A nearly-full slate of games on the WCHA docket this week, with only Minnesota and North Dakota with the week off. The other 10 teams will be in action against each other, so barring a whole bunch of splits, we could get some clarity to the playoff picture come Sunday morning.

1 — Minnesota Duluth (Last week: 1)

The Gophers have a solid lead in the WCHA standings and the Bulldogs had their worst weekend in a while against Tech. But I still give the edge to UMD, by a nose, because of the other factors — overall record, Pairwise ranking and KRACH ranking. The ‘Dogs are No. 1 in both sets of computer rankings and I think most teams would love to go through a “rough patch” consisting of a 2-2-1 record. Heck, that’s reason to celebrate in Anchorage.

2 — Minnesota (Last week: 2)

Despite leading the league and sweeping St. Cloud State, a feat not nearly as impressive with the Huskies being down SIX FORWARDS from the start of the year, the Gophers still sit perilously close to the Pairwise bubble, entering play this weekend ninth. That’s comfortable for now, but say the Gophs run into their own “rough patch” down the stretch. If they enter the WCHA playoffs in 11th or 12th, that will cause some nerves to be frayed in Minneapolis. And with games at Denver and at Nebraska-Omaha, a “rough patch” isn’t, you know, entirely out of the question.

3 — North Dakota (Last week: 3)

Sweeping Wisconsin in Grand Forks isn’t that great of an accomplishment, when you consider the Badgers have won just once on the road all season. But a sweep is a sweep and four points in late January, especially in a league as tightly contested as this one, will be huge come mid-March. The victories also moved UND onto the verge of the Pairwise bubble, but NoDak still has plenty of work to do in that area. UND enters the weekend tied for fourth, but could conceivably exit it in seventh place. And with the bye, there is nothing it can do about it.

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1. RIT – A win and tie  against Mercyhurst propels the Tigers back to the top spot in the standings and the power rankings.

2. Mercyhurst – The Lakers had the first winless weekend since Nov. 25 and 26, and it cost them first place in the standings.

3. Air Force – The Falcons are starting to turn their play around and currently sit in a tie with Niagara for third place.

4. UConn – The Huskies have won six of their last eight games and appear to be picking up steam as we head towards the playoffs. (more…)

Over the last two weekends, Maine has made a huge statement. With four straight wins against the likes of Boston University and Boston College, we can officially say that Maine is a contender for the Hockey East regular season championship and a team that could be poised for a run in the tournaments. With the four wins Maine has catapulted itself into third place in the conference, one point behind both Boston University and Boston College. (more…)

Hockey East is divided into three pretty clear tiers right now. There’s the top five, the next four, and then Vermont all by itself at the bottom. Within those top two tiers, there continues to be plenty of movement on a week-to-week basis, and the difference from first to fifth and sixth to ninth continues to be negligible. The most notable move this week came from Lowell, which becomes the fourth different team to lay claim to the top spot this season.

1. Massachusetts-Lowell (16-7-0, 11-6-0 HE) — Last week: 3

The River Hawks have been in the top half of these rankings for a couple months, and now they ascend to the top spot after beating UMass 4-2 on Friday and 5-2 on Saturday. They have some of the best scoring depth in the league, as they have eight players with at least 18 points and 10 with at least 12. At the other end of the ice, Doug Carr leads Hockey East with a .935 save percentage. Lowell’s 14-4-0 record since the start of November is the best in the league.

2. Merrimack (14-5-5, 10-4-3 HE) — Last week: 2

The Warriors stay in second after beating Providence 4-2 on Sunday in their only game of the weekend. They took 42 penalty minutes and got outshot 39-23 in that game, but Joe Cannata stopped 37 shots as he continues to make his case for the Hobey Baker. After struggling through December and early January, Merrimack is now 3-1-1 in its last five. Karl Stollery has two goals and five assists during that span, and he’s now tied for fourth in the league in defenseman scoring. (more…)

Northeastern’s Cody Ferriero had a fantastic weekend for the Huskies, scoring four time in two NU wins at Vermont. The sophomore’s turbulent career on St. Botolph Street seems to be on one of its trends up. However, the problem for Ferriero, and Northeastern really, has been the inevitable slope down.

In the two wins over UVM, Ferriero scored four goals and assisted on another. Earlier this year, he scored five goals and recorded five assists in a 10-game span. However, he missed the first four games of the season due to suspension and entered last weekend pointless in three consecutive games.

The peaks have been great Ferriero — and Northeastern — but the valleys have been devastating.

Three Up

Derek Arnold, Sophomore, Forward, UMass Lowell

Derek Arnold scored a game-winning goal in overtime at Northeastern on Jan. 21. He was scoreless three nights later in a 1-0 loss to Providence, which doesn’t appear to have sat well. He scored three times last weekend in two wins for UMass Lowell over sister-school Massachusetts. The wins clinched the first Alumni Cup in three years for the River Hawks, and Arnold was a big part. (more…)

Air Force – The Falcons missed an opportunity to tie Mercyhurst for second in the standings. A win and tie against Canisus has them two points behind Atlantic Hockey leader RIT. John Kruse had a goal and two assists while Scott Mathis had a goal an assist for the Falcons. Kruse has now recorded at least one point in four straight games.

AIC – The Yellow Jackets snapped a four game losing with a split against Sacred Heart. The Yellow Jackets needed two third period goals on Saturday just to force overtime before winning in the extra time. Adam Pleskach scored twice, including the game winner on Saturday. Steve Mele assisted on three goals, giving him a career high nine assists and a four game point streak.

Army – The Black Knights picked up their first win since Dec. 30 on Saturday. Andy Starczewski, Bill Daly, Danny Colvin, and Josh Richards all had a goal and assist on the weekend. Starczewski leads the team with nine goals and 15 points. The nine goals is a career high. Richards goal and assist were both the first of his Black Knight career. (more…)

Maine’s sweep of Boston University thrust the Black Bears into the national spotlight. Not only are they a realistic contender for their first Hockey East Championship since 2004, but Tim Whitehead’s club could very well challenge for a national title if it can sustain the level of play it has over the last two months.

Consecutive sweeps over BU and Boston College have Maine just one point short of first place in Hockey East, where BC and BU are tied with 25 points a piece. While the Black Bears have played more games than any club in Hockey East except for BC, they’ve made the most out of those games. With Alabama-Huntsville heading to Orono next week, Maine has the opportunity to maintain its current level of play without the grind of late-season Hockey East games.

However, the pair with UAH means that the league standings, and Maine’s position within the conference, will be drastically different when it resumes Hockey East play in two weeks. Visits to Providence and UMass Lowell on Feb. 10 and 11 will be as critical as these last four wins over BC and BU. Further showing that if red-hot Maine takes UAH lightly, it could easily suffer a major setback in its quest for a league championship and run through the NCAA Tournament.

There are 5 legitimate contenders for the Hockey East Championship

Despite its sweep at the hands of Maine, BU remains the favorite in Hockey East. The losses were a setback, but BU is still tied with BC atop the league standings with a game in hand over the Eagles and the tiebreaker already clinched. Both the Eagles and Terriers are, as usual, contenders for a league title. (more…)

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — Merrimack scored twice during a five-minute power play en route to a 4-2 win over Providence on Sunday. With Ross Mauermann serving a five-minute major for charging, Karl Stollery scored with 56 seconds left in the first and Josh Myers scored on the same power play 3:01 into the second. Joe Cannata made 37 saves in the victory, while Rhett Bly scored the game’s first goal and Jesse Todd sealed the Merrimack (14-5-5, 10-4-3 HE) win with an empty-netter. Stefan Demopoulos and Myles Harvey registered the Providence (10-12-2, 8-8-1 HE) goals, both of which came on the power play.

What I saw

-A lot of penalties. The teams combined for 70 penalty minutes, including 43 in the first period alone. There were four majors and three game misconducts, as both teams toed the line between physical and dirty all game. On top of Mauermann’s charging major (which didn’t include a misconduct), Providence’s Chris Rooney and Merrimack’s Brendan Ellis were both ejected for facemasking — which is a nice way of saying “fighting” — and Merrimack’s Jordan Heywood was shown the gate for a blatant hit from behind. (more…)

BOSTON — Nick Pryor scored the game-winning goal at 6 minutes of the second period, and Matt Mangene added one into an empty net with five second left in regulation, lifting Maine to a 3-1 win over Boston University Saturday night. The victory completed a two-game weekend sweep of BU for the Black Bears — their first in Boston since 1992.

Sophomore goaltender Dan Sullivan continued his steady play in goal with 38 saves, including 12 in the third period. For the weekend, Sullivan stopped 66 of 69 shots, lifting his season save percentage to a respectable .903.

The losses were BU’s first since a New Year’s Eve defeat at Notre Dame. Still, the Terriers leave the weekend in good position both in conference and on the national stage.

What I Saw

• Maine continued its smart play through the neutral zone. On Friday, Maine’s 1-2-2 gave BU fits whenever the Terriers looked to break the puck up ice. The same held true on Saturday, as BU rarely generated offense when forced to go the length of the ice. As usual BU created frequent scoring chances when they managed to break through Maine’s formation or worked an odd-man rush. Preventing the Terriers from doing this consistently helped Maine take four points over the weekend. The absences of BU defensemen Alexx Privitera and Max Nicastro made it more difficult for BU to move the puck up ice. Both players were injured in Friday’s game. (more…)

The CCHA’s days may be numbered, but the lame duck conference has been far from, well, lame this 2011-12 campaign, the league’s penultimate season.

A look at the current Pairwise rankings (as of 12am on January 29) shows six CCHA teams — Ferris State (4), Ohio State (5), Michigan (7), Miami (T-8), Northern Michigan (12), Notre Dame (13) — within the top 13. Starting in the fall of 2013, those six teams will play in four different conferences. Another three — Western Michigan (T-18), Michigan State (20), Lake Superior (21) — sit on the NCAA tournament bubble.

And if the NCAA tournament started today, the CCHA representation would be twice that of the WCHA.

But let’s look closer at all the numbers: (more…)