’t win many shootouts this season. They should have a chance at some points against a significantly less talented offensive group this weekend.

10 — Wisconsin (Last week: 10)

Overtime hasn’t been good to the Badgers during the Mike Eaves era. Since 2007-08, Wisconsin hasn’t won a single league game that has gone to overtime — 23 tries in all — while losing nine times over that same stretch. Overall, they’ve won just once in that stretch (32 tries there). So it probably wasn’t a good thing when both games in Houghton went to overtime last weekend. The Huskies won them both, continuing a rough stretch of free hockey for UW. (Thanks to Madison.com scribe Andy Baggot for the leg work on those overtime stats)

11 — St. Cloud State (Last week: 11)

After opening with four straight road games (and a 1-3-0 record), the Huskies open the home portion of their schedule with a weekend series against New Hampshire at the National Hockey Center. For the sake of getting its season kick started, the Huskies better hope things go much better at home than they have on the road or this year could spiral out of control quickly. In a related but totally unrelated stat, SCSU was just 6-8-4 at the NHC last season.

12 — Minnesota State (Last week: 7)

Tumbling down the rankings after getting swept by Massachusetts-Lowell (in Mankato, no less) are the Mavericks, who are decimated by injury right now. MSU will travel to Denver this weekend (gulp), where it could get ugly. Counting their third goaltender, the Mavericks have exactly 21 healthy hockey players right now. Michael Dorr, Eriah Hayes, Max Gaede, Tyler Elbrecht, J.P. Burkemper and Danny Heath are all nursing injuries and are not on this road trip. The good news? A bye weekend next weekend is extremely well-timed and could help MSU get a couple of players back before a stretch of seven straight busy weekends in November and December.

A full slate of CCHA regular season matchups highlights the upcoming weekend of play, and Notre Dame will christen the new Compton Family Ice Arena in South Bend with a weekend series against Rensselaer.

For now though, a quick look back at this past weekend’s action:

Thanks to weekend sweeps by Alaska (Scott Greenham returned to net as expected on Saturday, making 31 saves against Nebraska-Omaha),  Bowling Green (your undefeated Bowling Green Falcons), Ferris State (ready to put its 4-0 record on the line this weekend against Miami) and Northern Michigan (eight goals over the weekend, eight goal scorers), the CCHA as a league combined for a 10-1-2 record (.846 winning percentage) against nonconference opponents.

The only blemish? Miami‘s Saturday night overtime loss to Colgate, as the RedHawks continue their inconsistent play to start the season. With consecutive weekend splits against Bemidji State and Colgate, Miami hasn’t looked like a top tier CCHA team thus far. (more…)

Unlike last weekend, AHA teams were on the right side of some games this weekend. RIT came up big against St. Lawrence, winning 6-5 in overtime, while Air Force, Holy Cross, and UConn all won their first conference games of the year. But the rest of the AHA didn’t do as well. Canisius was outplayed and demolished by Quinnipiac, while Sacred Heart was swept by Clarkson. (more…)

On a night where New Hampshire scored its first goal of the young season and played as well as its opponent, Boston College, it was the Eagles that earned the victory, behind a phenomenal performance from goaltender Parker Milner.

The scoreboard read 5-1 in BC’s favor, but the scoreboard was no indication of how the game actually played out.

What I saw

• For the final two periods of the game, UNH outplayed a seemingly tired Boston College club coming off a big three-game stretch and trip west. Parker Milner rebounded from an early goal to make 39 saves in the game, including 34 in the final two periods to lift BC to the win.
• Many of the UNH faithful were given a false sense of hope in the early going as Nick Sorkin scored a power-play goal early in the first period. The goal was the first of the season for UNH, only to see Milner take over the game from that point forward.
• UNH had a lot of shots and control time throughout the final 30 minutes of the game but many of the shots taken were long range, as the Eagles D kept the Wildcats out of Grade-A. (more…)

Boston University’s weekend started on a low note. A trip to Providence ended in a 5-3 loss to the Friars that shocked Hockey East and college hockey as a whole. Twenty-four hours later, national title contender Denver skated onto the ice at Agganis Arena for its second game in a weekend tour of Commonwealth Avenue.

BU coach Jack Parker was hardly thrilled with the effort, but the Terrier defeated The Pioneers, 4-3, stemming a late DU comeback. While it was a Beau Bennett holding minor with 19 seconds remaining in regulation that finally killed the DU rally, a strong first 40 minutes showed the Terriers what could await this season if they’re at their best.

What I saw

• Something special may come from the Terriers second scoring line of sophomore winger Matt Nieto, sophomore center Charlie Coyle and junior winger Alex Chiasson. Three of the most gifted BU players have pieced together some beautiful sequences in the early going, but they have yet to truly take over a game. On Saturday, each registered a point with Chiasson and Nieto scoring goals on breakaways. Neither score came with the entire line on the ice, but, as the group, gains timing, it could quickly become the league’s best come Hockey East Tournament time.

• Max Nicastro and Sean Escobedo showed their usual flashes of dominance as a defensive pairing, but still never seem to neutralize a forward line like juniors with that much experience should. Denver’s team speed and puck movement may have a little to do with that. Still, the Terriers seem to be without a true No. 1 defensive unit. Looking around the country at the teams shouldering the “favorite” label in terms of national title contenders, BU is certainly not the only club with some questions on the blue line. Even the Pioneers have their questions. But Nicastro and Escobedo are capable of becoming that group. Now would be a great time. (more…)

Denver opened its season with a big 4-2 win at Boston College on Friday night, but followed that up with a 4-3 loss to Boston University on Saturday. Adam Murray looked pretty good in his first weekend as Denver’s No. 1 goalie, while the defense in front of him suffered a letdown against BU after playing very well against BC. Offensively, Drew Shore and Jason Zucker — who registered 46 and 45 points, respectively, last season — picked up right where they left off with three goals and two assists combined.

What I saw

-Denver’s defense, which features three freshmen, did a great job minimizing its mistakes against BC. The Pioneer blue-liners didn’t get caught up ice and they managed to keep the Eagles’ dangerous forwards on the perimeter for the most part. Saturday was a different story, though. The Terriers repeatedly spread the Pioneers out and got them running around. Two of their goals came on breakaways resulting from Pioneer defenders getting caught out of position in the neutral zone. If Friday night showed what the Pioneers can be defensively, Saturday served as a reminder that they still have some work to do on the back end.

-The power play struggled all weekend. The Pioneers finished the weekend 0-for-10 on the man advantage with just nine shots on goal. They frequently struggled to set up, and once they did, it was a case of too much passing, too much looking for the perfect play, and not enough just getting the puck to the net. Coach George Gwozdecky said he still expects the power play to be a strength for his team, but he acknowledged that it didn’t look good at all this weekend. (more…)

Northeastern surprised Friday night, shutting down New Hampshire, 4-0 — a score not many were expecting from the matchup.

The Huskies opened their scoring with a goal by Braden Pimm followed by two more quick ones from Zak Stone and Justin Daniels, all three goals within three minutes of each other. Mike McLaughlin sealed it for Northeastern when he put the team up by four in the final period. This offensive success only further aggravated an already frustrated UNH, and the tension started to show with a few scuffles late in the game.

What I saw

The defensive pairing of Luke Eibler and Josh Manson was crucial for Northeastern. The defensemen were plus-3 and plus-2, respectively, making several of the blocks that helped Chris Rawlings in goal and boosted the Northeastern’s offense.

You can depend on UNH to be fast, you can’t really say the same for Northeastern. But the Huskies kept up with the Wildcats’ speed, looking like a quicker and more determined team than the one who barely tied Massachusetts in their home opener last week.

(more…)

Boston College coach Jerry York knew to expect a closer contest this time around. His Eagles fell, 4-2, to Denver Friday after steamrolling the Pioneers twice in Denver last year. Despite the loss, the Eagles are good shape heading into Saturday’s game in Durham against New Hampshire.

What I Saw

Ice conditions were a major challenge for both teams Friday night. There was no slush or fog to speak of, but humid conditions in greater Boston led to a less-than-ideal surface.

“The conditions on the ice definitely slowed things down a bit,” York said. “Neither team benefited from it.”

In addition, Friday night’s game was one of the best crowds at the Conte Forum for hockey in recent memory. With attendance of 7,884 (officially a sellout), the arena was mostly filled with students who boisterously cheered on their team, especially through a competitive, back-and-forth third period.

“The atmosphere in the building was as loud and [as much as] a college hockey atmosphere that we’ve had here in a long time,” York said.

(more…)

First of all, check out the recently-published CCHA Preview and CCHA Watch List here on CHN for a comprehensive preview of all-things CCHA.

Alhough I’ll be at Agganis Arena (Boston, MA) tonight for Denver’s visit to Boston University (with no CCHA teams in sight), here are some quick thoughts about last night’s action involving CCHA teams:

Maybe Ferris Should Move to the ECAC

Named the CCHA offensive player of the week after a three-goal weekend against St. Lawrence a week ago, Ferris State forward Kyle Bonis showed no signs of slowing down in last night’s 4-0 victory against another ECAC foe, Rensselaer. Bonis, a junior, added another two goals — one of which was an empty-netter, giving him a total of five tallies for the young season.

The only CCHA player averaging more points per game so far is Columbus Blue Jackets draft pick and Notre Dame sophomore T.J. Tynan, whose seven points through three games trail only Minnesota sophomore Erik Haula, who has eight. Tynan’s second-period tally against Ohio State last night tied the Irish/Buckeyes contest 2-2, before classmate Anders Lee scored to put the Irish ahead for good.

But back to Ferris State for a moment: coach Bob Daniels said before the season began that he was “looking forward to increased goal production.” Though the sample size is small, perhaps the Bulldogs are already hoping to take a big step forward after finishing over .500 for the last two years. It’s been a decade since Ferris went to the NCAA tournament, winning 31 games behind then Hobey finalist and current NHL star Chris Kunitz.

The Bulldogs have also been helped in the early going by a power play converting on over 26 percent of its opportunities. And of note, Travis Oullete — after starting slowly last season — already has five goals this season as well.

Short Suspension: Smith Returns for Miami

After violating team rules and punished by sitting out Miami’s season opening split against Bemidji State last weekend, sophomore Reilly Smith returned to the ice last night for the RedHawks’ visit to Hamilton to take on Colgate.

One has to wonder if Smith’s offensive numbers from a season ago would carry over to this year — after all, recall that, as a sophomore, the Mimico, Ont., native led the RedHawks in scoring with 28 goals, overshadowed though by a combined 128 points from Hobey winner Andy Miele and All-American Carter Camper.

Well, through one game, Smith showed that maybe he doesn’t need Miele and Camper after all. With a hat trick last night, Smith led the RedHawks to a 4-3 win at Colgate. Smith was efficient too, scoring on three of his four shots on goal, and helping senior netminder Cody Reichard earn his first win of the season.

Still, Miami managed only 15 shots on goal for the entire game.

Greenham’s Streak Ends, Alaska Wins Anyway

After starting 79 consecutive games for Alaska, senior netminder Scott Greenham sat out last night’s Nanooks win against Mercyhurst. Junior Steve Thompson — an Anchorage native — earned the victory for Dallas Ferguson’s squad.

Greenham was a CCHA Second Team selection last year after compiling a .921 save percentage and a 2.19 goals-against-average.