This week will mark the beginning of the season for the six Ivy League schools. Yale and Princeton will open their seasons at the Capital City Classic, Cornell will play a pair with Niagara, Brown will play host to Holy Cross all the while Dartmouth and Harvard play a set of league games. Union and Rensselaer will open the conference slate on Friday in Schenectady, where Union will be looking to lick their wounds after a winless weekend and RPI will be looking to rebound after a few rough weekends.

St. Lawrence is playing a pair of games at Penn State this weekend, Thursday and Friday nights so mark your calendars for that series. I am actually watching it now, which means I am really late in writing this. Check out this week’s Three Things I Think, from earlier in the week, also check out Chris’ article on Yale and Clarkson was also our CHN team of the Week.  Ivy fans out there should check out the league preview again and the things to watch for I did in the preseason.

There are many great non-league matchups throughout the league, as it will look to improve upon its already great inter-conference record. Without further ado here are some thoughts on this weekend’s matchups. Read the rest of this entry »

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Four Big Ten teams are in action this weekend – Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio State.

The Big Ten has continued struggling out of conference, and now holds an 11-16-5 record against non-Big Ten opponents. When you exclude the five wins against Atlantic Hockey opponents, the record drops to 6-16-5.

Michigan State and Minnesota are on byes.

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The weekend probably couldn’t be drawn up any better, as league teams went 5-1-0 against NCHC competition on the weekend. Quinnipiac continues to impress with its early play, which I will talk about below, St. Lawrence picked up the most impressive win of the weekend and Clarkson had an impressive weekend in a weekend sweep. Colgate, whom I will also talk about below, swept RIT in a weekend series, while Union struggled in a winless weekend against traditional powers.

It is early, but the ECAC leads all conferences in inter-conference record at 21-10-3 (.662). This record should only improve in the coming weeks, as ECAC favorites Harvard and Yale begin play.  The Ivies will join the party this week and ECAC league play will also begin this week,with RPI visiting Union for each team’s ECAC opener. Harvard and Dartmouth will also play  a pair this weekend to open their seasons, beginning with a game at Thompson Arena on Saturday. Read the rest of this entry »

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This weekend of Big Ten hockey saw Minnesota finally earn its first win of the season. The Gophers swept Northeastern, but Wisconsin and Ohio State were both swept by their opponents. This means the Badgers and Buckeyes are now the only winless teams in the conference.

Wisconsin and Ferris State were locked in a high-scoring, 5-5 affair on Friday night. The Badgers then dropped Saturday’s contest 2-1. The Buckeyes dropped both games to Providence, but the scores were close. Ohio State fell 2-1 on Friday and 6-4 on Saturday.

Elsewhere, Michigan earned a tie and a win in New York. There were some struggles for the Wolverines, who scored five goals in both games. Michigan tied Union in the first contest amidst some back-and-forth scoring and beat RPI 5-2. The Wolverines are unbeaten on the season, but there are some issues that will hurt Michigan when it plays stronger competition.

Penn State’s offensive success continued against AIC, and the Nittany Lions finished the series with a sweep. Penn State has now scored four or more goals in all games this year, and at least five over the last three.

The Spartans received a boost with Michael Ferrantino’s return over the weekend, but still split its series with Lake Superior. The Lakers won the first game 4-2 before Michigan State won the second 2-0.

(After the jump: Belief in Eric Schierhorn, mistakes from the top teams and Penn State’s offense.) Read the rest of this entry »

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NCHC teams went 12-2-1 in their nonconference games this week (with both losses coming in a CC sweep at Mass.-Lowell), and this weekend, Nebraska-Omaha opens its new arena as the Mavericks host Air Force, while elsewhere, two of the three teams in the country who are currently 4-0-0 square off — as St. Cloud, already with three shutouts in four games, travels to Vermont.

Weekend Schedule (all two-game series):

Nebraska-Omaha (4-0-0) hosts Air Force (1-2-1):  Following a pair of wins at Minnesota State, Omaha stayed hot on the road last week, sweeping Vermont, and as a result was named CHN Team of the Week on Wednesday. This weekend, the Mavericks open up their brand new facility, Baxter Arena, and will raise their Frozen Four banner honoring last season’s team that advanced to Boston. UNO’s success has been buoyed first of all by offense from its stars: Read the rest of this entry »

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All 12 Hockey East teams are in action this weekend with four playing home-and-home series in the league standings. Let’s take a look around the league with 12 thoughts for 12 teams …

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About three seasons ago, to have league teams playing the likes of Miami, St. Cloud State, Michigan and UNH all on the same weekend would have probably been a stretch. This week four of the top programs will visit league rinks. St. Lawrence will host Miami at Appelton, Michigan will travel to Union and RPI, UNH visits Messa rink to play Union and finally two undefeated teams will faceoff in Hamden, as Quinipiac plays host to St. Cloud. The visit from Michigan will mark its first trip to an ECAC rink since, January 3rd 1988.

The highlight of the weekend will be St. Cloud and Quinnipiac. Both teams enter the weekend undefeated, at 4-0. Quinnipiac is in dire need of a team to challenge them in non-conference play, which the Huskies certainly will. While Quinnipiac has played the likes of Holy Cross, Arizona State and Maine, its opponent is coming off a weekend sweep of Minnesota State. Quinnipiac looked the part as a good team on Tuesday against Maine, dominating its opponent on the scoreboard and in shots, but a real challenge is something they have yet to receive.

The Bobcats will need to find a way to beat Charlie Lindgren, who has three shutouts in his three starts. Last weekend against Minnesota State, he sent aside all 54 of the shots that he saw.The two teams split a weekend series last season, with Quinnipiac picking up a 4-1 win against Lindgren in the finale of that series. If anything, Quinnipiac has the confidence that it cant beat the Huskies. Based on how Quinnipiac played against Maine on Tuesday, I feel as though they may again be highly underrated. They have a huge chance to prove me right this weekend. Read the rest of this entry »

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All six Big Ten teams are in action this weekend. Penn State, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan State are at home while Ohio State and Michigan are on the road.

There are several storylines to keep an eye on, including Minnesota’s offense. The Gopher only have on goal on the season. Minnesota, along with Ohio State and Wisconsin, are still searching for its first win.

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Hamden, CT. – Maine was no match for the Bobcats on a rare Tuesday night game. The Black Bears got off to a good start, holding Quinnipiac’s high powered corsi machine but it was a shortlived, as a power-play midway through the first period changed the game. Quinnipiac generated five shots on goal, and many other chances on the power-play. Its momentum grew even more, when Chase Priskie retrieved a puck in the neutral zone and went in all alone to score on Maine’s Matt Morris. The Bobcats took the one goal lead to the dressing room, but its possession took over as it sent puck after puck at the Maine net in the latter stages of the period. All told QU sent 33 shots, 17 right in front of Morris and 19 of them found its way on the net.

The onslaught continued in the second, but Quinnipiac was able to use its chances to generate scoring. Tommy Schutt slapped a shot off the post at 5:08 of the period, Devon Toews retrieved a puck off a Maine defender and shot it five-hole and KJ Tiefenworth received his own rebound to put the Bobcats up by a lofty four goals after two periods. It was much of the same in the third period, as both teams had chances but neither found the back of the net. QU improved to 4-0-0 on the season with the 4-0 win, while Maine is still winless at 0-2-3. Garteig picked his 13th career shutout for Quinnipiac and his second in a row. Read the rest of this entry »

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The first full weekend for Big Ten hockey saw Michigan open its season against Mercyhurst. The Wolverines swept the Lakers and scored six goals on Friday. Meanwhile Minnesota’s struggles continued, and the Gophers are now 0-3 after a series sweep by Minnesota-Duluth.

The Buckeyes are 0-4 on the season after dropping two series to in-state rivals Bowling Green and Miami. Penn State split its series with Notre Dame, while Michigan State was swept by Denver.

Wisconsin’s woes continued thanks to a road sweep in Boston, although there were a couple of positives from the losses. The Badgers have some talent, but they’re too inexperienced and reliant on underclassmen. Still, this isn’t last year’s Badger team.

It’s early in the season, but so far Kyle Connor is leading the Wolverines in scoring. He has four points through two games, including three goals. And Michigan is sixth in the country with an average of 4.50 goals per game.

While it’s still early in the season, it looks like this will be another year of non-conference struggles for the Big Ten. Penn State, Michigan and Michigan State are the only teams with wins.

(After the jump: Matt Jurusik will be Wisconsin’s starter, a new basement team for the Big Ten and it’s going to be a tough season for Minnesota.)

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