The way I see it, Hockey East has four tiers right now — the top two, BU, the middle four, and the bottom three. This weekend helped highlight the line between the latter two tiers, but it didn’t result in a whole lot of movement in this week’s rankings. Two teams swapped places, but everyone else stayed where they were last week.

1. Boston College (10-1-0, 8-1-0 HE) — Last week: 1
The Eagles extended their winning streak to 10 with a 6-3 triumph over Dartmouth on Saturday. With the victory, Jerry York is now just one away from tying Ron Mason’s all-time wins record. BC’s top line of Johnny Gaudreau, Pat Mullane and Steven Whitney combined for an incredible five goals and seven assists in the game. Gaudreau has at least one point in every game this season and is second in the league in points. Mullane and Whitney both rank in the top five as well.

2. New Hampshire (9-1-2, 6-1-1 HE) — Last week: 2
The Wildcats blew a 4-0 lead and ended up tying Colorado College 4-4 on Friday, then they overcame a 3-0 deficit to beat Denver 6-4 on Saturday. Grayson Downing and Kevin Goumas each registered a hat trick on Saturday, while Casey Thrush scored twice on Friday. Goumas ended up with seven points on the weekend and now leads the league with 20 on the season. The eight goals allowed on the weekend were more than UNH had allowed in its previous eight games combined. (more…)

Another weekend of ECAC non-conference action brought us even more turmoil in these rankings. Yale went out to Colorado over the weekend and swept Denver and Colorado College. This sweep has to move them up in the rankings as they are the only ECAC team, save Union, to take two wins out of the weekend. Cornell also won against Michigan at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night.

Friday night was a success for the conference as a whole as the teams had an aggregate 4-0-1 record, but Saturday night was more of a struggle as the conference went 3-4-1 against teams from the other conferences. The conference still looks good in terms of non-conference tilts and should bode well going forward. Cornell and St. Lawrence have done well in their non-conference games while they have struggled within the league.

1. Union (8-2-1, 3-1-0) – Last Week 2

Troy Grosenick returned for the Dutchmen on Sunday and this can only improve an already good team that was ranked second last week in these rankings. Union swept Penn State over the weekend, sending 88 shots at the Penn State goal.  (more…)

It looks like UConn has turned their season around, without head coach Bruce Marshall. The Huskies have won four of the last five games, highlighted by a sweep of Air Force. They squeaked out a pair of one goal wins, including an overtime win against the Falcons. A big part of the sweep was Garrett Bartus, who stopped 57 shots for the Huskies. The Huskies also had five different players score their five goals. (more…)

Boston University outshot the Saints 17-8 in the first period and escaped the first period up 1-0, on a wicked wrister by Wade Megan at eleven minutes, 15 seconds that found the back of the net. The second period turned into the Matt Weninger show as he kept his Saints in the game by making 21 of 22 saves the Terriers sent his way in the period. BU would score two third period goals to put the game away and win it 4-0. The Terriers sent 47 shots at the St. Lawrence net and controlled the game from start to finish.

What I Saw

• Matt Weninger was the star of the show on this night despite giving up a goal apiece in the first two periods and two more in the third. The Terriers dominated the second period and until late in the period were unable to solve the Saints goaltender. For 19 minutes BU threw shot after shot at Weninger but he was able to come up big.   On the 22nd BU shot of the second period (more…)

BOSTON – An early lead for Northeastern turned out to be just that after St. Lawrence capitalized on a a sluggish second period from the Huskies and took the game, 5-2. With the win, the Saints moved to 6-3-2 on the season while Northeastern fell to 2-6-1.

The Huskies opened up the scoring when Ludwig Karlsson took a feed from Dan Cornell out by the blue line and shot high with a wrister that went above goaltender Matt Weninger to make it 1-0 at 12:25 in the first period. As the final seconds of that first period ticked off, St. Lawrence’s offense broke up the Northeastern defense which made it possible for Greg Carey to get right in front of Bryan Mountain, deke, and beat him with a backhand shot to tie it up going into the second.

The Saints carried that momentum with them, capitalizing on a power play chance caused by a hooking call on Dustin Darou. The power play combination of leading scorers Kyle Flanagan and Greg Carey set up the opportunity for Gunnar Hughes 16 seconds into the power play to make it a 2-1 Saints lead, one they wouldn’t give up throughout the latter half of the game.

Flanagan notched one of his own at 13:05 in the second, taking a feed from Patrick Doherty while positioned perfectly between the circles to beat Mountain. That closed out the second period scoring, but Chris Martin and Pat Raley would each score one in the third to give St. Lawrence a 5-1 lead.

Northeastern added a late goal to cut the deficit when Dax Lauwers scored his first goal as a Husky for a 5-2 final.

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BURLINGTON, Vt. — Spurred by a three-goal second period, Minnesota beat Vermont 5-1 in its first game ever at Gutterson Fieldhouse and its first regular-season game out east since 2005. Seth Ambroz gave Minnesota a 1-0 lead 7:52 into the game when he cut to the middle from the right side and slid a backhander past Brody Hoffman (30 saves). The Catamounts (2-6-2) tied it with 4:34 left in the first when Matt White found Brett Bruneteau alone at the top of the crease, but the Gophers retook the lead three minutes later when Kyle Rau capitalized on a Vermont turnover at the side of the net.

Minnesota (8-2-2) put the game out of reach with three straight goals in the second. Zach Budish scored on the power play 2:26 in when he pulled the puck out of a scrum in front and fired past a down-and-out Hoffman. Ten minutes later, Nick Bjugstad scored on a breakaway just after exiting the penalty box. Mike Reilly made it 5-1 when he beat Hoffman with a shot through traffic for his first career goal. Adam Wilcox stopped 22 of 23 Vermont shots to improve to 7-1-2 on the season.

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NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. – Merrimack College and Colgate skated to a 1-1 tie on Friday afternoon at J. Thom Lawler Arena. A first-period goal by Mike Collins put the Warriors on the board and Joe Wilson knotted things up early in the second period.

Freshman netminder Spencer Finney stopped 23 shots for the Raiders (6-6-2) while the Warriors (4-6-2) were backstopped by Rasmus Tirronen, who made 21 saves.

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If non-conference action is what you like this weekend will be a dream for you. Hockey East action takes a back seat this weekend to the 11 games that will be played against the WCHA and ECAC. These games do not play a role in the Hockey East standings, but this weekend will be absolutely crucial for many teams if they have hopes of making the NCAA tournament come seasons end. This may be one of the most important weeks in terms of the conference there will be, so here is my try at it.

Colgate at Merrimack (Friday)

The Warriors have been lackluster in non-conference action, with just a victory on opening night to Union in their hands. Since a four game unbeaten streak Merrimack has three straight losses. Last weekend they took a 3-0 lead against Boston College seven minutes, 39 seconds into the second only to have that lead disappear five minutes later. They would eventually lose that game to the Eagles 4-3.

Merrimack will need a bounce-back from that game but can take some positives, as they took a 3-0 lead against arguably the best team in the country. Their opponent this weekend is playing some great hockey and ranked fourth in this week’s CHN ECAC Power Rankings. Colgate defeated both Dartmouth and Harvard at home last weekend, but a silver lining that Merrimack might be able to take advantage of is the Raiders lack of prowess on the road. They are winless in five games on the road this season, going 0-4-1.

Prediction: Gate 4-3 (more…)

There’s not a lot of change in this week’s power rankings. Many of the teams in Atlantic Hockey are holding steady with only Niagara and Holy Cross separating themselves from the pack. The Purple Eagles are just one point up on Holy Cross but have a six point lead over Bentley.

ANd if you haven’t seen it already, check out the Atlantic Hockey Tenth Anniversary video here.

1. Niagara – If you can score on Carsen Chubak, it’ll be the highlight of your season at this point. The junior allowed just one goal this past weekend and now has a nation leading five shutouts along with a ridiculous 0.99 goals against and a .970 save percentage.

2. Holy Cross – The Crusaders have taken points in their last four games, winning three of them. At this point, they are the only real threat to Niagara at the top of the standings. The Crusaders 7-3 win over RIT was their first regular season victory over the Tigers since 2006. (more…)

Sorry for the belated nature of this week’s “3 Things.” Hopefully you still enjoy it between Thanksgiving courses.

The University of Denver once again finishes a weekend being the talk of the WCHA following their sweep of in-state rival (and previously unbeaten in the WCHA) Colorado College to gain a foothold for The Gold Pan. This comes a week after the now 9-1-0 Pioneers swept Minnesota State on the road.

It is easy to say things are going well for them – Denver now has a four point lead in the conference over Minnesota – but the challenges only get tougher. DU-CC is one of the more underrated rivalries in the country and sweeping the Tigers is no easy task. However, they have a chance to make a major statement this weekend when 8-1-1 New Hampshire visits Magness Arena Saturday. The Wildcats, who swept St. Cloud State earlier in the season, have given up one goal in their last four games and Denver’s tenacity to score faces a challenge in sophomore Casey DeSmith. Something has to give.

It may not count in the WCHA standings but if the Pioneers can beat New Hampshire, they have a legitimate argument to be the top team in college hockey.

After the break, more on what was a contradictory weekend in the WCHA, Adam Wilcox and I settle the age-old argument of which is better to watch between a line brawl and goalie fight. (more…)