NCHC: Weekend Preview
Thursday, November 2nd, 2017Each NCHC team has played at least five games, and every team in the league is over .500 at this early stage in the season, after another successful first few weeks of nonconference action.
Conference play is underway, too. Colorado College split with North Dakota last weekend in the first league play of the season, and there are three more league series this weekend — Denver at Western Michigan, CC at Miami, Minnesota-Duluth at St. Cloud State. Omaha is off, while North Dakota plays two at Wisconsin.
As a preview of this weekend’s action, here’s a brief look at each of the team’s starts to the season (teams listed alphabetically):
Colorado College: After a split against Vermont and a sweep against Alaska-Anchorage, all eyes were on the Tigers last weekend to see how they would fare in their first league games of the season — one of many areas in which the Tigers have struggled in recent seasons. CC responded in a big way with their split against North Dakota. In the Tigers’ Friday night win, they took advantage of their chances, stayed out of the penalty box (North Dakota had only one power play opportunity), and survived periods of pressure in the third… but I found their loss to be encouraging as well.
Despite defensive lapses in a 6-4 game, CC scored all four of its goals on the rush — an area in which they struggled last year. They showed plenty of speed getting behind the UND defense, and that will serve them well as the season goes on. CC already has five wins this season — incredibly, the earliest the Tigers have reached that mark since the fall of 2005. It’s the best start during the Mike Haviland era in Colorado Springs, and junior Mason Bergh has led the way with seven goals (tied for most in the country).
Denver: The defending champions are rolling — undefeated at 4-0-2 after sweeping Boston University and Boston College on the road last weekend. And as expected, the Pioneers’ trio of high-end forwards, Henrik Borgstrom, Troy Terry, and Dylan Gambrell, are leading the way. Borgstrom in particular has picked up where he left off last year, as the potential Hobey Baker candidate has a point in each game he’s played this season and leads Denver with five goals.
It will be interesting this weekend to see how Denver plays on Friday night against the Broncos, as the Pioneers have shown a tendency this season to start slowly before picking up momentum as the weekend goes along. Denver is 1-0-2 on Friday (allowing eight goals in those three games) and 3-0-0 on Saturday (allowing four goals in those three games). Even though Tanner Jaillet is the unquestioned starter in goal, I’d expect head coach Jim Montgomery to mix in freshman Dayton Rasmussen periodically as well. The rookie netminder earned the win for Denver’s first home victory of the season two weeks ago against Lake Superior State.
Miami: The RedHawks rebounded from an inconsistent weekend against Maine to pummel UConn last weekend, outscoring the Huskies 10-1 in a pair of games in Oxford. Miami hosts CC this weekend, and one story to watch will be whether the RedHawks can continue their strong power play efforts — after scoring 11 power play goals on their last 21 opportunities. Their 34.3 percent success rate is fourth best in the nation currently, and in years past, CC has struggled on the penalty kill.
Sophomore Gordie Green (11 points already) looks to be one of the NCHC’s breakout stars this season.