Even with the optimism surrounding John Beilein’s cagers, the last month of Michigan athletics has been one of the bleakest in recent or distant memory. While the collapse of the Wolverines’ football team hasn’t been a total surprise, the early season struggles of the Maize and Blue icers—normally the campus bright spot—have Ann Arbor sports fans shaking their heads in disbelief.

Michigan started the season respectably, winning four of six with the losses coming on the road against Alaska during the Kendall Hockey Classic in Anchorage and at Boston University. But the past two weekends have been less fruitful, as the Wolverines dropped into the CCHA’s bottom three after being swept by Miami and Michigan State consecutively.

Captain Chris Summers and Michigan will try to snap a four-game losing streak this weekend against Bowling Green.

What’s worse is that three of the four losses came at the usually impenetrable fortress known as Yost Ice Arena—perhaps a harbinger of a long year to come.

Despite the early season struggles, coach Red Berenson and Captain Chris Summers are optimistic that Michigan can turn things around and avoid becoming this year’s Michigan State.

“I don’t think that we’re far off the mark, but the margin for error has been so slim,” Berenson said. “We played Miami, the best team in the country, and we gave up a bad goal in each game and that was the difference in each game.”

The obvious problem for Michigan has been scoring goals, as the team has averaged just one per game during its four-game slide. Junior forward Louie Caporusso, who had scored nine goals at this point last season en route to 24 total markers, has scored only once thus far. After finally cracking the score sheet in the season’s fifth game, Caporusso and his teammates were hoping he could keep finding the back of the net, but he has now been held scoreless in five consecutive contests.

In addition to Caporusso, sophomore forward David Wohlberg, a 15-goal scorer last year, also has only a single marker thus far, and several other potential scorers are struggling a well.

It would be easy to write the year off and suggest that Michigan may never find its way, but a look at last year’s North Dakota team that started with a 4-6-0 mark and eventually made the NCAA tournament—almost advancing to the second round in a wild contest against New Hampshire—after finishing the regular season 22-12-4 suggests that a turnaround is possible with the right attitude.

To bounce back in similar fashion, the goals will have to come, but another key component will be the defense—an extremely deep and experienced unit—cutting down on turnovers in the transition game. Against Michigan State, Berenson was extremely frustrated to see two turnovers at the blue line result in Spartan goals.

“The team that wins the games on most nights is the one with the best defense and the one that can get the puck out of the zone,” Berenson said. “We’ve been really inconsistent in that area. We gave MSU the puck coming out of the zone twice, and gave up two goals—that’s absurd.”

Compounding the transition game struggles has been a few costly mistakes by the reliable Bryan Hogan in net, who has committed some rare but deadly turnovers himself. Summers is confident that Hogan, who he describes as a “championship-caliber” goaltender, can bounce back and eliminate some of these mistakes, and Berenson admits that his defense needs to help offset these mistakes.

“(Hogan) definitely looked okay in the early game, but then he went through a stretch where we gave up one bad goal a game,” Berenson said. “And those goals cost us against BU and Miami. He has given us a chance every night, we’re just not used to him giving up a bad goal—we’ve been spoiled.”

Should Michigan clean up their home-zone game and develop some improved offensive chemistry, perhaps these early season struggles will help inspire a hunger that the Wolverines have seemed to lack come tournament time the past few years.

While Michigan arguably outplayed Air Force in a disappointing loss during the first round of the NCAA tournament last year and played well in a run to the Frozen Four the year before, the few years before left a lot to be desired.

Those teams, stacked with skaters who are now everyday NHL players, cruised through the regular season, finishing near the top of the CCHA standings easily.

Might the present adversity help this year’s cast of Wolverines—complete with 12 NHL draft picks—avoid a similar fate come April?

“I think that we’re a team that expects to do well,” Berenson said. “But maybe we haven’t had to pay the price to do well.”

It’s nearly impossible to empathize with Miami goaltender Cody Reichard’s experience at last April’s Frozen Four. Few people ever have the opportunity to play on such a grand stage and fewer run such a dramatic gamut of emotions in a startlingly short period.

That weekend provided the highest of highs for the then-freshman when he stopped 24 of 25 Bemidji State shots in the national semifinal to lead his team into the school’s first-ever national championship game in any sport. But then after 59 minutes of continued success in the title game against Boston University, Reichard’s spirits came crashing down as the Terriers scored twice in the final minute of regulation and on a fortuitous bounce in overtime to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Miami sophomore goaltender Cody Reichard enters the weekend ranked fifth nationally with a 1.61 goals against average.

Having seen the disappointment unfold so rapidly in April and given the well-documented quirkiness of the goaltending breed, any sane hockey fan would question how Reichard might respond to a potentially traumatic situation.

Twelve games into the new season, college hockey nation has its answer—Reichard has bounced back stronger than ever. In nine starts, the sophomore has compiled a 7-0-2 record on the strength of a 1.61 goals against average and .931 save percentage, and has mustered the strength to see how he can benefit that championship game disappointment.

“It was a great experience, not many guys can say they have played in a national championship game,” Reichard said. “We got pretty close, but it just wasn’t meant to be. It was a great experience, not only for hockey, but also in life.”

While he has successfully recovered from the disappointment and has used it for motivation to become a better all-around goaltender, Reichard admits that it wasn’t easy to move past.

“You think about it for quite a while,” Reichard said. “It’s not something you just shake off in a couple of days. It took a little bit of time, but then I worked hard and trained hard all summer long.”

Reichard’s play has helped the RedHawks to the top spot in the INCH Power Rankings, and Miami sits in prime position to contend for the CCHA regular-season title, despite a pair of ties with shootout losses against Ferris State last weekend.

Skating into Kalamazoo this weekend, Reichard will have to stay on top of his game against a struggling Western Michigan team that was swept at Ohio State last weekend. The RedHawks will be heavy favorites at Lawson Ice Arena, but they need to stay sharp for an extremely difficult Thanksgiving weekend.

Miami heads to Grand Forks for North Dakota’s Subway Holiday Classic Nov. 27 and 28, where they will face two of the nation’s hottest teams in Bemidji State and North Dakota. But even with those tantalizing opponents appearing over the horizon, Reichard knows that his team must stay grounded and take as many points as possible against the Broncos.

“We’re just trying to take everything one game at a time,” Reichard said. “We have our sights set on a league championship, a playoff championship, and a national championship, but we just take them one game at a time. First we play Friday, then Saturday and then the next weekend.”

BRIAN O’NEILL
Yale
So. | F | Yardley, Pa.

His Statistics: 2GP, 2-3—5, +3 plus-minus rating

His Impact: Yale’s high-scoring sophomore was involved in a very good weekend for the defending ECAC Hockey champions. After a so-so start to the season, the Bulldogs earned a 4-2 win over unbeaten Cornell and rallied for a 3-3 tie against first-place Colgate. O’Neill factored in prominently with two goals and three assists on the weekend.

He assisted Yale’s first goal as well as the eventual game-winner in the victory over Cornell and sealed the victory with an empty-net goal. In Saturday’s game against Colgate, Yale trailed 2-0 in the second period before O’Neill’s goal got them on the board. He then assisted Sean Backman’s goal later in the period to pull the Bulldogs to within 3-2.

His Runners-Up: Stephane De Costa (Merrimack); Andrew Favot (RIT); Justin Fontaine (Minnesota Duluth); Chris Kushneriuk (Robert Morris); Drew Palmisano (Michigan State)

The INCH Player of the Week is presented by The INCH Shop

The RIT Tigers have bounced back from a slow start to move into first place in Atlantic Hockey. After starting the season with five straight losses, RIT has run off six consecutive wins—the nation’s longest winning streak—and is the only team in Atlantic Hockey with a winning overall record. 

Barely six weeks into the season, a number of high-profile players have been sidelined with various dings and dents—Minnesota’s Jay Barriball and Nick Leddy, Yale’s Thomas Dignard, Rensselaer’s Tyler Helfrich, Northeastern’s Steve Quailer, and Notre Dame’s Ted Ruth among them. Injuries affect every team, but we don’t have to like it. This weekend’s North Dakota-Denver series, for example, should be a doozy … but how much better could it be if we were assured Marc Cheverie, Patrich Wiercioch, and Chay Genoway would be healthy?

“We’re not that good. We’ve got one returning 20-goal scorer, and he’s got one goal, and outside of that … we don’t have a lot of prolific offensive players.” — Michigan coach Red Berenson to the Michigan Daily following his team’s back-to-back losses to Michigan State this past weekend.

If Michigan’s season keeps going in this direction, we may have to officially name this segment of the First Shift in honor of Berenson. The Wolverines have scored a total of four goals in their last four games—all of them losses—and anyone who has watched their last two series against Miami and Michigan State can see that Berenson’s club is severely lacking playmakers and their ability to create scoring chances is virtually non-existent.

This week we won’t point to any unusual voting patterns in the national polls, but to some of the circumstances that we considered when stacking the INCH Power Rankings. Michigan State and Colorado College made huge jumps in both the INCH Power Rankings as well as the national polls after conference sweeps on the weekend. That’s mainly due to the work of MSU and CC, but partially due to a middling bunch of efforts by teams ranked in the 6-15 range. It’s early, sure, but it seems like there’s a definite drop in stature from the top 5-7 teams and the rest of the pack in college hockey.

runwiththedogs: about 4 hats on the ice … pathetic

The people behind the Minnesota Duluth Runnin’ with the Dogs blog tweeted this message shortly after the Bulldogs’ Justin Fontaine scored his third goal in Saturday’s 8-1 rout of Michigan Tech (he would add a fouth goal before all was said and done). The message touches on an INCH pet peeve: If you are wearing a hat to a hockey game and a player scores three goals, it is your duty to toss said hat onto the ice.

Don’t want to chuck your favorite lid? Bring one you don’t care about. And even if it is your best hat, throw it anyway—the good karma you’ll get from the hockey gods will far surpass the out-of-pocket cost of replacing it.

While the win column has yet to show it, head coach Dennis Williams knows that his Bowling Green team is headed in the right direction. It would be easy to get down when your team sits at 0-3-1 with a shootout win in conference play and 0-7-1 overall, but Williams is pleased to see his freshman-laden squad making strides in practice and adjusting to the rigors of the intercollegiate game.

“Right now, I’ve been really happy with the way we’re working hard, competing and not giving up on each other,” Williams said. “Our record isn’t where we want it to be, we’re taking our lumps now, but I would be more worried if we weren’t working together.”

Leading the way amongst the Falcons’ freshman class is Jordan Samuels-Thomas, an Atlanta Thrashers draft pick that was at the center of the shootout controversy two weeks ago tonight. Samuels-Thomas leads the team with three goals and six points, and he provides a dynamic presence in the offensive zone that has proven effective with a variety of linemates.

It may be easy for freshmen like Samuels-Thomas, fellow forward Nathan Pageau and goaltender Andrew Hammond to be distracted from the team’s early-season struggles by their ongoing adjustment period, it has the potential to be extremely tough on veteran players who suffered through a 12th-place finish last year and the question marks surrounding the future of Bowling Green’s program.

Fortunately for Williams, his team’s veteran leadership is still focused on making the most of this year and passing on their experience to their younger teammates.

“I think our attitude is very good,” Williams said. “We have great captains in Kyle Page (captain), Tommy Dee and David Solway (alternates) . Coaches can only do so much tactically to help the team, it come down to the seniors and leaders. To have those guys coming to practice ready to compete every single day, it’s fantastic for a coach, it’s great to have these guys step up in practice.”

Heading into this weekend’s home series against Alaska, Williams has drilled his players on maintaining possession of the puck, in the neutral zone and forcing Alaska’s improved offense to work for goals.

“The key for us is how we can execute everything that we want to do,” Williams said. “If they want to score, I want to make sure that they’re coming the full 200-feet down the ice, we can’t afford to turn the puck over in the neutral zone.”

Alaska comes into the game ranked ninth in the INCH power rankings, and it could be an uphill battle for the Falcons all weekend long. But with the Nanooks leaving their home state for the first time this year, Bowling Green will be gunning for their first three point performance of the year.

Sitting just three points away from ninth place and seeing the teams immediately above them in the CCHA standings facing tough road matchups this weekend, a victory or two over the Nanooks would be just the medicine this team needs to take the next step in its development.

There’s a good chance that for the second consecutive time that Corey Tropp pulls on his green and white sweater at Yost Ice Arena, the Michigan State junior will be at the center of the game story. This time around, however, Tropp should be making headlines for the right reasons as he continues his remarkable journey to being one of college hockey’s most prolific scorers and a major reason that the Spartans have returned to national prominence.

While the fans at Yost won’t let Tropp forget his role in last January’s on-ice incident that left him suspended for the remainder of last season, the junior, who was unavailable for interviews this week, has left the incident behind him, admitting to the Lansing State Journal earlier this year that he made a mistake and making it known that he had moved on.

According to assistant coach Tom Newton, Tropp spent a great deal of time during the offseason focusing on building up the strength he needed to augment the skill set that made him a third-round pick of the Buffalo Sabres. The work has paid off, with Tropp scoring a nation’s-best eight goals in Michigan State’s first 10 games, including five on the power play and one short-handed marker. The attention that Tropp’s scoring ability has commanded should also help him be prepared for being public enemy number one amongst Michigan fans and priority number one for the Wolverines’ defense.

“Corey is the leading scorer in the country, so he’s a marked man in any rink that we play in,” Newton said. “He’s going to go out and do his job, and focus on what he needs to do to help us win.”

Contributing to Tropp’s early-season success have been his linemates Nick Sucharski and Derek Grant, with whom Tropp has developed an excellent chemistry. Sucharski, the Spartans’ captain, has bounced back nicely from an early season-ending shoulder injury last year with six points, and Grant, a freshman from Abbotsford, B.C., was the national rookie of the month for October and has 12 points in 10 appearances.

When meeting with local media earlier this week, Grant gave a great deal of credit to Tropp for his quick transition to the college game, citing a skating ability that was likely boosted by Tropp’s offseason dedication.

“He’s incredible with the puck,” Grant said of Tropp. “If you get him the puck and you can find open ice, he’ll find you there. He can dance around defensemen like nobody I’ve ever seen. I just try to get him the puck as much as possible, and Sucharski and I just try to find open ice and help him out as much as we can. He has the ability to walk around two d-men and put the puck in himself so that makes our jobs a lot easier.”

Newton gives the trio credit for their ability to score the highlight-reel goals that Grant’s descriptions suggest, but he is also happy to see the ugly goals that count just the same on the scoreboard. Grant noted that this ability to get to the net has been a key in making Michigan State’s power play the best in the CCHA and one of the top-10 units in the nation.

“Coach (Rick Comley) just has us shooting a lot,” Grant said. “He doesn’t want us making 12 passes and getting the perfect shot. I think we’re just getting pucks to the net, and we’ve scored a few goals off of rebounds and deflections, so I think that’s our strength right now, is getting the puck through from our points and getting a couple of good passes and then getting our shot off.”

A few more trips to the net resulting in goals for the Tropp-Grant-Sucharski trio would add an interesting new element to this weekend’s contest, raising the blood pressure of fans who haven’t left last year’s incident behind. But high tension is nothing new to what is one of college hockey’s most intense rivalries year-in and year-out.

Playing with Tropp and seeing so much success should bring a hailstorm of insults on Grant on Friday, but the rookie is ready to take it in stride.

“I think for me personally it’s kind of amusing in a way,” Grant said. “I think also it shows that they’re worried about you in some way or another. I think it just makes everyone play better … I know the rivalry, and just being here at Michigan State, you just see the hatred between the two schools and hear about it. I’m looking forward to it and experiencing something like this.”

Everyone loves a good story, and this week’s college hockey slate is full of ‘em. Whether its the rematch of conference finalists, a historic rivalry that renews with the specter of an ugly on-ice incident from last season hanging over it, or a rematch featuring two teams that have gone in the opposite direction since their first meeting a month ago, we’ve got it all for you.

Drew Palmisano and his Michigan State teammates were winless in five games against Michigan a year ago.

Michigan vs. Michigan State (at Ann Arbor Friday, at East Lansing Saturday): Any more storylines for this series and we’re going to need J.J. Abrams to sort it all out. Beyond the obvious rivalry—the most heated in the CCHA and among the three or four best in college hockey—there’s Spartan forward Corey Tropp, the country’s leading scorer, returning to a building where last January he used his stick in a confrontation with Steve Kampfer as the Michigan defenseman was flat on the Yost Arena ice surface. Then there’s MSU seeking a measure of redemption; the Spartans dropped all five games to the Wolverines last season, losing by an average score of 5-2.

Coach Red Berenson read his team the riot act after getting swept by Miami in Ann Arbor last weekend, calling them “spoiled brats” after they piled up a number of undisciplined penalties in third period of Saturday’s series finale. Will they be able to keep their emotions in check? Conversely, how will the young Spartans deal with the intensity of this series? Of the 18 skaters Rick Comley had in the lineup for last Saturday’s game with Nebraska-Omaha, half were freshmen.

Bemidji State at Minnesota (Sat.-Sun.): Lost in the clamor of swirling rumors regarding Jordan Schroeder’s future, Jay Barriball’s season-ending injury, and Sam Lofquist’s defection to the OHL is this: The Gophers have played pretty good hockey the last two weekends, scoring 16 goals and allowing just eight in winning three of four against Alaska Anchorage and Wisconsin. Goaltender Alex Kangas has been sterling all along, and he’s finally getting some offensive support. He’ll need it against a Bemidji State team that ranks tied for seventh in the nation in scoring offense (3.75 goals per game). After scoring 40 points in 37 games last season, Beaver junior forward Matt Read has seven goals and 14 points in eight games. By the way, BSU also leads the country in scoring defense, allowing an average of just 1.25 goals per game.

Cornell at Yale (Friday): It’s a rematch of last year’s ECAC Hockey championship game when Yale hosts Cornell in New Haven. The Big Red appear to be the early favorites atop ECACH, but will be playing away from Lynah Rink for the first time this season. Yale won all three meetings against the Big Red last year and comes in after earning just one point on the road in a loss at RPI and a tie against Union to start its title defense. The third period has been the best for both teams. Through three games this year, Cornell has outscored its opponents 7-1 in the final 20 minutes and Yale has a 6-2 advantage over its opponents in the third period.

Vermont at Boston College (Sat.-Sun.): It doesn’t seem like a terrific series on paper given that the Catamounts are a .500 team while the Eagles enter the weekend with a 3-2-1 mark. These two clubs met in Burlington on Oct. 18-Vermont scored a 4-1 victory—but their fortunes have since diverged. UVM is 1-2-1 in four games since beating BC; the Eagles, meantime, are 3-1-1 since the loss at the Gut. Both are currently tied for third in Hockey East and, yeah, it’s early in the year, but a sweep either way would make the possibility of a top-four finish in the league standings that much more remote for the losing side.

Also: Two of ECAC Hockey’s early-season surprises meet Saturday when Rensselaer faces St. Lawrence … St. Cloud State is at North Dakota. The Huskies’ Garrett Roe won’t play Friday; he’s serving a one-game team-issued suspension … Can Merrimack continue its impressive start in its series with Boston University?

TV schedule: Friday—Harvard at Quinnipiac, NESN, 7:30 p.m. ET; Michigan State at Michigan, FSN Detroit, 7:30 p.m. ET; Ferris State at Miami, NHL Network, 7:30 p.m. ET; Alaska Anchorage at Wisconsin, FSN North Wisconsin, 8 p.m. ET; St. Cloud State at North Dakota, Fox College Sports, 8:30 p.m. ET. Saturday—Bemidji State at Minnesota, FSN North, 8:30 p.m. ET. Sunday—Bemidji State at Minnesota, FSN North, 7 p.m. ET.

CODY REICHARD
Miami
So. | G | Celina, Ohio

His Statistics: 2-0-0, 1.00 GAA, .959 save pct. in sweep at Michigan

His Impact: Miami made a strong statement in winning two games convincingly against CCHA rival and top-five ranked Michigan at Yost Ice Arena over the weekend. Reichard, the sophomore goalie who shared time with classmate Connor Knapp as a freshman, has emerged as Miami’s no. 1 in net and played very well in allowing just one goal each night against the Wolverines.

Reichard made 27 saves in Friday’s 3-1 win and stopped 20 shots in a 5-1 RedHawks victory Saturday. He and the Miami defense held the Wolverines to just one power-play goal in 14 opportunities on the weekend. Reichard and the RedHawks became the first team to sweep a weekend series at Yost since the early part of the 2001-02 season.

His Runners-Up: Brad Hunt, Bemidji State; Jeff Larson, Connecticut; Chase Polacek, Rensselaer; Carl Sneep, Boston College; Billy Sweatt, Colorado College

The INCH Player of the Week is presented by The INCH Shop

Former Michigan State standout Craig Simpson was the second overall pick in the 1985 NHL Draft and enjoyed a 10-year career with Pittsburgh, Edmonton, and Buffalo. He’s now the lead analyst for Hockey Night in Canda on the Canadian Broadcasting Company and, based on his performance last night, could be the winner of the CBC’s first Battle of the Blades.

Blades, a reality television series pairing ex-NHLers with figure skaters for a competition best described as Dancing With the Stars on ice. On Sunday, Simpson donned a blue crushed velvet suit and thick glasses as he and his partner, 2002 Olympic figure skating pairs gold medalist Jamie Sale, skated to Quincy Jones’ “Soul Bossa Nova”, better known as the theme from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Corny for sure, but Simpson’s bringing it.

The Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs entered last weekend’s series at Colorado College as the nation’s second-most penalized team, and after racking up 51 PIMs in Saturday’s 6-2 loss they became the nation’s most penalized team. Among the infractions was a double-minor for roughing and instigating and a game misconduct assessed to Chad Huttel of the Bulldogs, who reportedly left the bench to start an altercation. These penalties came just 34 seconds after UMD closed to within two goals. Minnesota Duluth’s Drew Akins was called for a charging major and Dylan Olsen got a 10-minute misconduct, all with 2:18 remaining when CC scored its sixth goal..

“I’m embarrassed. We played like a bunch of spoiled brats. When you’re getting beat, you just keep working hard for the team. You don’t take it out on the other team and take stupid penalties that are going to hurt your team even further.” — Michigan coach Red Berenson following his team’s 5-1 loss to Miami Saturday.

The Wolverines racked up 51 penalty minutes in the third period, including a five-minute major and game misconduct to defenseman Tristin Llewellyn for checking from behind and misconducts to defenseman Chad Langlais and forward Kevin Lynch.

In eight years of compiling the INCH Power Rankings, the editors of this site can’t recall a team falling from the rankings in such dramatic fashion as Boston University has over the last two weeks. The Terriers were fourth in the Power Rankings of Oct. 25. We dropped them six spots last week, and completely from the Power Rankings this week. Why? Because they’re 2-5-0 and in last place in Hockey East. We don’t expect the Terriers to languish with that type of record over the long haul, but we can’t justifiably give them any recognition as one of the 20 best teams as they currently stand. That obviously wasn’t the case with many of the 50 voters in the USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll, as BU was ranked 17th and received 235 total points on ballots. 

CoachTimArmy a disjointed game yesterday … after a day off today we’ll get back at it tomorrow … we’ll regroup and sort some areas of our game out.

The Providence coach, who has his team off to a respectable 5-3-0 start including wins at Massachusetts and Notre Dame, tweeted this message folloing the Friars’ 3-0 loss to Vermont Sunday. And while Army’s focus is obviously on hockey, he certainly hasn’t turned a blind eye to the rest of the world. The tweet that appeared just moments after the one above read, “and by the way … 27 and counting … go yanks!”

No goals opening night, six the next game. Three goals in 12 minutes, then none for four and one-half periods before scoring two in four minutes.

Hobey finalist Louie Caporusso hopes his first goal sparks a streak entering a big series with Miami.

Needless to say, Michigan’s offense, while productive, hadn’t been the archetype of consistency over the team’s first four games against both Alaska schools, Niagara and Boston University. During last wekeend’s sweep versus Lake Superior, however, the Wolverines finally spread the wealth throughout both games, scoring in five of the six periods to win 5-1 and 6-3 contests.

One key to Michigan’s offensive improvements was the most classic of hockey tactics — attacking the opponent’s net.

“We were going to the net more,” Michigan junior Louie Caporusso said. “We were capitalizing on rebounds and getting the ugly goals, and that’s where the majority of goals come from.”

Caporusso, who led the team with 24 goals last year, finally found the back of the net in Friday’s victory after failing to score in the team’s first four contests. The junior was frustrated to miss on what he described as 20 chances to score in the early stages of the season, but made an effort to keep that frustration from affecting his game. Seeing big league superstars like Sidney Crosby, who suffered through a four-game drought earlier this year before scoring five goals in three games, struggle through stretches and rebound helped Caporusso realize that patience is the key.

“I think it’s as stressful as you make it on yourself,” Caporusso said. “The key is just to not get down on yourself, it was only four games and the best players in the world go through slumps.”

Heading into this weekend’s pivotal – well, as pivotal as an early season series can be – matchup with Miami, Caporusso would like to build a scoring streak of his own, but he knows that the defensive zone is where Michigan needs to separate themselves from the RedHawks.

“It’s going to take a lot of focus on the defensive zone,” Caporusso said. “If (Miami) gets the puck in the zone, they can get a cycle going and make it hell for you in your own zone.”

With all of the pleasant surprises in East Lansing, Omaha and Fairbanks and the perennially strong play in Oxford, South Bend and Ann Arbor, this year’s CCHA title race has the makings of a season to remember. For all the positive karma, however, it’s tough not to notice Columbus, Ohio’s absence from that earlier list.

Eight games into the regular season, Ohio State has yet to find its groove, starting the season at 2-5-1 and sitting near the bottom of almost every statistical category in the conference. While the Buckeyes have looked promising at times, beating Denver at home and stealing a shootout victory at Notre Dame, coach John Markell knows that his team needs to establish some consistency to contend for their second consecutive NCAA tournament bid.

“We’re a team that has to have 20 guys going,” Markell said. “And that’s from the specialty units that are doing a lot better than they have and they’re executing better, to young kids who have to learn how to be consistent at this level, and the emotion that that takes.”

The Buckeyes were a remarkably young squad last year, and even with an additional season of experience under everyone’s belt, Mathieu Picard is the team’s only senior.

While it has to be frustrating for Markell, the veteran head coach who has helped Ohio State rebound from three consecutive disappointing seasons after a second place in 2004-05 with a near miss of a first-round bye last year, Markell is optimistic that his team can turn it around. With a few key cogs playing their second consecutive series, Markell is hoping some of the load will be taken off the shoulders of younger players who may be squeezing their sticks.

“We’re continuing to learn, we’re evolving,” Markell said. “I certainly like the team that I had on the road the last two weeks, it’s just certain guys need to be more consistent. We’re plugging some holes with Hunter Bishop coming back, and we’ve got Ian Boots back in the lineup, and there are some guys who can add some offense to us, and it should pay its dividends while the other guys who might be struggling with their game or their consistencies continue to grow and understand their role on our hockey club.”

DAN RINGWALD
Rochester Institute of Technology
Sr. | D | Oakville, Ontario

His Statistics: 2 GP, 3-3—6, 5 power-play points

His Impact: The RIT Tigers made the jump to Division I hockey just five years ago and have experienced a lot of success in that time. Entering last weekend’s games with an 0-5-0 record was unfamiliar territory for the Tigers, but they broke through with a big offensive weekend in a two-game sweep of Connecticut in an Atlantic Hockey series.

RIT scored 13 goals over the two games with a 6-2 win on Friday and 7-0 win on Saturday. The Tigers were 4-for-7 on the power play in the Friday win and 2-for-9 in Saturday’s win and power-play quarterback Dan Ringwald keyed the offensive surge.

Ringwald had three assists in Friday’s win, all of which came on the power play, and scored a natural hat trick in Saturday’s win. His three straight goals in the first period stretched RIT’s lead to 4-0.

He’s been a consistent point producer over his entire RIT career and entered the season as RIT’s all-time leader in assists and points by a defenseman at the Division I level and is a two-time All-Atlantic Hockey first-team selection. His big weekend helped start turning RIT’s season in a positive direction.

His Runners-Up: Alex Beaudry, Providence; Scott Greenham, Alaska; Alexander Killorn, Harvard; Nathan Longpre, Robert Morris; Tony Lucia, Minnesota

The INCH Player of the Week is presented by The INCH Shop

Could you tell last weekend was Halloween for college hockey, too? A bunch of defensemen across the nation got into the spirit by masquerading as Paul Coffey.

Ringwald had back-to-back, three-point nights, but five other blueliners put forth three-point games. Ringwald’s RIT compadre, Al Mazur, had three goals and an assist against Connecticut Friday, the same night St. Lawrence’s Peter Child recorded a hat trick against Sacred Heart.

On Saturday, a trio of defensemen racked up three assists—Cullen Lundholm of Robert Morris, who had three assists in a win over Quinnipiac; Wisconsin’s Brendan Smith, who did it against New Hampshire; and Minnesota State’s Ben Youds, who accomplished the feat against Denver.

We briefly mentioned that there was some market correction in this week’s INCH Power Rankings in regard to some Hockey East teams. Specifically, these are teams that are at or below .500 through the first month of the season. Defending national champion Boston University is 2-3-0, as is Northeastern—an NCAA Tournament team from a year ago. Vermont, despite some impressive early wins, is also 2-3-0. BC is at .500 with a 2-2-0 mark and New Hampshire is 2-4-1 after being blown out in two games at Wisconsin last weekend. Full credit goes to Massachusetts (4-1-0), UMass Lowell (4-2-0) and upstarts Merrimack (5-3-0) and Providence (5-2-0), but the trend of slow starts for many of the teams is troubling. 

“I think that’s a terrible precedent for a league, and I think the integrity of the league’s at stake when you make that sort of decision … You’re actually encouraging member institutions to cheat, as long as they don’t get caught before the game is declared over.”—Nebraska-Omaha athletic director Trev Alberts to Chad Purcell of the Omaha World-Herald following the Mavericks’ controversial shootout loss to Bowling Green Friday in which the Falcons used an ineligible player.

Alberts, the former All-American linebacker at Nebraska and football commentator, went on to say that he was disappointed by the CCHA’s “lack of leadership.” He never minced words on the air, and it appears that hasn’t changed. That’s great, because in our opinion the happy-happy-joy-joy CCHA could use a little piss and vinegar. 

We’re nitpicking here—isn’t that the point of this feature?—but New Hampshire somehow appeared on the ballots of enough voters to garner seven points in the latest USCHO.com/CBS College Sports just days after getting throttled twice at Wisconsin last weekend. With a 2-4-1 record, can anyone honestly say UNH is one of the 20 best teams in the country or has even played to that level? It begs the question, are voters actually casting ballots based on the previous weekend’s results? In this instance, it seems more like a vote for the program or a vote of familiarity (i.e. UNH has been good in the past, so they’re probably good this year, too) more than anything.

SchlossmanGF Which Halloween costume of Jonny Toews is better? Dumb and Dumber or Wolverine?

Brad Elliot Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald forwarded the above links Monday. In addition to former Fighting Sioux and current Chicago Blackhawks standout Toews, we get a look at the costumes of ex-collegians Adam Burish (Wisconsin), Duncan Keith (Michigan State), and Patrick Sharp (Vermont). Makes one wonder what these guys did with all the free time they had during the lockout.