JOHN MUSE
Boston College
Sr. | G | East Falmouth, Mass.

His Statistics: 2 GP; 2 wins; 1 shutout; 70 saves on 71 shots.

His Impact: Boston College’s season wasn’t hanging in the balance heading into last weekend’s series against Maine. Still, as losers of four of their previous seven games, there was urgency for the Eagles to get back on the winning track.

Enter John Muse, who made 32 saves in a 4-0 shutout of the Black Bears Friday and followed that effort with a 38-save gem in Sunday’s 4-1 win at Conte Forum. The senior goaltender’s performance was all that more impressive considered Boston College was outshot by Maine in five of the six periods during the weekend series—Muse stopped 11 or more shots in each of those five stanzas.

Muse skates into the Eagles’ upcoming games against Merrimack and Vermont ranked second nationally in both goals against average (1.45) and save percentage (.955).

His Runners-Up: Danny Colvin, Army; Mike Hoeffel, Minnesota; Ben Ryan, Notre Dame; Matt Zarbo, Clarkson

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Here’s to the Brown Bears, who you probably remember from last year when they made a run to the ECAC Hockey championship weekend. This year, they’re keeping that momentum, having just earned a pair of wins on the road at Colgate and Cornell for their first regular-season ECAC road sweep since Jan. 28-29, 2005. It’s also Brown’s first winning Colgate-Cornell swing since February 1993.

The Bears are 3-2-1 overall and 2-1-1 in ECAC Hockey. Those are modest measures, but could mean a lot more after this week when they travel to play non-league games at New Hampshire and Boston University.

Can anybody figure out what’s wrong with St. Cloud State, which is 5-7-2 overall and has back-to-back wins on one occasion this season? Sure, the Huskies lost some key players from a year ago, but a good chunk of the team’s core returned. One source of consternation is the power play; SCSU has five more extra-man goals than its opponents but has had 34 more power play opportunities. Goaltending has been an issue, too, namely sophomore Mike Lee, who has a 3.27 GAA and a .887 save percentage.

“It’s a character win. Those are games we didn’t win last year.”

Notre Dame’s Ben Ryan to the South Bend Tribune’s Jim Meehan following the Fighting Irish’s not-exactly-textbook 4-2 win over Michigan State Saturday. Forward Sean Lorenz notched the winner with 2:23 left in regulation in a game in which Notre Dame spent the final six minutes shorthanded due to overlapping major penalties on Ryan and teammate Calle Ridderwall.

Tough to find much fault in the way the national rankings shook down this week. Maine probably didn’t deserve to be dumped seven places in the voter-driven polls after getting swept by the defending national champions in their home rink, but why that happened is understandable. If anything, voters should be lauded for not over-reacting to Wisconsin’s two overtime losses to top-ranked Minnesota Duluth and keeping teams ranked teams who split with one another (NoDak-UNO and UNH-BU) in roughly the same position, although the USA Hockey Magazine/USA Today poll, in which INCH has a vote, was a little harsh with the Sioux.

@c_camps11 Some rando female just crop dusted the elevator. Who does that? (Nov. 19, 9:36 AM)

As the nation’s leading scorer, Miami senior forward Carter Camper has encountered every measure imaginable geared toward slowing him down. Perhaps a fellow classmate with a proclivity for polluting the air in tight quarters discovered his kryptonite, however. We’ll know it’s true if an opponent claims its success in shutting out Camper was due to a high-fiber diet.