When hearing about off-season conditioning programs that players subscribe to and fulfill over the warm summer months to build strength, stamina and flexibility, it’s easy to associate those practices with forwards and defensemen. It can be just as important, for goaltenders, and for Clarkson’s Paul Karpowich it has paid huge dividends so far this season.

Paul Karpowich

The results from Karpowich’s off-season training program are being seen through the first 19 games of the season for both Karpowich and they’ve also benefited the Golden Knights.

Karpowich is one of the most durable and relied-upon goaltenders in college hockey. He has started and played in all 19 Clarkson games so far, accounting for 99.4 percent of all of the team’s minutes this season in goal. The only times he’s been on the bench are during delayed penalties or when the Golden Knights have opted for an extra skater late in a game. Karpowich has posted five shutouts on the year and has a .942 save percentage and 1.82 goals-against average.

It was something Karpowich strived for and anticipated after taking on a similar workload as a junior last season, when he started 35 of Clarkson’s 36 games. That’s why he bought in to what might seem to be an unusual strength and conditioning program this summer. Karpowich estimates that he was only on the ice four or five times all summer. Instead, he opted for running, both sprints and distance running to increase his speed and conditioning. Time in the weight room was focused on power lifts like cleans and squats to help his explosiveness and reaction time.

“It was something I worked hard for over the summer,” he said. “Last year I found at times I was inconsistent or up and down. I don’t know if that had to do with conditioning, but it was something I worked for over the summer, to come back this season in the best shape.”

Clarkson stands with a 9-6-4 overall record through roughly the first half of the regular season. That includes a 3-4-2 mark in ECAC Hockey. Karpowich has the gaudy statistics, but it’s been a total commitment to the team game that has led to the team’s improvement following last year’s 15-19-2 mark. A coaching change was made in the offseason, and Casey Jones has installed some new energy and new philosophies.

“It’s been great so far. Coach Jones came in with a new outlook for the season and said that every player is going to work hard or they’re not going to play. The whole team came into camp in great shape and we were ready right away,” Karpowich said.

The Golden Knights went on a 5-0-1 stretch early in the season in two-game series against Sacred Heart, American International and Bentley and then carried that momentum into a win over RPI in its conference opener. Nobody will confuse those Atlantic Hockey opponents with some of the nation’s elite teams, but Clarkson has taken some satisfaction from competing with some of the top teams in the league standings from last year and has a win over Dartmouth and a tie at Cornell.

The team focuses on taking care of the defensive zone, where the defensemen emphasize keeping players and pucks away from the front of the net, and forwards are encouraged to block as many shots as possible. Karpowich has been a direct beneficiary, even with the losses in the defense corps of seniors Bryan Rufenach, Tom Pizzo and Dan Reed, and the departure to pro hockey by Mark Borowiecki. Freshman blueliners Sam Labrecque and Kevin Tansey have stepped into the college game and shown great poise and confidence. The checking line of Corey Tamblyn, Jake Morley and Will Frederick has a combined plus-22 rating, often playing against the opponents’ top lines.

Earlier this week, Clarkson defeated St. Lawrence 5-3 on the road at Appleton Arena. It was the fourth-straight win for the Golden Knights against their ancient rival in a rivalry that brings out the best level of play from both teams. Karpowich has been in net for all four of those victories. They’ll meet again Saturday in Lake Placid at the Festivus Faceoff.

“It was definitely one of the things that attracted me to coming to Clarkson,” Karpowich said. “They’re a team that can really turn it on. We had a 3-1 lead on Tuesday and then they came back and it was 3-3 right away. As an upperclassman, you can get past the nerves of that game and just enjoy it. We’ll do the same thing this weekend. We’ve been going over tape and will focus on doing what we have to do to be successful.”

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• Clarkson’s meeting with St. Lawrence at 7:30 p.m. is just one part of Saturday’s Festivus Faceoff, which also features a meeting between Capital District rivals Union and RPI beginning at 4 p.m.. It’s the second straight year of the holiday-ish neutral site showcase event, which took place on Halloween weekend last season. There is a free, live video stream available courtesy of Whiteface Lake Placid TV.

• In a point mentioned on the latest INCH Podcast, some early-season upset defeats of Yale this season have carried an even higher shock value, primarily because of Yale’s remarkable consistency over the last three years. The Bulldogs are just 1-4-0 in their last five games and that stretch includes losses to Sacred Heart, Brown and UMass. They lost back-to-back games twice in that stretch, which only happened once last year (road games at NCAA Tournament teams Union and RPI), once in the 2009-10 season and once in the 2008-09 campaign.

• Colgate had a nice comeback victory last week, by scoring three goals in the last 10:07 of the third period to get a 4-2 win over Clarkson. The Raiders did lose Chris Wagner, the team’s second-leading scorer, in the second period after a contact-to-the-head major penalty and game misconduct assessed to him. The league added supplementary discipline this week, and Wagner will miss Saturday’s game against Merrimack at Starr Rink.

• Brown snapped a five-game winless streak with a 6-4 win over Yale. The Bears took a 2-0 lead in the first period, but Yale rallied to tie the score at 2-2 and again at 4-4 before Jack Maclellan scored the game-winner late in the third. The Bears totaled nine goals in a home-and-home split with Yale, after scoring just three goals in their previous five games.

Not one of our top four matchups of the week, but certainly the best tournament name in hockey history.

Michigan State vs. Michigan (Friday at Ann Arbor, Saturday at East Lansing): Pretty safe to assume that, at the start of the season, no one predicted the Spartans would come into this weekend as the team playing with an abundance of confidence and the Wolverines would be searching for answers. But that’s what has happened. Michigan snapped a five-game losing streak and seven-game winless streak with a 1-0 overtime win at Alaska last Saturday. Michigan State, on the other hand, is 8-1-1 in its last 10 games. The Spartans might be the hardest-working team in college hockey, the the Wolverines have more talent. Maybe this rivalry will provide the spark U-M needs to get on track.

Merrimack at Colgate (Saturday): The second-place team in Hockey East travels to central New York to face the second-place team in ECAC Hockey. Merrimack’s 10-game unbeaten streak came to an end last weekend when the Warriors were swept by Providence, but the Warriors rebounded nicely with a win against Vermont Tuesday. The Raiders, in the midst of a stretch in which they play six of seven at home, They’ve won five in a row and have outscored opponents by a 21-7 margin during that span.

Boston College at UMass Lowell (Friday): The surprising River Hawks are in great shape in the Hockey East standings—with 12 points, they’re in a fourth-place tie with Providence, but UML has played just nine league games. Boston College and Boston University, two of the teams currently ahead of the River Hawks in the standings, have played 12 conference matches. UML has won four in a row and seven of its last eight, but the Eagles swept the River Hawks in a late October home-and-home series. Goaltender Brian Billett has led BC to wins in his last three starts, in which he has allowed a total of four goals.

Miami vs. Ohio State (Friday at Columbus, Saturday at Oxford): In the most recent INCH Podcast, much of the discussion on Ohio State centered around Cal Heeter, the Buckeyes’ remarkable goaltender. Let it be known that the Bucks can score a little bit, especially in CCHA play—OSU averages 3.5 goals per league game. The Bucks can further solidify their status as one of the country’s top teams in this weekend’s home-and-home with Miami. After an ugly 2-6-0 start, the RedHawks ran off an eight-game unbeaten streak to get back to .500, a run that ended last weekend with two disappointing losses at Northern Michigan in which Miami scored a single goal each night.

Also: Nebraska-Omaha heads to North Dakota for a WCHA series. And, yeah, Dean Blais returns to Grand Forks, but that’s not as quirky and awesome as the three UNO freshmen whose fathers are ex-NoDak standouts—forward Josh (Jim) Archibald, goaltender Dayn (Ed) Belfour, and forward Dominic (Rick) Zombo. … Two teams fresh off disappointing sweeps—Ferris State and Notre Dame—tangle in a home-and-home this weekend. The series starts in Big Rapids, then moves to Notre Dame. … Once again, Clarkson, St. Lawrence, Union, and Rensselaer schlep off to Lake Placid for a Saturday doubleheader (Knights vs. Saints and Dutch vs. Engineers) at a rink of some significance to hockey fans in this country. But this time, the event has a name, and a fantastic one at that—the Festivus Faceoff. I got a lot of problems with you people.

Eighteen collegians were among the 29 players named by USA Hockey to the preliminary roster for the IIHF World Junior Championship, which starts later this month in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta.

Included in that group are current collegians who represented the U.S. at the 2011 World Junior Championship in Buffalo. They are Minnesota forward Nick Bjugstad, Boston University forward Charlie Coyle, North Dakota defenseman Derek Forbort, Michigan defenseman Jon Merrill, and Denver forward Jason Zucker.

Other collegians named to the preliminary roster are Yale forward Kenny Agostino, Nebraska-Omaha forward Josh Archibald, Boston College forward Bill Arnold, Vermont forward Connor Brickley, BU defenseman Adam Clendening, Miami forward Austin Czarnik, Cornell forward Brian Ferlin, BC forward John Gaudreau, St. Cloud State defenseman Kevin Gravel, Notre Dame defenseman Stephen Johns, Minnesota forward Kyle Rau, and Notre Dame forward T.J. Tynan. Cornell goaltender Andy Iles is the team’s emergency goaltender; he will not attend the pre-tournament camp.

The U.S. team—winners of the bronze medal at last year’s WJC in Buffalo and the gold medal in the 2010 WJC in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan— opens its pre-tournament training camp Dec. 17 in Camrose, Alberta. The final 22-player roster will be announced Dec. 22, which opening-round play scheduled to begin Dec. 26. The tournament concludes with the Jan. 5 gold-medal game.

SPENCER ABBOTT
Maine
Sr. | F | Hamilton, Ontario

Spencer Abbott

His Statistics: 5-4—9 in the Black Bears’ sweep of Vermont, including both game-winning goals and a hat trick in Friday’s 6-4 win.

His Impact: Abbott, Maine’s top points-getter with 10 goals and 13 assists in 14 games crammed a month’s worth of scoring into one weekend in his team’s sweep of Vermont in Burlington this past weekend. The senior forward scored five goals and four assists as the Black Bears evened their record at 6-6-2 overall and 5-5-1 in Hockey East play.

In Friday’s 6-4 win, Abbott had a hand in all but one of Maine’s goals. Most notably, he scored three goals, including two in a 2:47 span of the third period that gave the Black Bears a lead it would not relinquish. In the series finale, Abbott scored twice in the second period to put the Black Bears up by a 4-0 margin. Maine would take a 5-0 lead early in the third period on a goal Abbott set up en route to a 5-2 win.

His Runners-Up: Kyle DeLaurell, Air Force; Tyler Gron, Northern Michigan; Brock Nelson, North Dakota; Austin Smith, Colgate

It’s been a rough go for Alabama-Huntsville. Not only had the Chargers gone 0-14-1 in its first 15 games while being outscored by a 60-11 margin, but University of Alabama bigwigs in October decided to pull the plug on varsity hockey at the end of the season. With that in mind, it’s hard not to feel good for Huntsville finally recording its first win of the year last Friday when the Chargers topped Nebraska-Omaha, 3-1 at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. UAH forward Brice Geoffrion, who hails from the Nashville suburb of Brentwood, led the Chargers with two goals, while goaltender Clarke Saunders stopped 44 of the 45 shots he faced.

Incidentally, the Chargers’ last win came on Jan. 29 of last season, when UAH beat—you guessed it—Nebraska-Omaha in OT by a 2-1 score. Brice Geoffrion’s brother, Sebastian, scored the game-winner that night, and Saunders made 58 saves.

When social media and advertising go wrong, presented on Twitter by @Easton_Hockey.

Last week, the hockey manufacturer saluted the scorer of BU’s game-winning goal at Madison Square Garden as well as its own product in a series of tweets:

Exciting stick news: a stick we’re releasing next year was used in game action for the 1st time Saturday. (1/3)

Unbelievably, it was used to bury the OT winner. Ross Gaudet of BU used it to take down Vermont in MSG in front of 18,200 people. (2/3)

It’s the “Mako,” and it looks like this: http://twitpic.com/7m6dx1 (3/3)

The first and most obvious error is that the game was against Cornell. That’s a credibility problem. Second, calling out an individual player as a beneficiary in a pseudo-endorsement had to drive NCAA compliance personnel at BU nuts. Thirdly, did they see the goal? Gaudet deflected a puck off his own leg and into the net. The stick model was at least as effective as a shovel or canoe oar might have been under the same circumstances.

What Happened?: The past 10 months or so have been slightly chaotic for the sport, with the Big Ten announcing its intentions to form a college hockey conference, a handful of CCHA and WCHA expatriates breaking away to form the National College Hockey Conference, the remaining CCHA refugees flocking to the WCHA, and Notre Dame shuffling off to Hockey East.

In Sunday’s St. Cloud Times, reporter David Unze did a remarkable job spelling out how that school’s leaders—namely, president Earl Potter, special adviser to athletics Gino Gasparini, and coach Bob Motzko—worked to secure the Huskies’ future as the college hockey landscape dramatically changed. It’s a great look at the behind-the-scenes machinations of a Division I program.

What We’re Watching: Here at INCH, we’re all about college hockey, but we realize that some of the pleasure of following the game includes tracking players after they’ve moved on to professional hockey … and also tracking players who will be playing college hockey in future years. INCH’s Joe Gladziszewski had an opportunity to check out a United States Hockey League game in person for the first time this past weekend in Indianapolis and came away impressed. The host Indiana Ice lineup featured 11 college commits in its lineup and the visiting Sioux Falls Stampede had eight commits on the ice. There was a consistently strong level of play and several of the already-committed players made nice plays. Uncommitted prospects Christian Hilbrich and Ryan Cole of Indiana also caught our eye. We’re looking forward to seeing all of them again in the near future on college rinks.

What the …?: We’ll give full credit to the Northeastern Huskies, who have won five straight games despite facing an unusual schedule thus far. Northeastern opened the year with a school-record 12 straight games against Hockey East opponents. Following that dozen, things didn’t project to get any easier with a single game on the road against Michigan and a two-game set at Notre Dame one week later. The Huskies flew from the east coast to Detroit, got a win at Michigan, and then returned for classes. A week later, the Huskies flew to O’Hare  in Chicago en route to South Bend, where they earned a sweep of the Fighting Irish – the first home losses for Notre Dame in its newly-constructed arena. It was fitting that Northeastern capped its two trips to the Midwest in a weeklong span against Notre Dame, foreshadowing some of the Irish’s upcoming travel responsibilities to New England once that team joins Hockey East.

@umichhockey Michigan Hockey

The boys took time for a little curling after practice today in Fairbanks pic.twitter.com/PLOvQm7c

• We love it when teams go on the road and take advantage of some of the opportunities afforded them by being in a different place. Plus, curling is tons of fun. Our applause goes out to the Wolverines for their Thursday post-practice session prior to a Friday-Saturday set against Alaska.

One trend that we’re watching in the early part of the season is more accurately a trend that we’re not watching. For several teams in ECAC Hockey, it’s goal-scoring … because they aren’t scoring goals, at least nearly not enough. Each case is unique and solutions are offered. Across the board, a break from slumping goal totals is optimistically awaited.

Four ECAC Hockey teams are currently ranked among the nine lowest-scoring teams in average goals per game (St. Lawrence, Princeton, Brown, Rensselaer).

Rensselaer’s struggles in scoring goals has been remarkable. Entering last week’s game at RIT, the Engineers had just 11 goals through 12 games. Following that 2-0 win, it’s now 13 goals in 13 games. They were shutout five times and scored just one goal in five others. Head coach Seth Appert saw the tide turn a little bit in the game against RIT.

“Our offensive struggles have been obvious this year, but that was not tonight,” Appert said. “We scored two, but we created a lot. A lot of two-on-ones, a couple of breakaways, we missed some open nets. Even though we only scored two, I thought we were very good offensively tonight.”

Some more scoring from his Tigers would give Princeton coach Bob Prier reason to smile.

RPI is not alone. This week they’ll visit two teams who have also endured scoring slumps – Princeton and Quinnipiac.

For Princeton, a recent run of three straight losses saw the Tigers produce just one goal. They were shutout by Cornell and Denver and lost 4-1 at Colgate. Head coach Bob Prier is still tinkering with some line combinations and thinks that turning up the work rate will also help.

“We’ll keep shuffling things around. Guys are going to have to understand it’s hard work to score goals,” Prier said. “I think our hard-working guys are getting a lot of chances, and I think the guys that should be scoring and have that kind of instinct to score, maybe they’re going to have to work a lot harder.”

The Tigers snapped that streak with a 3-1 win against Providence in a game that saw three different Princeton players record the goals, including the first goals of the year for Tyler Maugeri and Andrew Calof.

It’s a little bit of a different story for Quinnipiac. The Bobcats have been generating all kinds of offense, they’re just snakebit a little in converting those opportunities. Quinnipiac totaled just four games over a recent five-game stretch that resulted in two ties and three losses. In that run, the Bobcats had 26 shots at Harvard, 44 against Clarkson, 33 against St. Lawrence, 32 at Colgate and 32 at Cornell.

“We’re getting our chances, our power play has been good, we just can’t find a way to score goals. We were scoring them earlier in the year, we were burying them. Just gripping the stick a little tight and goalies are coming up with saves,” Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold said.

“I think it’s a bit of a confidence thing. Our best players just aren’t burying their chances. We’ve been struggling, but we keep battling.”

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• The goal-scoring struggles aren’t affecting all teams. Cornell (10th), Union (12th) and Harvard (13th) are all ranked among the top-15 teams in the nation in goals per game.

• Yale, which led the nation in goals per game each of the last two seasons, has heated up recently. The Bulldogs scored exactly two goals in each of its first five games, but have totaled 22 goals over the last five contests (4.40 goals per game).

• The league announced its players of the month for November. Honors went to Austin Smith of Colgate (Player of the Month), Andy Iles of Cornell (Goaltender of the Month) and Brian Ferlin of Cornell (Freshman of the Month).

• We mentioned a strange play in last weekend’s Red Hot Hockey game between Cornell and Boston University at Madison Square Garden in this week’s INCH First Shift, but wanted to add one more point to consider for fans in arenas and those watching on television. It’s much easier for you to spot a puck that’s in the air than it is for the officials on the ice. You’re looking at the puck against a white background provided by the ice and boards. When players and officials look up, it’s often against a dark ceiling, with banners, flags and bright lights. It probably looks like the headlights of a dozen cars driving toward you. Tough to find a puck in that.

• After starting 0-2-1, Harvard is 3-1-1 in its last five games. The Crimson have scored 20 goals over those five games, including seven in a comeback win over New Hampshire. This month’s schedule for Harvard includes a game at UMass this weekend, a Dec. 10 game at Princeton, and a pair at North Dakota on Dec. 30 and 31. Eight of Harvard’s final 15 games will be at home, two will be at the Beanpot and five will be true road games.

RYLAN SCHWARTZ
Colorado College
Jr. | F | Wilcox, Saskatchewan

His Statistics: Hat tricks in the Tigers’ losses at North Dakota this past weekend.

His Impact: It’s not often that our Player of the Week honoree comes from a team that lost twice the previous weekend. Of course, it’s not often that someone records hat tricks on back-to-back nights.

In front of approximately three dozen family members and friends who make the seven-plus hour trek from Wilcox, Saskatchewan, to Grand Forks, Rylan Schwartz netted three goals in Colorado College’s wild 7-6 loss to North Dakota Friday. He followed that effort with three goals in Saturday’s 4-3 loss to the Fighting Sioux.

Schwartz, who ranks third in the WCHA with 13 goals, also had a hat trick in the Tigers’ Oct. 15 win against Bemidji State in Colorado Springs. Rylan and his younger brother, Jaden, who on Monday was picked to attend Canada’s national junior team selection camp in advance of the 2012 IIHF World Junior Championship, share the team lead in scoring with 17 points in 11 games.

His Runners-Up: Scott Greenham, Alaska; Tim Kirby, Air Force; Stevie Moses, New Hampshire; Jeremy Welsh, Union

We raise our sticks in salute of Sacred Heart, which picked up its first win of the season last Tuesday in a big way. The Pioneers earned their first-ever win against a nationally-ranked team with a 7-6 win over Yale in a game at Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, Conn. The back-and-forth game featured five ties and five lead changes, and Sacred Heart’s Chad Filteau scored the game-winner with 4:14 remaining in the third period. Despite allowing six goals, Sacred Heart goalie Steven Legatto was a key to the victory with 47 saves. It was also a nice victory for head coach C.J. Marottolo, who worked on Yale’s coaching staff for 13 years prior to taking the head-coaching job at Sacred Heart. The Pioneers had started the year with 11 straight losses and allowed 58 goals in those games. Following the win over Yale, a one-goal loss and tie on home ice against a solid Niagara team shows that Sacred Heart is headed in the right direction.

Every program has different benchmarks to meet and a victory for one program carries different significance than it does for another. We recognize that American International’s 3-0 win last week at Brown was a good one. It was the first time that AIC defeated a member school from ECAC Hockey, and MassLive.com writer Dick Baker presents a nice story on the background of the achievement that includes AIC coach Gary Wright calling the win significant. Our issue comes from what we believe to be an over-zealous headline claim of it being a “signature” win. It’s another example of media overstating the importance of something — how many Game of the Centuries will we see, how many teams and athletes will “shock the world” before we back off on the hyperbole?

What Happened?: A seemingly harmless shot at goal late in the third period of Saturday’s Red Hot Hockey game at Madison Square Garden turned into the game’s biggest post-game talking point after a couple of strange bounces resulted in the puck crossing the goal line into the net behind BU goalie Kieran Millan. The play was correctly and appropriately ruled as a no-goal. Cornell forward John Esposito shot wide of the upper corner of the net, and the puck hit the dasher where the glass connects to the boards. The puck deflected into the air for at least three seconds, and eventually fell down into the crease area, where it hit the back of Millan’s right shoulder and fell into the net. The referee stationed approximately 20 feet away below the goal line whistled the play dead after losing sight of the puck. View the abbreviated and full-length versions of the MSG broadcast for your own review. It was a tough bounce for the Big Red, as BU went on to an overtime victory.

What We’re Watching: Michigan is in the midst of a four-game home losing streak, something you’d think is pretty rare, but it actually happened two seasons ago. So maybe it’s a good thing the Wolverines only have seven home games remaining.

You read that correctly. Michigan played a whopping 12 games at Yost Arena in October and November, winning seven and losing five. None of the remaining home dates are gimmes—the Wolverines host resurgent Michigan State Dec. 9, and play series with Lake Superior State, Miami, and Northern Michigan after the first of the year.

Although Yost hasn’t been particularly kind to Michigan as of late, the road has been less forgiving. In their four away games to date, the Wolverines are 0-2-2.

What the …?: Ex-Wisconsin Badger forward Craig Smith is off to a terrific start in his rookie season for the Nashville Predators—he entered the week tied for second among NHL first-year players in scoring with 16 points in 22 games. Unfortunately, the Madison native had his rookie moment Nov. 17 in front of more than 16,000 fans at Bridgestone Arena and countless others who saw live or on replay his inexplicable miss of an empty net in the waning moments of what turned out to be 4-1 win against Toronto.

“Things are going to happen in your life as a player, in your life as a human, you just have to go forward with it, you have to laugh at yourself,” Nashville coach Barry Trotz said following the game.

OHIO STATE TURNS FOCUS INWARD

Goaltender Cal Heeter has helped Ohio State to the top of the CCHA standings.

Heading into this season, second-year Ohio State head coach Mark Osiecki knew he had a lot of work ahead of him.

After taking over a young team that wasn’t living up to his standards in the weight room and in practice, Osiecki spent his first season and the early part of the current campaign getting his players to develop in all phases of being a college hockey player. Early returns say that that focus, rather than game-planning for specific opponents, has paid off.

“We talk about growth for our team,” Osiecki said following Saturday’s victory at Michigan. “Coming in with a young group, we ask our guys to take the next step and continue to improve, build on what we’ve been doing. The guys are really worried about themselves, not the other team, and continue to get better.”

Saturday’s win, a 6-5 triumph that gave Buckeye fans a strong start to a week culminating with the Michigan-Ohio State football game, completed Ohio State’s first sweep of the Wolverines since 1989 and their first sweep in Ann Arbor since 1986, propelling the team to the top of the CCHA standings.

The Buckeyes are off this weekend, and they’ll return to action Dec. 2 and 3 at home against another of the CCHA’s surprising top-four teams, Lake Superior State.

— James V. Dowd

BOSTON COLLEGE RIDES OFFENSIVE UPS AND DOWNS

A bit of a trend has begun to emerge for Boston College as the Eagles head into Saturday’s matinee at Yale. In eight of the Eagles’ nine wins on the year, they have scored four goals or more—in each of the four losses, Boston College has a total of six goals. That stretch is highlighted by BC’s last four games, a span in which the Eagles have gone 1-3.

Following Boston College’s heartbreaking 3-2 overtime loss last Friday at Notre Dame, junior forward Chris Kreider said he felt as though the Eagles’ recent offensive malaise was nothing more than the up-and-down cycle of a long season.

“There are parts of the season where you get into a little bit of a funk offensively, and it’s our job to work harder during the week to get out of that,” said Kreider. “Our power play could be a bit more efficient, and we’ll definitely go to work on that.”

Likewise, Boston College head coach Jerry York wasn’t overly worked up about his team’s lack of offense following the loss to the Irish.

“We’ve got to score more goals, there’s no question we’re a team that’s capable of scoring more goals,” York said. “We’ll keep working on it, getting better off the cycle, getting better off of faceoffs, off rushes. I don’t want to keep saying the other goaltender played well every game—we’ve got to bury some chances.”

— Kevin Zeise

DINGED IN THE DUB

A knee injury will keep Denver defenseman John Ryder out of action until January.

With a season that clocks in at anywhere from five to six months, college hockey can turn into a war of attrition. Just ask Minnesota State about the rash of injuries it endured earlier this season. The purple-frocked Mavericks aren’t the only aren’t the only WCHA battling health woes, however.

In Denver, the Pioneers will have to make do without junior goaltender Adam Murray, who re-aggravated a previous groin injury in last Saturday’s tie against Nebraska-Omaha and is expected to be out until January. Starting duties now fall on Finnish freshman Juho Olkinuora, who gets his first shot as the no. 1 netminder this weekend against Princeton and Miami in the Wells Fargo Denver Cup.

“I can’t think too much about Murray’s situation,” Olkinuora told Mike Chambers of the Denver Post. “Hopefully he’ll get better soon. But this is what I signed up for—not this way—but I still have to fill up that spot. I’m excited.”

Olkinuora has played well in limited action this season, posting a 2.11 goals against average and a .918 save percentage in 227:54 of work. Senior defenseman John Ryder, DU’s top defensive blueliner, is also on the shelf until January—he took a slap shot off the knee Saturday against UNO.

In a positive injury-related development for Denver, Chambers reports that goaltender Sam Brittain, the team’s top goalie last season who underwent major knee surgery in June, could also be back in the lineup in January.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin forward Ryan Little will have surgery next week to repair a thumb injury which will sideline him for three to six weeks starting with this weekend’s non-conference series in Madison against Mercyhurst.

“It’s wearing on me physically and mentally,” Little said to Madison.com’s Andy Baggott. “I decided I don’t want to go through this for four, five months, depending on how long the season is.”

Little, one of the team’s top penalty killers, is the third Badger this season to go down with a  hand injury. Junior center Derek Lee has a lacerated tendon in his right hand and freshman defenseman Jake McCabe has the same injury in his left hand.

— Mike Eidelbes

Cornell goaltender Andy Iles backstopped the Big Red to three straight shutouts.

Boston University vs. Cornell at Madison Square Garden (Saturday): This marks the third meeting between BU and Cornell at Madison Square Garden over the last five years and the two previous events proved to be hugely successful. The Terriers claimed a 6-3 victory in 2007 and there was a 3-3 tie in the 2009 game. A sellout is expected for Saturday night’s game and for the first time in the Red Hot Hockey series, will be televised by MSG Network. Cornell carries a five-game winning streak into the game, including three-straight by shutout behind the efforts of Andy Iles. BU has won three straight, all in league play against Boston College, Vermont and New Hampshire.

Union at Michigan (Sunday): Michigan fans are frustrated with their Wolverines, who are winless in their last four games and 1-4-1 over their last six, but the big picture view isn’t quite as gloomy; U-M has lost five games by a total of six goals. Union is in the midst of a stretch of eight games away from home, but the Dutchmen have found opponents’ rinks to be to their liking—they’re 5-1-1 on the road this season and have outscored their foes by a 27-8 margin. Both teams have deep, skilled lineups that are gifted offensively, and goalies Troy Grosenick (Union) and Shawn Hunwick (Michigan) have been among the best in the country through the first two months of the season.

Boston College at Yale (Saturday): Some of the shine of this matchup has diminished due to recent results, including the shocker of the season thus far when Yale dropped a 7-6 game to previously-winless Sacred Heart on Tuesday. Things haven’t been going BC’s way either, with back-to-back losses against rivals Boston University and Notre Dame. This Saturday afternoon tilt at Ingalls Rink will be a chance for both teams to get turned in the right direction against a quality opponent. BC averaged over 4.5 goals per game in its first nine contests, and it resulted in an 8-1-0 record. In the last four games, BC has totaled just six goals, and the Eagles are 1-3-0. Yale goalies allowed seven goals to Sacred Heart on just 19 shots on goal, just 10 days after posting their third-straight shutout amid a four-game winning streak.

Colorado College at North Dakota (Friday-Saturday): It’d be foolish to write off the Fighting Sioux this early in the season, but this team has to start stringing together some wins and, on paper, North Dakota doesn’t appear to match up well with the Tigers. Goals have been at a premium for the Sioux—forwards Corban Knight, Danny Kristo, and Brock Nelson are responsible for 16 of the team’s 29 goals, and NoDak ranks an uncharacteristic 10th in the WCHA in scoring offense. The Tigers, meanwhile, have the nation’s second-best scoring offense with 39 goals in nine games, and have yet to score fewer than three goals per game. CC also spreads the wealth offensively; eleven skaters have at least two goals.

Also: In case you haven’t noticed—and judging by the attendance at Munn Ice Arena you haven’t—Michigan State has managed to win a few games recently. Five of six, to be exact. Coach Lou Brown Tom Anastos and the Spartans are back home for the first time in nearly a month as they welcome Minnesota to East Lansing for a two-game series. … Magness Arena is the site of the 20th installment of the Wells Fargo Denver Cup. Joining the host Pioneers in this year’s field are Miami, Princeton, and Providence. … Ah, the life of an independent. Alabama-Huntsville spends its Thanksgiving on a three-game New England tour—the Chargers visit Merrimack Wednesday, head to UMass Lowell Friday, and face New Hampshire Saturday.

J.T. BROWN
Minnesota Duluth
So. | F | Burnsville, Minn.

His Statistics: 2 goals, 3 assists, 1 power-play goal, and a plus-minus rating of +4 in the Bulldogs’ sweep of Minnesota State.

His Impact: The Bulldogs are the nation’s hottest team—they head into an idle Thanksgiving weekend with a 10-game unbeaten streak—and Brown has played a huge role in that surge. The 2011 NCAA Frozen Four Most Outstanding Player extended his scoring streak to six games with two goals and three assists as UMD swept the visiting Mavericks to move into second place in the WCHA standings, one point behind Minnesota.

In Friday’s 5-2 win, Brown had a goal and an assist and was on the ice for all but one of the Bulldogs’ goals. The following night, he added a goal and two assists as UMD cruised to a 7-3 victory. The sophomore enters the week ranked fifth in the nation in scoring (5-14—19) and tied for third in the country in assists.

His Runners-Up: Andy Iles, Cornell; Ludwig Karlsson, Northeastern; Alex Lippincott, Ohio State; Max Strang, Mercyhurst.

Colgate is off to a very good start. At 8-4-1 overall, the Raiders enter the week rated 14th in the latest INCH Power Rankings. Senior defenseman Kevin McNamara is also off to a great start. The Chestnut Hill, Mass., native, who entered the season with 38 points in 118 career games, has six points in 13 games thus far, but it’s what he’s doing off the ice that is more impressive.

During the offseason, McNamara spearheaded the Goals for Good effort, a charitable competition among the 12 ECAC Hockey schools. Goals for Good gives fans the opportunity to make a financial contribution to a charity chosen by their favorite team; donations can be tied to goals scored and/or wins. Pledges can be made at the Goals for Good website. At the end of the season, Goals for Good will make a $1,000 contribution on behalf of the team that raises the most money for its charity to the food bank in that community.

In an e-mail, McNamara said that the effort is off to a good start, but he’s trying to get the word out to fans from other ECAC Hockey schools. We’re happy to help, Kevin.

Saying big things were expected from Maine this season might be a bit of an overstatement, but certainly, the Black Bears’ current 3-6-2 mark is not indicative of where the bar was set for this team in October. Maine’s biggest issues appears to be goaltending — sophomores Martin Ouellette and Dan Sullivan have combined for a 3.12 goals against average and a .883 save percentage and have allowed three or more goals in eight of 11 games to date — and scoring depth, where the forward trio of Spencer Abbott, Joey Diamond, and Brian Flynn have scored 16 of the team’s 30 goals.

What Happened?: Cornell sophomore goalie Andy Iles has been kind of a big deal for a long time, dating back to leading his high-school team to the state finals as a freshman. A distinguished tenure in junior hockey, including the U.S. National Team Development Program, helped him get some international experience as a teenager. He chose to play college hockey at Cornell, in his hometown of Ithaca, N.Y. That decision brought lots of pressure, because of the local hockey knowledge and the outstanding history of success by Big Red goaltenders.

Iles proved to be capable in a platoon situation as a freshman, but now has the clear-cut number-one goaltending role in hand. Skeptics of Iles’ early performances both as a freshman and in the early part of this sophomore campaign were prominent, and some fans were claiming “Iles is not the answer” on a Cornell message board. He posted back-to-back shutouts this past weekend including a 32-save blanking of Quinnipiac on Saturday.

What We’re Watching: In researching the candidates for the First Shift’s player of the week, we were drawn to the interesting story of Ohio State sophomore forward Alex Lippincott. He earned CCHA Player of the Week honors following a four-point game in the Buckeyes’ Saturday victory at Michigan. That two-goal, two-assist performance came after Lippincott was a healthy scratch in the first game of the weekend series. In the game that preceded Ohio State’s trip to Yost, Lippincott had a goal and an assist in a win over Northern Michigan. Lippincott has dressed in just eight games this year, but has six points in his last two games. We’ll be keeping an eye on this guy when he gets back in the lineup.

What the …?: You may think the highlight of this weekend’s Minnesota State-Minnesota Duluth series was the four second-period goals the Bulldogs scored in a 96-second span—the goals came so quickly, UMD coach Scott Sandelin told the Duluth News-Tribune’s Kevin Pates that he didn’t see two of them—en route to a 7-3 win Saturday.

Nope.

UMD backup goalie Aaron Crandall provided the weekend’s crescendo when he was captured on the Amsoil Arena video board during a break in the action doing the Berney, an Internet-fueled dance craze that honors the titular character from the 1989 movie “Weekend at Bernie’s” backed by a song from Louisiana-based hip-hop artist Infiniti So Awesome. Well played, Crandall, but next time, do it on the ice.

The start of the 2010-11 season didn’t go Cornell’s way. The Big Red opened with what appeared to be a favorable, but difficult, schedule. Tests against previous-year NCAA Tournament participants New Hampshire and RIT at home at Lynah Rink awaited for a Big Red team that lost a stellar senior class, plus Riley Nash to graduation. That opening weekend resulted in two losses for the Big Red, the first time they had lost twice at home in the same weekend since a 2007 playoff series against Quinnipiac. After those defeats, coach Mike Schafer mentioned that it isn’t easy for Cornell to play at home. The boisterous and loyal crowd that fills the rink increases pressure on the home team to produce results, and that burden proved to be troublesome for the Big Red.

That’s easy to recall, in light of the way that Cornell has started this season. After dropping its season-opener at home to Mercyhurst, a difficult four-game stretch of road games lined up for Cornell. The Big Red came out of those two weekends with wins over Yale, Harvard and Dartmouth and now sit in a first-place tie in ECAC Hockey.

Nick D'Agostino is averaging 1.60 points per game, which leads the nation's defensemen.

“We love to play at home, how can you not love playing at Lynah?” Cornell junior defenseman Nick D’Agostino rhetorically asked. “But going on the road early in the season lets us focus on what’s in our locker room, build team chemistry and it’s just about our team. We can focus on what we have to do, it’s just hockey.”

D’Agostino was named as INCH National Player of the Week for his four-goal weekend on the trip to Harvard and Dartmouth. He scored two goals in each game, three of the goals came on the power play, and he leads the team in scoring with eight points through five games. He’s always shown an offensive flair, but is benefiting early this season by some of the work that Cornell’s forwards can do down low. There’s good size and adequate skill up front and it’s given D’Agostino a little bit of room. His two power-play goals against Harvard came from nearly identical spots on the ice in the right circle, and against Dartmouth he was able to sneak down to the low slot for his first goal and jumped into a 3-on-2 rush for his second.

“I think we’re sticking to our game plan and talking a lot on the ice,” D’Agostino said. “We’re getting pucks deep and trying to make plays down low. We’ve got a big team up front and that suits us.”

By practicing against Cornell’s forwards every day, D’Agostino knows how tough they can be to deal with in areas around the net. But that also raises the bar for the Cornell blueliners, and the competitive levels in practice have been high, which makes both groups better prepared for weekend contests.

This weekend it’s a return to home ice, where the Big Red will carry momentum from those recent road wins into a series with Princeton and Quinnipiac – and also have the opportunity to give the Lynah Faithful an early-season win to cheer about. Five of Cornell’s next six games are at home.

WORKING HARD FOR SUCCESS

The only difficulty INCH editors faced in naming Cornell’s Nick D’Agostino as the National Player of the Week was in considering his candidacy against Yale junior goalie Jeff Malcolm. The Bulldogs have won three straight games, all by shutout, including last weekend’s sweep at Rensselaer and Union.

Malcolm has made 111 saves during the shutout streak, which has lasted over 185 minutes so far. For the season, he has a 1.33 goals-against average and .960 save percentage.

It’s been a nice turnaround for the Bulldogs after opening league play with a loss to Cornell. Some changes in the team’s line combinations have helped, but the biggest key for Yale has been committing to a stronger work ethic. That’s shown on special teams, as Yale leads the country in penalty-killing by allowing just one power-play goal against in 27 opportunities by opponents. Malcolm just needs to take care of business as the last line of defense.

“The guys in front of me have been great in battling and clearing pucks and allowing me to worry about making the first save,” Malcolm said.

The team’s overall resurgence comes from sticking to the values that have been instilled since Keith Allain became head coach. The current players on the Yale roster have known nothing but success since arriving on campus, and it’s due to commitment and effort.

“The culture of our program is that we want to be the hardest-working team in college hockey,” Malcolm said. “Our guys strive to live up to that, and that’s been communicated from the upperclassmen down to the younger players ever since I’ve been here. If we work hard and are the hardest team in the country to play against, that brings success.”

Yale has just one game this weekend, at home Saturday against Connecticut.

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• St. Lawrence has turned things around after starting the season with five consecutive losses. The Saints have won three in a row and moved into a first-place tie in the ECAC Hockey standings. That includes last weekend’s victories at Princeton and Quinnipiac, the first road sweep for St. Lawrence since 2009.

• Both Dartmouth and Harvard are playing their first road games of the season this weekend, as they visit Clarkson and St. Lawrence.

• Four ECAC Hockey teams rank in the top-eight nationally in scoring defense – Yale (second), Union (fifth), Clarkson (seventh) and Quinnipiac (eighth). Cornell, ranked third nationally in scoring offense with 4.20 goals per game, is the only ECAC Hockey team in the top 10 of that category.

• Six of Harvard’s 11 goals this year have come on the power play. The Crimson are converting at 27.3 percent.