For just the second time this season all ten WCHA teams are in action this weekend, making for what should be an exciting week of league play. There are a number of series that are sure to have big effects on playoff positioning, as well as a couple of rivalry match-ups.

The series to watch is in Bowling Green, where the red-hot Falcons take on similarly streaking Alaska. Another fun one will be Alabama-Huntsville and Bemidji State renewing a rivalry that stretches two conferences and two divisions for a series that, for the first time in awhile, means something. As for the title race, Minnesota State heads into the weekend on top with 23 points, but both Michigan Tech and Bowling Green have the chance to make up some ground.

Hobey Baker Fan Voting: Seven WCHA players, from four different schools, are among the 59 candidates on the 2015 Hobey Baker Fan Ballot. This first phase of fan voting runs through Sunday, March 8, before the field gets whittled down to the ten finalists.

The nominees from the WCHA are: junior forward Bryce Gervais (Minnesota State), senior forward Tanner Kero (Michigan Tech), senior forward Jean-Paul LaFontaine (Minnesota State), senior forward Matt Leitner (Minnesota State), junior forward Tyler Morley (Alaska), senior goaltender CJ Motte (Ferris State), and junior goaltender Jamie Phillips (Michigan Tech).

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All Big Ten teams take the ice this week, highlighted by a couple conference series. Michigan State hosts the NTDP, while the Badgers welcome Boston University to Wisconsin.

Michigan and Minnesota face each other in the Big Ten series to watch this weekend, as the teams were expected to compete for the first and second spots in the Big Ten. Minnesota struggled at its holiday tournament, while Michigan powered past Michigan Tech and Michigan State to win the Great Lakes Invitational.  but Minnesota

Penn State and Ohio State face off, as the Buckeyes continue their Pennsylvania road trip. While the Nittany Lions came back from the holidays healthy, the Buckeyes will be undermanned this weekend.

The Hobey Baker fan ballot was released, and the Big Ten had seven members nominated – Penn State’s Casey Bailey and Taylor Holstrom, Michigan’s Andrew Copp and Zach Hyman and Minnesota’s Mike Reilly, Kyle Rau and Adam Wilcox.

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Another weekend of league-wide struggles in non-conference play has made it difficult to really gauge where the league is and which teams belong near the top. The break is always a good thing for some teams, while for others it turns out to be a bad thing. For Harvard, it seems  that it came it at the wrong time. The Crimson are 10-1-2 on the season, with a win after the break against Rensselaer, but have played a lone game this half. Before a loss to Northeastern on Tuesday night, Yale had won three consecutive games and six of seven contests.

Most teams will return to league play this weekend. Quinnipiac currently leads the standings, but near every team has games in hand on the Bobcats. The national picture for ECAC teams is downright ugly and I will admit it. At the present moment the first three out would be ECAC teams, as Quinnipiac, Yale and Colgate are currently 16, 17 and 18 in the Pairwise rankings. With most non-conference tilts done, the ECAC will need to battle just to get two or three teams in the tournament. Unless some teams like Union and Dartmouth get going,it may be a rough March for the league. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Big Ten turned in one if its better non-conference weekends, finishing with a 3-2-1 record. The Gophers fell to Merrimack but defeated RIT, Ohio State beat and tied Mercyhurst, and the Badgers split their weekend against Michigan Tech.

The Buckeyes put up eight goals in the Snowtown Throwdown, with Matt Johnson’s hat trick leading Ohio State’s six-goal effort on Friday. Ohio State is one of six programs that have had two different players record a hat trick this season.

With a 2-0 win over Michigan Tech on Saturday, the Badgers became the last team to reach the two-win mark this season. Joel Rumpel made a career-high 47 saves in the shutout, one night after the Badgers lost 8-1 to the Huskies. I use “upset” minimally, but Wisconsin’s win was an upset and an anomaly. The Badgers are still in a bad state, but the rest of the conference – especially Michigan – should thank Wisconsin for getting a huge out-of-conference win.

Speaking of Michigan, the Wolverines are now 21st in the PairWise, and Penn State has dropped to 22. After falling to Merrimack, the Gophers dropped to 10. There are still some non-conference games left, but it might be too late for the Wolverines or Nittany Lions to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. Read the rest of this entry »

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WCHA teams, with the exception of Bemidji State and Lake Superior State, returned from the holiday break this past weekend to resume a tight conference race. Minnesota State was the of the three top dogs in league play and the Mavericks took advantage, grabbing first place and opening up a three point lead on Michigan Tech, though the Huskies have two games in hand. Among the middle of the pack, Ferris State and Northern Michigan continue to tumble down the standings and are going to have their work cut out for them in the second half if they want to be home ice teams, while Alaska has settled nicely into its second half spoiler role.

Rapid Recap: In league play, Minnesota State took over sole possession of first place in the conference, taking three points from Northern Michigan on the road with a 4-1 win and 2-2 tie. Alabama-Huntsville earned its first sweep as a member of the WCHA, taking back-to-back games from visiting Alaska-Anchorage, 3-2 and 2-1, and Alaska also took care of business at home, sweeping Ferris State with wins of 2-1 and 6-0. In non-conference action, Bowling Green tied Robert Morris, 2-2, in the Winterfest outdoor game at Fifth Third Field in Toledo, Ohio, before beating the Colonials on the road, 4-1. Michigan Tech trounced Wisconsin, 8-1, on Friday before Badgers goalie Joel Rumpel stymied the Huskies in a 2-0 defeat in the finale.

In the Polls: Minnesota State is the highest ranked team in the first USCHO.com poll of 2015, checking in at No. 4. Michigan Tech sits at No. 8, while Bowling Green is No. 11. Alaska (9) and Northern Michigan (1) are both receiving votes.

In the PairWise, the Mavericks were knocked down to No. 2 thanks to the combination of tying with Northern Michigan on Saturday and the WCHA’s non-favorable non-conference results. Bowling Green surpassed Michigan Tech as the conference’s second-highest ranked team. The Falcons are No. 5 and the Huskies dropped to No. 13.

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Massachusetts-Lowell ended its holiday season on Saturday afternoon with its second consecutive tournament win. The River Hawks knocked off Merrimack, 3-1, to claim the Mariucci Classic. Two weekends ago, UML won the Frozen Holiday Classic, beating Sacred Heart and Connecticut without much issue.

Even with the trophies handed out each weekend, the four wins Lowell picked up are little more than good non-conference wins. None of the opponents were particularly tough outs, though Merrimack has proved its a truly difficult team to beat on several occasions this year. Beating inferior opponents without issue is a good sign for teams with the aspirations of Lowell. Norm Bazin’s club, the two-time defending Hockey East Tournament champion, expects to compete for titles now. At the moment, Lowell is level on points with Boston University atop the Hockey East standings with a game in hand on the Terriers.

BU, Vermont, Providence and Boston College all seem like contenders for league championships, and, in years past, Lowell may’ve been the darkhorse. That isn’t the case any longer, though. UML has had more success than any of these programs in the last couple seasons in terms of winning titles. As the tough second-half of Hockey East play ramps up, it’s pretty clear the regular-season and tournament titles are Lowell’s to lose.

There’s good competition from the Comm. Ave clubs. Moreover, Lowell still has two games with BU, Providence and Vermont as well as one more with BC. So there’s a lot left to prove. Lowell is the favorite the rest of the way, though. Read the rest of this entry »

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While I have been eating leftover ham and enjoying the long holiday season, I have left you my readers begging for more in terms of writing. In which case I am sorry, but the return of three things is always something I look forward to. Over the weekend, I was able to see league members Brown and Dartmouth in the Ledyard Bank Classic. As always it was a good experience and one that I truly enjoy year in and year out (more on that below).  For the rest of the league, it was non-conference action, in a weekend that most fans of the conference would like to forget.

This weekend most of the league will head back into ECAC play, with the lone exceptions being Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale and Brown. The Green will play New Hampshire in a nationally televised game on Friday night (NBCSN), while Yale and Harvard will take part in the Rivalry on Ice at Madison Square Garden also on NBCSN, Saturday. The exposure will be great for the league and if you ask me, the league could’t ask for for four better teams to show the league over two weekends. Union also played on national television last weekend in a 3-3 tie at Boston University. Read the rest of this entry »

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There are a couple more weeks of sporadic non-conference action, including this weekend’s home-and-home between Western Michigan and Notre Dame, but of course, the primary focus for NCHC teams now is on conference play and on preparing for a postseason that, last year, saw the league’s No. 6 and No. 8 seeds play for the tournament title.

Miami at the faceoff dot

There are plenty of storylines to highlight when it comes to Miami’s success over the first half of the season, which the RedHawks continued with a sweep of Rensselaer over the weekend. There is, of course, the statistical anomaly of seeing Austin Czarnik atop Miami’s list of point-scorers despite having scored just one goal, and there’s Jay Williams, who has quietly become one of the top goaltenders in the league, coming off back-to-back shutouts of Cornell and RPI. Another storyline, though, that hasn’t received as much attention has been Miami’s strong faceoff play. Simply put, at the faceoff dot, the RedHawk centers have been downright dominant. Blake Coleman (166-78), Sean Kuraly (224-146), and Justin Greenberg (67-48) are the only NCHC players who have faceoff winning percentages over .580 this season, with Coleman’s .680 faceoff winning percentage the best among all NCHC players. Those faceoff wins have led to timely defensive zone clears, increased offensive zone pressure, and puck possession that’s given Miami the edge in several close games this year. The RedHawks have 14 wins as they head to St. Cloud State this weekend, where a 15th win will already match last season’s win total.

UNO block party

Joining Miami in the top 6 in the current Pairwise is Nebraska-Omaha. The Mavericks had a six-game winning streak snapped on New Year’s Eve with a 6-2 loss to New Hampshire (after UNO had beaten the Wildcats in overtime the night before). Senior goaltender Ryan Massa, who missed the series due to the flu, has helped steady a UNO defense that was suspect at times last season, and the defenders in front of him have clearly played harder as well. That’s evident by looking at Omaha’s shot-blocking prowess. The Mavericks defense has arguably the most prolific shot-blocking crew in the league, led by senior Brian O’ Rourke’s 2.47 blocks per game, best among any NCHC player . O’Rourke, along with junior Brian Cooper, and freshman Joel Messner, have combined for 120 blocked shots this season so far — the most for any trio of defensemen in the NCHC.

Hafner takes over

On November 14, Western Michigan senior goaltender Frank Slubowski was pulled in an eventual loss to St. Cloud State and was replaced by junior Lukas Hafner. Slubowski, a talented goaltender who goes by “Frank the Tank” as one of his nicknames, is well-liked and respected by his teammates, but it’s been Hafner who has taken control of the Broncos’ goaltending position this year. The Broncos are in need of a strong January, and Hafner’s play has put WMU in a good position. The Toledo, Ohio, native is 4-1-1 in his last six games, allowing two goals or less in all of them. Moreover, Hafner is in fact the only NCHC goaltender who’s allowed two or less in the last six games overall.

Coming soon: On Friday, we’ll preview all the weekend’s NCHC action.

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This week, Wisconsin, Ohio State and Minnesota combined for a 3-2-1 record. The Gophers and Badgers split their weekend, while Ohio State defeated and tied Mercyhurst.

Despite missing Hudson Fasching and Ryan Collins on Friday, Minnesota still recorded its highest 5-on-5 Corsi for the season. This marked the fourth and fifth time so far the Gophers passed the 60 percent mark for 5-on-5 Corsi.

The Badgers earned their second win of the season, snapping a four game losing streak. But Wisconsin’s Corsi numbers hovered around the 35 percent mark for both games, and the Badgers won Saturday largely because of Joel Rumpel’s play.

Ohio State scored six goals on Friday, while controlling 5-on-5 play. The second game between Mercyhurst and Ohio State was more even, and the Buckeyes recorded a 50 percent Corsi for 5-on-5 play.

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This weekend includes four non-conference series involving NCHC teams, with St. Cloud State set to host Quinnipiac in a two-game set starting in less than two hours from now. Meanwhile, Denver, Miami, and Colorado College all travel east for their weekend games.

A look at the four series, as 2015’s first weekend of college hockey gets underway:

Providence (11-6-1, 6-4-0 HEA) hosts Colorado College (3-11-1, 0-8-1 NCHC): This is a Saturday-Sunday series, a rematch of a pair of games last year in Colorado Springs, when Providence left with a 2-2 tie (which the Friars earned with a late third period extra-attacker goal) and a dominant 7-2 win. Jon Gillies was in net for Providence in both of those games and likely will be this weekend as well, against a CC team that’s playing its sixth and seventh consecutive road games this weekend. The Tigers’ last official home game was their November 21 win over Wisconsin — CC’s last win overall. Scoring goals has been a challenge for CC through the first half of the season, failing to score more than two in a game for 13 of the last 14 contests. On the other side, top forwards Trevor Mingola, Nick Saracino, and Shane Luke are starting to heat up for a Providence team that’s won seven of eight and three in a row — including a pair against Massachusetts and Vermont to close out 2014. Prediction: Providence wins Friday, CC wins Saturday.

Denver (10-5-0 overall, 4-3-0 NCHC) at the Ledyard Classic (at Dartmouth, vs. Brown): Denver will be without star sophomore defenseman Will Butcher, who despite a strong tournament in Montreal, was part of Team USA’s World Junior team that was eliminated earlier today after a 3-2 quarterfinal loss to Russia. Still, Dartmouth and Brown will have to focus on containing a defensive corps that is active in all game situations. In particular, Joey LaLeggia (who leads the nation in both shots and goals per game among defensemen) and Nolan Zajac are big reasons why Denver is ranked in the top 5 in the nation in both power play and penalty killing percentage. The key, really, for all teams this weekend will be how sharp they are coming off a lengthy break — Denver last played on December 13, Dartmouth last played on December 14, and Brown hasn’t seen game action since a December 6 win over Rensselaer, just the Bears’ third win of the year. Dartmouth’s Tyler Sikura comes into tonight’s game against Denver with a five-game point streak on the line. Prediction: Denver sweeps.

Rensselaer (6-13-1, 4-5-0 ECAC) hosts Miami (12-6-0, 7-3-0 NCHC): Miami heads to the capital district of New York to play its second consecutive ECAC opponent, after the RedHawks shut out Cornell 3-0 on Monday in Florida — a steady win that snapped a two-game losing stretch. In the game against Cornell, Miami captain Austin Czarnik added two more assists to bring his total to 20 for the season. Czarnik leads the nation in assists and is the only player in the top 100 in points per game who has not scored a goal yet this season. Veteran leadership — and continued strong play from goaltender Jay Williams — will be important for Miami, who are in the midst of a 12 game stretch in which the RedHawks play nine games away from home. The key for RPI this weekend will be whether the Engineers can display a renewed commitment to defense after a six game losing streak to end 2014, in which Seth Appert’s young team gave up a combined 29 goals. Prediction: A win and tie for Miami.

St. Cloud State (6-9-1, 2-5-1 NCHC) hosts Quinnipiac (12-5-1, 8-2-0 ECAC): This is the first meeting between the Huskies and Bobcats since Quinnipiac upended St. Cloud, 4-1, in a national semifinal game at the 2013 NCAA Frozen Four. In that game, Quinnipiac took control with three goals in the first 11:19 of the game, en route to an eventual national title game loss to conference rival Yale. Certainly, getting off to a good start will be important in this series as well. This year, St. Cloud is 3-1-1 when scoring first and just 3-8-0 when conceding the game’s first goal. The Huskies have also won just once in their last five games and enter this weekend with a three-game losing streak. The challenge towards the end of 2014 was the St. Cloud struggled gaining game-to-game, and certainly weekend-to-weekend, momentum, and now have a chance to develop that with a slew of home games over the next few weeks. The stingy defense of Quinnipiac, which held Princeton to back-to-back shutouts last week, will prove challenging though. Junior goaltender Michael Garteig is playing well, and contributions from freshmen like Landon Smith have bolstered the Bobcats, who sit atop the ECAC standings. Prediction: A weekend split.

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