Nick D'Agostino

NICK D’AGOSTINO
Cornell
Jr. | D | Bolton, Ontario

His Statistics: 2 GP, 4 goals, 3 PPG, 2 GWG

His Impact: Talented defenseman Nick D’Agostino has shown offensive flair through his first two seasons at Cornell, but he never had a weekend like this. D’Agostino scored a pair of power-play goals in the first period Friday as Cornell took a 3-0 lead and went on to a 4-2 win at Harvard. The following night, D’Agostino scored a power-play goal to give Cornell a 2-1 lead in the second period, and then scored at the 9:23 mark of the third period that broke a tie and gave the Big Red a 3-2 victory.

D’Agostino has four goals and four assists through five games this year. He had 18 points as a freshman and 17 as a sophomore.

His Runners-Up: Conor Allen, Massachusetts; Josh Archibald, Nebraska-Omaha; Branden Komm, Bentley; T.J. Tynan, Notre Dame

We raved about the job Jeff Blashill did last season turning around moribund Western Michigan. Now, it looks like Norm Bazin might be doing something similar at UMass Lowell. The River Hawks swept Maine in Orono this past weekend for its fourth and fifth wins of the season—pretty heady stuff for a group that won five of 34 games a year ago. The sweep was the River Hawks’ first against a Hockey East opponent since beating Vermont in the first round of the league playoffs in 2008. The biggest differences? UML is on pace to score 131 goals (nearly 50 more than it netted a year ago) and goaltending, where sophomore Doug Carr (2.20 GAA, .913 save pct.) has emerged as the River Hawks’ go-to guy.

Sure, it’s still feels relatively early in the season, but as you examine schedules further; several teams have already played 12 games, which is equivalent of approximately one-third of the season. So, we’re standing at the season’s first-period intermission and really don’t know much yet. Every weekend brings surprises, but this past weekend’s set of results provided even more confusion. The top-seven teams in the Nov. 6 edition of the INCH Power Rankings combined to lose eight games. Unexpectedly slow starts for the likes of Rensselaer and North Dakota are head-scratchers at this point in the year.

What Happened?: How about, What Happened Again? Yale goalie Jeff Malcolm recorded his third consecutive shutout in three starts since getting dinged for six goals against in a home loss to Cornell. The following night, Malcolm denied all 39 shots on goal from Colgate. This past weekend Malcolm’s streak continued with 27 saves against RPI and a 45-save blanking of Union.

What We’re Watching: Each week, our Friday Fourcast highlights the best of the weekend ahead in college hockey, which usually means we bypass games during the week. Consider this item a Tuesday Twocast, then, because you’ll want to keep an eye on a couple matches tonight. One is Union at Rensselaer—even though the Dutchmen lost to Yale and Brown this past weekend and RPI snapped an eight-game losing skid by beating Brown Saturday, this rivalry has intensified in recent years. The other is Western Michigan at Notre Dame pitting the Irish, owners of a seven-game unbeaten streak, against the Broncos, who’ve dropped three straight after getting off to a 6-0-3 start.

What The …?: Even though it hosted a Frozen Four a few years ago, Ohio State’s Value City Arena is, first and foremost, a basketball facility. In the past, the Buckeyes hockey team has been bounced from the building for events sucha as the state girls’ basketball tournament. Last Friday, OSU’s game against Northern Michigan at VCA started at 12:05 p.m. so the Buckeyes’ men’s basketball team could have the building that night for its season opener against Wright State. Now we’re all for Friday afternoon hockey, especially if we can get away from work to watch, and it didn’t seem to bother the Bucks, who won 4-1, but being a third-class citizen in one’s home barn stinks. Wonder if these scheduling oddities will continue once Big Ten hockey play commences?

@scottmayfield2 Scott Mayfield

Huge win for @DU_Hockey last night against CC. Big step in the right direction for this season

 @GarrettNoonan13 Garrett Noonan

Beauty win for the boys against bc

• To the victors go the spoils, and those spoils include saluting your teammates for big wins in rivalry games – as did Denver freshman defenseman Scott Mayfield and Boston University sophomore defenseman Garrett Noonan. Those wins could be a launching point for both teams.

The Dartmouth Big Green will conclude a season-opening six-game homestand this weekend when Colgate and Cornell come to Thompson Arena. Six games, all against league foes, with the final four of those counting toward ECAC Hockey standings.

The Big Green got a win and loss in the Ivy Shootout to open the year, but the home crowd only had three goals to cheer over the first two games of the season. One week later when Quinnipiac and Princeton came to town, the homestanding Dartmouth team scored five times each night in compiling a four-point weekend.

Dustin Walsh

It was a welcome and necessary offensive output in a 5-4 win over Quinnipiac and a 5-3 win over Princeton. The Big Green rallied from two-goal deficits twice during the game against the Bobcats, and rallied to win over Princeton after conceding a goal in the game’s opening minute.

The keys were pretty simple. Make a good decision with the puck, get it deep in the zone, work the puck toward the net and reap the rewards of hard work and good fortune.

“I think when you work really hard to get the puck deep and you’re able to get it over the goal line, I think a lot of it is good fortune,” Dartmouth coach Bob Gaudet said in his weekly Coach’s Corner video podcast. “Hits a skate, you’re doing the right thing by getting the puck to the net, but there’s some breaks involved and I thought we got a couple breaks. I thought we earned them, but you have to work really hard to get those.”

Dartmouth has some big forwards and junior Dustin Walsh is a premier offensive threat in the league. Though he’s only played four games, his 1.75 points-per-game leads the nation in that metric.

“He’s a cut above. His offensive play, it’s almost like you have a sense that the puck’s going in the net five seconds, sometimes 10 seconds before it goes in because there’s just an air about him. The puck follows him around and he makes smart plays with it,” Gaudet said. “He’s really slippery for a big guy, very elusive and much much stronger than he has been. His speed has increased, his strength has increased, and his confidence has increased because of those areas, and he’s just a much more mature hockey player.”

Even with Walsh’s fast start, that earned him ECAC Hockey Player of the Week honors following last weekend’s sweep, it’s not a one-dimensional offense. A total of 11 different players have combined to score the Big Green’s 13 goals on the season and a dozen players had at least one point in the win over Princeton.

James Mello has proved to be a reliable backstop in goal in the early part of the season. He’s made big saves, demonstrated consistency, and risen to the occasion when Dartmouth was reeling a bit, or protecting a lead.

This weekend draws a visit from Colgate and Cornell, the last two games of this three-week stretch of games all on home ice. It’s an opportunity for another four-point league weekend, which won’t be easy to get, but if it happens Dartmouth will be well-positioned early in the year.

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• It’s no surprise to followers of ECAC Hockey that the first full weekend of conference play that saw six three sets of travel partners play crossovers against the other three pairs resulted in just two teams coming through the weekend with two victories – the aforementioned Dartmouth and Union. The Dutchmen will play in the marquee game of the upcoming weekend, as they host Yale on Saturday at Messa Rink.

• Harvard and RPI are the only winless teams through the first full week of league play, but Harvard did get a 2-2 tie against Quinnipiac.

• Princeton’s Eric Carlson had two goals in a win at Harvard, the bright spot of a week that saw the Tigers drop games against Quinnipiac and at Dartmouth.

• Colgate’s Don Vaughan reached 300 career victories when the Raiders won at Brown last weekend. All of those have come behind the Raider bench.

• Cornell freshman Brian Ferlin had five points on the weekend in a win at Yale and loss at Brown.

• St. Lawrence snapped a five-game losing streak with a 2-0 win over RPI. Matt Weninger made 18 saves to record his third career shutout.

TIM SCHALLER
Providence
Jr. | F | Merrimack, N.H.

Tim Schaller

His Statistics: 2 GP, four goals, hat trick, 3 PPG, SHG, GWG

His Impact: Schaller was all over the scoresheet in Providence’s Friday victory over Vermont. He had two power-play goals, scored a short-handed goal in the second period that proved to be the game-winning goal to complete his first-career hat trick in a 5-2 win over Vermont. In Saturday’s 5-1 win over the Catamounts, Schaller scored a third-period power-play goal.

You’ve got to get a lot of shots to score a lot of goals, and Schaller is doing his part. He had 14 shots on the weekend, five Friday and nine Saturday, and his four-goal weekend moved him into the team’s goal-scoring lead with five on the season. He entered the season with seven goals in 67 career games. Providence has four wins this year, all of which have come in Hockey East play. That matches last year’s win total in conference games (4-16-7).

His Runners-Up: Nick Dineen, Colorado College; Troy Grosenick, Union; Jordie Johnson, Ferris State; Max Strang, Mercyhurst

Tough break, literally, for St. Cloud State senior forward Drew LeBlanc, the Huskies’ captain and leading scorer, who slid into the boards late in the second period of the Huskies’ 3-3 tie against visiting Wisconsin, fracturing two bones in his leg. So why the salute for LeBlanc, who has played in 129 straight games for the Huskies since arriving on campus? Well, we’re struck by his demeanor following the injury.

“I got out there [to LeBlanc] and he said, ‘Coach, I broke my leg,’” SCSU head coach Bob Motzko told Mick Hatten of the St. Cloud Times. “[The injury] was one of the more gruesome things I’ve seen. He’s got two broken bones and a compound fracture and he’s on the ice and he did not show one ounce of pain.”

LeBlanc, who had surgery Sunday to repair the damage, could return to the Huskies by season’s end. He was plotting an even quicker return to campus.

“He wanted to go to class [Monday] morning,” Motzko said. “His mom, dad and coach told him it would be OK for him to miss class. He’s a straight-A student and … he’s in the hospital room and mad he can’t go to class.”

Hockey is an emotional game, and one of the arguments for fisticuffs remaining in the rulebooks at higher levels is that players have the opportunity to take care of perceived transgressions against teammates with a scrap and five-minute major. That, of course, doesn’t exist in college hockey and instead you can end up with unseemly and awkward situations similar to what happened during Friday’s Minnesota-North Dakota game at Mariucci Arena. Gopher players took exception when they felt goalie Kent Patterson was run into by a North Dakota player midway through the second period. In attempting to stand up for their teammate, several one-on-one wrestling matches took place inside the Minnesota end of the rink and words were exchanged between players from both sides. Tempers were elevated and both penalty boxes filled. It got weird, didn’t it?

What Happened: From the Save UAH Hockey Facebook page: More than 2,500 people were at Huntsville’s Von Braun Center Friday to watch the Chargers face Ohio State. The announced attendance for Saturday’s series finale was 1,351. Now, what could’ve caused such a precipitous drop in paying customers from Friday to Saturday?

What We’re Watching: Perhaps this should be titled “What We Will Be Watching”, referring to Versus last week unveiling its 2011-12 national college hockey broadcast schedule. Versus, which becomes NBC Sports Network on New Year’s Day, kicks off its 16-game slate Dec. 31 with Boston University-Notre Dame and ends with the Hockey East tournament semifinals and finals. More televised college hockey is good for the sport, of course, and it won’t hurt to have it on an outlet that reaches more than 75 million households nationwide. And the initial lineup is quite diverse, featuring familiar names like Boston College, Denver, and Michigan and not-so-usual suspects like Dartmouth, Minnesota Duluth, and Yale.

What The … : The road trip is a time-honored tradition among college hockey fans, a tribute to camaraderie and the lengths they’re willing to go to in order to see their team play. But for Colorado College fans, the thought of hopping into the car and driving a few hours for a weekend series wasn’t an option; the trips were either way too far or, in the case of Air Force and Denver, ridiculously close.

This past weekend, however, the Colorado Springs Gazette’s Joe Paisley bumped into a dozen Tiger fans who made the 1,200-plus mile round trip from Colorado Springs to Omaha for the team’s series at Nebraska-Omaha. CC lost Friday’s opener but won Saturday’s finale, making the eight-hour trip home a bit more tolerable. And even though it was the first roadie for these fans, they traveled like seasoned pros and definitely captured the spirit of the thing.

“We just wanted to make sure we were [in Omaha] in time to drink beer,” CC fan Ken Rownd told Paisley.

@umichhockey Michigan Hockey

MICHIGAN GOAL!!! An empty netter for Kevin Lynch puts the icing on the cake at 19:00. The Wolverines now have a 5-2 lead.

• As a matter of consistency, we’d like to restate our preference that a No-Cheering-In-The-Press-Box expectation also applies to media and official team accounts on Twitter. Fortunately we don’t see as many exclamation marks in the team’s press releases.

There are a lot of good reasons to like the Ivy Shootout. For one, it’s a great prelude to the real substance of the ECAC Hockey season. For another, we get to learn a little bit about some of the teams that hadn’t played any regular-season games and to see how they match up against one another without it affecting league standings. This year, we learned that the name Ivy Shootout is a misnomer of sorts, since the highest-scoring game was a 3-2 Brown win over Princeton. Two others ended 2-1 and the other was a 2-2 tie.

Now it’s time for the full slate of conference play to begin, with six arenas hosting two games this weekend. For anyone bothered by the later starting dates of Ivy League member teams and a late start to the face-off of league play, just think of it as two opening weekends.

It’s no surprise that Yale came out with the best results of the Ivy Shootout, a win and a tie despite playing with a weakened lineup due to injuries. Jeff Malcolm played goal in both games and was particularly strong in a Saturday night 2-1 win at Dartmouth. He made 29 saves, including 14 in the first period.

“He was outstanding in that first period and gave us a chance to win. He was rock solid all game and was definitely what we needed,” Yale head coach Keith Allain said.

Yale’s tie came against Princeton on Friday, as all four goals in a 2-2 draw came in the second period. The Bulldogs are expected to have Kevin Peel back in the lineup this weekend.

The other game in the Ivy Shootout was a 2-1 Dartmouth win over Brown, as the Big Green’s Tyler Sikura scored his first-career goal with 3:04 remaining in the third period. Sikura also assisted on Dartmouth’s first goal, by Mike Keenan, early in the first period. That victory was the 300th in the coaching career of Bob Gaudet, who has totaled 207 of those over his 15-year tenure at Dartmouth. He had been coach at Brown for nine years prior to returning to his alma mater.

Princeton continued a busy week with a Tuesday game, a 5-2 loss at home to travel-partner Quinnipiac in the first ECAC Hockey league game of the year. Princeton visits Harvard on Friday and returns to Dartmouth Saturday to cap a run of five games in eight days to start the year.

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• St. Lawrence is another team that has to consider this as a second opening-weekend, after having not played on the last two weekends. The Saints’ last game was on Oct. 15 against RIT in downtown Rochester. It was the fourth-straight loss to start the year for St. Lawrence, which hosts Union and Rensselaer this weekend at Appleton Arena. It’s also homecoming at St. Lawrence, and Stanley Cup-winner Rich Peverley will be on hand for the festivities. Peverley is the first former Saint to have his name etched on the Stanley Cup as a winning player.

• Another former Saint is on the verge of a milestone as Colgate head coach Don Vaughan, a 1984 graduate of St. Lawrence, has 299 career coaching victories and could get to 300 this weekend as the Raiders travel to Brown and Yale.

• Second opening-weekend? How about the first opening-weekend? Harvard is the last of the 58 Division I men’s ice hockey teams to begin its regular season as the Crimson host Princeton and Quinnipiac this weekend.

• There’s national television for Friday’s Cornell-Yale game at Ingalls Rink on CBS College Sports. Be sure to follow Dave Starman on Twitter for notes on that one.

• Clarkson goalie Paul Karpowich is off to a great start for the Golden Knights, who are 5-1-2 through eight non-conference games. Karpowich earned ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Month honors. He has a started all eight games and has stopped 94 percent of shots he’s faced, and has a 1.84 goals-against average with two shutouts.

• Rensselaer has played one of the nation’s most difficult schedules so far this season, while Clarkson’s schedule has been one of the easiest. Those teams will test each other Friday night at Cheel Arena.

• Ex-Cornell man Ben Scrivens got his first NHL start and had 38 saves in leading the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 4-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets. Also in that game, former RPI goalie Allen York made seven saves on seven shots for the Blue Jackets.

Daylight Saving Time ends this weekend—Sunday morning at 2 a.m., to be exact—so we must remember to turn our clocks back one hour or risk being late for work (like really late, as opposed to the typical five or so minutes late) Monday morning. But while we can’t forget to fall back, outcomes of some key hockey matches during this fall weekend could help the winners spring forward. Confused? Just read on, and don’t forget about that clock thing.

Defenseman Mark Alt has helped Minnesota to its best start in a decade.

North Dakota at Minnesota (Friday-Saturday): Over the past decade, this series has been more even than you might expect—North Dakota holds a 20-15-3 edge since the start of the 2001-02 season. Fighting Sioux fans would say that statistic is somewhat deceiving since four of the Gophers’ 15 wins during that span came in 2001-02; Gopher boosters would say they’ve out-national championshipped NoDak 2-0 over the last 10 years, so you can have those four wins.

At 7-1-0, Minnesota is off to its best start since that magical 2001-02 campaign (please note that based on winning percentage, 7-1-0 is better than the Gophers’ 5-0-3 start in 2008-09) and the Gophs lead the WCHA in scoring offense, scoring defense, and power-play and penalty-kill success. North Dakota, meanwhile, ranks 10th in the Dub in scoring offense and scoring defense and has the circuit’s seventh-best power play and penalty kill; scoring balance, goaltending, and across-the-board consistency have been concerns for the Fighting Sioux thus far.

As clichéd as it sounds, this is one of those rivalries where records don’t matter and in the recent past we’ve seen the struggling team manage a sweep or a win and tie. All signs point to a big weekend for Minnesota, but North Dakota is arguably the best backed-into-a-corner team in the nation.

Western Michigan at Michigan (Friday-Saturday): With five wins and three ties in its first eight games, Western Michigan is off to its best start since 1973-74 when, in its first season of varsity hockey, the Broncos reeled off 16 in a row against the likes of Algoma and Henry Ford Community College. This weekend, they’re off to Ann Arbor where WMU has won just 12 times in 51 tries.

The Broncos and Wolverines actually match up quite well. Shawn Hunwick gives Michigan an edge in goal, but Western probably has the better defensive corps with Dan DeKeyser, Garrett Haar, Matt Tennyson, and Luke Witkowski. U-M has more balance at forward, but WMU has been slightly better on special teams. The games could hinge on which team gets off to a better start—the Broncos have outscored foes in the first period by a 14-3 margin, but if the Wolverines jump out to the lead first, Western could start to press knowing full well of their woes at Yost.

Colgate at Yale (Saturday): Colgate, rated 13th in the most recent INCH Power Rankings, is an interesting team. Not Dos Equis man interesting; curious is probably a better choice of words. Every Raider game has gone down to the wire—their 4-2-1 record includes three one-goal wins, two of them coming in OT, and a pair of one-goal losses. They’ve beaten some quality opponents (Miami, Nebraska-Omaha) and had some head-scratching results (tying Army, losing at home to Niagara). They’re not a particularly high-scoring team, nor are they a lock-down defensive club. A visit to Ingalls Rink should serve as a measuring stick. Also, Saturday’s match gives fans the chance to see two of country’s top senior forwards—Yale’s Brian O’Neill and Colgate’s Austin Smith.

Minnesota Duluth at Denver (Friday-Saturday): Despite a loss and tie at Michigan Tech last weekend, the Pioneers enter this weekend with optimism. First, forward Beau Bennett, who missed the series in Houghton with a hand injury, is listed as probable this weekend. Second, goalie Adam Murray, who was hurt 10 minutes into Friday’s loss to the Huskies and sat out Saturday, returned to practice this week and should be full go. Third, freshman goalie Juha Olkinuora acquitted himself nobly in Murray’s stead, allowing three goals in 110 minutes of work. The Bulldogs, meanwhile, have three wins and a tie in their last four games after starting the year with a win and three losses. Senior forward Jack Connolly is on the verge of three career milestones—his next goal will be his 50th, he’s two assists shy of 100, and is three points short of 150.

Also: Maine is 3-2-1 with losses to Merrimack and North Dakota. We should have a better read on the Black Bears after this weekend’s games at Boston College and New Hampshire. … Seems odd, but Colorado College has never played at Nebraska-Omaha. The second-ranked Tigers trek to the Qwest Center this weekend. … Northern Michigan is 3-0-1 at home and 1-3-0 on the road. The Wildcats, who play three of their next four series in Marquette, host Notre Dame. … Welcome to the dance, Harvard! The Crimson, the last team in the country to start its season, hosts Princeton and Quinnipiac this weekend. Saturday’s contest against Harvard is Quinnipiac’s 11th game of the season.

The hockey program at Rensselaer is at a point now where winning is expected. Steady improvement accentuated by an appearance in last year’s NCAA Tournament and a somewhat regular presence in the national rankings means standards are high for the Engineers of Houston Field House.

After five games this season, RPI sits with a 1-4-0 record. The team has dealt with significant injuries to important players in its lineup and a demanding schedule against some of the nation’s best teams. The graduation of a stellar senior class last spring and some early departures of other players to professional hockey have given the Engineer roster a different look than some might have projected two or three years ago.

Those are factors that RPI has had to deal with this year, but RPI won’t use them as excuses. The challenge this team faces headed into another tough test this weekend at home against Colorado College is to meet its own expectations of winning and playing its best.

“Those are circumstances you can’t control. What you can control is how you play with the players that are available and the schedule that you face,” RPI head coach Seth Appert said.

One of the lessons that RPI has been taught over the last two weekends of games at Ferris State and Notre Dame is that good teams won’t back down. The Engineers played well for stretches in both weekends – a series at Big Rapids that included losses by 4-0 and 2-0 scores to the host Bulldogs, and in a 5-2 loss at Notre Dame this past Friday.

The trouble came when those teams increased their pressure and level of play, and RPI players reverted into what Appert called a self-survival mode, instead of sticking with the game plan. It was evident Friday as Notre Dame opened its new building and came out with a lot of emotion in front of a sold-out house.

“We played our style of play and were effective in the first period but you have to maintain it. In any game, but especially against really good teams, they’re going to push back. Those moments will determine your fate. When Notre Dame and Ferris State made their surges, we broke down and got away from what makes us successful as a team.”

RPI’s lineup will be depleted again this weekend. There are six defensemen and 11 or 12 healthy forwards to select from for the lineup, and RPI will be without the likes of Brock Higgs, Marty O’Grady and Jacob Laliberte.

“We believe in work ethic, good habits and committing to a style of play that will give us effectiveness,” he said. “The message needs to come from our leadership, and that’s coaches and seniors, that we have to be consistent and play our way no matter who is in the lineup.”

Colorado College is one of the nation’s elite teams, ranked among the top three in the country by all recognized polls, but has played just two regular-season games this season. There were two other exhibitions, and all four games came on home ice. It’s RPI’s turn to enjoy some home ice advantage while a team adjusts to a foreign environment, and it’s RPI’s turn to start meeting its own winning expectations.

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• Recent ECAC Hockey goalies Allen York (RPI), Keith Kinkaid (Union) and Ben Scrivens (Cornell) were all called up to the NHL in the last 10 days and have served in backup roles. York played two minutes, 33 seconds for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Kinkaid has backed up Johan Hedberg of the New Jersey Devils and Scrivens backed up Toronto Maple Leafs starter Jonas Gustavsson on Thursday night.

• It’s time for the Ivy League teams to get things going. Yale, Princeton and Brown are at Dartmouth for the Ivy Shootout on Friday and Saturday. Cornell hosts Mercyhurst on Saturday, and Harvard drops the puck next weekend.

• Some people might discredit Clarkson’s four-game winning streak because of the opposition – home-series sweeps against Sacred Heart and American International – but it’s a better result than some unseemly ties or losses against those clubs. Clarkson won four straight last season between Nov. 27 and Dec. 12, but closed the season with a 5-14-0 record over its last 19 games.

• Union remains undefeated and has an interesting weekend schedule with a Friday road game at New Hampshire followed by a Saturday home game against AIC. The Dutchmen power play is hot in the early going, with eight goals in 23 opportunities, a 34.8 percent success rate. Union led the nation in power-play percentage last season at 29.5 percent.

• Colgate outshot Army 11-4 in the third period and rallied from a 2-0 deficit to tie the game on a pair of goals from Austin Smith. The Raiders have a home-and-home with Niagara this weekend before beginning conference play with four straight road games.

• Quinnipiac has 35 goals already. Yup, 35. Only Minnesota has as many, and the Bobcats have a well-earned weekend off after playing eight games already in the month of October.

Michigan, led by goaltender Shawn Hunwick, welcomes Ferris State to Ann Arbor for a two-game CCHA series.

Ferris State at Michigan (Thursday-Friday): In spite of its early-season showing, some college hockey observers have lingering doubts about Ferris State. Regardless of what happens in Ann Arbor, the Bulldogs are legit, ranking among top 14 nationally in scoring offense, scoring defense, and power-play and penalty-killing success rates. On the other hand, consider the jury out on Michigan; in its first real test of the season, the Wolverines lost and tied at Northern Michigan. Confirmed, however, was Michigan’s reliance on goalie Shawn Hunwick. After Hunwick was ejected midway through last Friday’s match against the Wildcats, backup Adam Janecyk allowed four goals on 14 shots in a 5-3 loss to NMU.

Ivy Shootout (Friday-Saturday at Hanover, N.H.): Five of the six Ivy League schools start regular-season play this weekend, and four of them—Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Yale—participate in this non-conference event at Thompson Arena this weekend. Big things are expected from Yale, the top overall seed in the 2001 NCAA Tournament, and Dartmouth should challenge for a top-four spot in ECAC Hockey. In two seasons under coach Brendan Whittet, Brown has climbed from 12th to 11th to seventh in the league standings, and Princeton enters its first season under the direction of new head coach Bob Prier.

Colorado College at Rensselaer (Friday-Saturday): After back-to-back trips to Ferris State and Notre Dame, the Engineers return home to face the second-rated team in this week’s INCH Power Rankings. Injuries have robbed RPI of three centermen—Marty O’Grady, Brock Higgs and Jacob Laliberte—which could explain the team’s early-season scoring woes. With October almost over and just two regular-season games to their credit, the Tigers could apply for honorary Ivy League status. CC plays seven of its next nine away from home with trips to Nebraska-Omaha, Denver, and North Dakota on the horizon.

Northern Michigan at Western Michigan (Friday-Saturday): It’s probably way too early to start thinking about this stuff, but these two teams should be in the mix for a CCHA playoffs first-round bye come March and any edge one can gain now is a plus. The Western Michigan goaltending duo of Nick Pisellini and Frank (The Big) Slubowski has been terrific, but Northern Michigan’s tandem of Reid Ellingson and Jared Coreau has been quite good, too.

Also: The only Ivies not participating in this weekend’s event in Hanover are Cornell, which opens its season Saturday against Mercyhurst, and Harvard, which doesn’t start until next weekend. … Despite netting eight goals in a loss and tie at St. Cloud State last weekend, New Hampshire still ranks 42nd in the country in scoring offense at 1.80 goals per game. Friday, the Wildcats host a Union squad that currently stands fifth nationally in scoring defense, allowing an average of, you guessed it, 1.80 goals per game. … Speaking of St. Cloud State, the Huskies are at North Dakota, which works out nicely for Doug and Lorraine MacMillan of Penticton, British Columbia. One son, Mitch, is an SCSU sophomore forward; another, Mark, is a NoDak rookie forward.

JUSTIN FLOREK
Northern Michigan
Sr. | F | Marquette, Mich.

His Statistics: 2 GP, 1-4—5 in the Wildcats’ win and tie against Michigan.

His Impact: Florek has always been a reliable scorer—he entered the season with 35 goals and 81 points in 120 career games—but the Marquette native looking more like the elite power forward people thought he’d be when he joined the Wildcats following a stint with the U.S. National Team Development Program.

With five points in NMU’s win and tie against previously unbeaten Michigan this past weekend, Florek now has nine points (five goals, four assists) in six games for the Wildcats, who are off to their best start since 2005-06. He’s figured in on nearly half of his team’s 21 goals this season, including five of eight goals against the Wolverines.

Among CCHA skaters, only Notre Dame’s Anders Lee and T.J. Tynan have more points than the 6-foot-4, 200-pound Florek, and only Lee and Ferris State’s Travis Ouellette have more goals. He’s second in the league to Oullette with three power-play goals and his six power-play points leads the conference.

His Runners-Up: Bill Arnold, Boston College; Ryan Leets, Army; Allan McPherson, Clarkson; Jason Zucker, Denver.

The issues surrounding the demise of the Alabama-Huntsville hockey program are too numerous and complex to attack in this limited space; it’ll likely be the lead item on an INCH Podcast later this week. Instead, we’ll focus on the many great moments in Charger hockey history, including NCAA Division II national championships in 1996 and 1998 and runner-up finishes in 1994 and 1997, College Hockey America regular-season championships in 2001 and 2003, and CHA playoff titles in 2007 and 2010.

Alabama-Huntsville was 0-2 in two trips to the NCAA Tournament, but they were memorable appearances—in the first round of the 2007 NCAA Midwest Regional in Grand Rapids, Mich., the Chargers took top-seed Notre Dame to double overtime before losing, 3-2, and in 2010, UAH nearly bounced another top seed, Miami, in the Midwest Regional first round in Fort Wayne, Ind, losing 2-1.

Every so often, a team will get bitten by the injury bug. Then there’s Minnesota State, which has been mauled by the injury grizzly.

The Mavericks headed to Denver with 18 skaters and two goaltenders—injuries kept forwards J.P. Burkemper, Michael Dorr, Max Gaede, and Eriah Hayes and defensemen Tyler Elbrecht and Danny Heath at home. Then things got worse. In Friday’s 4-2 loss to DU, forward Chase Grant suffered a lower-body injury that, according to Minnesota State coach Troy Jutting via Shane Frederick of the Mankato Free Press, could keep him out for a while. The following night, defenseman Brett Stern was hurt in the first period of MSU’s 10-2 loss and did not return.

Mercifully, the Mavs are off this weekend.

What Happened?: Notre Dame’s Compton Family Ice Arena is a beautiful venue, but like any new facility there are a few kinks to work out. About 30 minutes after the inaugural game at the 5,000-seat rink Friday, someone or something inadvertently set off a fire alarm, prompting the building to be evacuated until the Notre Dame Fire Department arrived and gave the all clear. We’re not sure what went down, but our hunch is that someone found out what they thought was a shortcut to the parking lot wasn’t that at all.

What We’re (Not) Watching: Harvard, yet. It was nice to see the Ivy League schools get into some sort of competitive action this past weekend with some exhibitions and scrimmages, including Harvard’s game against Western Ontario. Up next for the Crimson … no games this weekend. Harvard plays its first regular season games Nov. 4-5 at home against Princeton and Quinnipiac. By the time the Crimson and Bobcats take the ice that Saturday night at Bright Hockey Center, Quinnipiac will have played 10 games.

What the …?: Through five games this season, Boston University has been as predictable as a Tracy Morgan soliloquy. In their opener, the Terriers shut out New Hampshire (which seemed impressive at the time). The following weekend, BU lost at Providence, then beat Denver the next night. Then this past Saturday, the Terriers were beaten by Holy Cross. Sense a trend? No, neither do we.

@Walldawg27 Andrew Wallace

Big fan of the cauliflower ear look. Open invitation for someone to sock me in the ear #streetcredit

• The biggest problem we had in this selection was choosing which of Bowling Green sophomore forward Andrew Wallace’s tweets to choose for this honor. His entire timeline is gold, including the claim that he leads the nation in “practice bar-downs” – not bad for a guy with five career points in 45 games. He’s a beauty.

The most oft-repeated words from Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold in describing his 2010-11 team were young and inexperienced. The best part of using those words one year are that they are replaced in subsequent years by words like maturity and confidence.

Loren Barron leads Quinnipiac defensemen with five points through six games this season.

Early in this season, several signs of the team’s developing maturity and confidence have been evident and a five-game winning streak is the result. This development has impacted individual players, but also has been found in the team ‘s approach and mentality headed into each game.

“The way I described it last year, was that every game was like three games,” Pecknold said. “Each period was a new game, you didn’t know what kind of team was going to show up.”

Those inconsistencies in preparation and execution would surely drive any coach crazy, so that made this past Tuesday’s 6-1 win over Bentley one of the most rewarding – and revealing – wins in quite some time for the Bobcats program. The early schedule has been difficult, not in terms of the quality of the opponents, but in the lack of routine and regularity.

After opening the season with a split at Ohio State, Quinnipiac then faced a four-game stretch played over seven days, all at home. A Wednesday night game against Holy Cross was followed by a Saturday-Sunday home series against Canisius. Then came Tuesday’s game, and Pecknold admitted that’s the most nervous he’s been about a game in quite some time.

“Last year we probably don’t win that game,” he said.

Instead, Quinnipiac put forth a complete 60-minute effort and the Bobcats have generally played with consistency and a mature, professional approach each time out.

“Our play over the last four or five games has been excellent,” Pecknold said. “We’re competing hard, winning a lot of battles, winning a lot of races to loose pucks.”

The little things have shown on the scoreboard. Quinnipiac has potted 26 goals during its five-game winning streak, a 5.2 goals-per-game average, and the scoring has been balanced. Jeremy Langlois leads the way with seven goals and 11 points, and Connor Jones (2-6–8) and Kellen Jones (2-5–7) have built on solid freshmen campaigns as sophomores. But it goes much deeper than that. Of the 20 skaters who have dressed in games this season, 18 of them have recorded at least one point.

The goaltending has been solid too. Dan Clarke and Eric Hartzell have split the starts and both have performed well. Clarke is 3-0-0 with a 1.33 goals-against average and .929 save percentage. Hartzell is 2-1-0 with a 2.05 GAA and .870 save percentage. Quinnipiac’s plan is to keep rotating the duo as long as both are playing well. If one slips, there’s the knowledge that both are capable of handling the starter’s role.

Freshman forwards Matthew Peca and Bryce Van Brabrant have impressed the coaching staff, and are the only newcomers to have seen significant playing time so far this season. Freshman defenseman Danny Federico has played in two of the six games.

That’s a much different lineup structure than Quinnipiac iced last year, and so far, it’s brought much different results.

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• Colgate has been one of the nation’s most impressive teams in the early part of the season and has a Saturday game on Cape Cod against Army this week. After winning the Maverick Stampede in Omaha with wins over Robert Morris and UNO, and then splitting on home ice against powerhouse Miami, indications are that the Raiders have successfully built on last season’s playoff run and are ready to make some noise this year. Austin Smith has three goals and five points through four games, and 12 players have at least two points this year.

• If you haven’t checked out INCH’s annual Recruiting Rankings, you’re in big trouble. Not really, but it’s worth a glance as four ECAC Hockey teams brought in top-15 classes according to our team rankings, and a total of six forwards, four defensemen and three goalies appeared in our rankings by position.

• St. Lawrence played a wild one at downtown Rochester and fell 6-5 in overtime against RIT last weekend. The Saints are 0-4-0 with two weekends off. They return to action Nov. 4-5 at home against Union and Rensselaer.

• Clarkson swept a weekend series at Cheel against Sacred Heart, with wins of 3-0 and 5-3. It was Clarkson’s first weekend sweep since Feb. 12-13 of the 2009-10 season, and consecutive wins are always good for building a team’s confidence. The Golden Knights are back home this weekend for two games against American International.

• RPI has been shutout in three of its first four games this year. There would, understandably, be some burden in replacing elite offensive players lost to graduation after last year, but it couldn’t have expected a triple-bagel through three games. Injuries haven’t helped, as Brock Higgs, Marty O’Grady and Greg Burgdoerfer have all missed time. Highly-touted freshman Jacob Laliberte was banged up in last week’s series at Ferris State. The Engineers play at Notre Dame this weekend, in the first game at Notre Dame’s newly-constructed on-campus arena.

• Union is still unbeaten through three games, with a blowout win at Army and a pair of ties on home ice against Western Michigan on the ledger so far. They’re back on the road this weekend, with a Friday game at Niagara and at a tough building Saturday against RIT.

• The Ivy League schools are on the ice in some competitive form this weekend with an array of exhibitions and scrimmages. Those teams will formally begin regular-season play next weekend, Oct. 28 and 29 including the Ivy Shootout at Dartmouth that also includes Princeton, Yale and Brown.

There’s a bit of a theme in this week’s Four-cast—three of the four matchups we spotlight pit teams we expected to do well against under-the-radar clubs with promising early results. And in each case, the upstart also serves as the host.

Reilly Smith and Miami open CCHA play this weekend with a trip to Ferris State.

Miami at Ferris State (Friday-Saturday): The Bulldogs, unbeaten in four games and outscoring foes by a 15-3 margin, notched an impressive sweep of Rensselaer last weekend, but Ferris State starts the CCHA portion of its schedule with a visit from Miami followed by a trip to Michigan. The RedHawks, who’ve split their first two series, have been outshot by a 108-83 margin through four games; in the first period, Miami has is getting outshot, 41-21.

Minnesota Duluth at Providence (Friday-Saturday): It’s far too soon to proclaim Providence is back and bury UMD, but there a couple trends that make this series one to watch. First, the Friars, who ranked 55th in the nation in scoring offense last season, scored a combined 11 goals in wins over Boston University and Massachusetts. The Bulldogs, 1-3 after getting swept by Minnesota last weekend, has given up 18 goals in four games including five in each of the last three games—all losses. UMD has scored 15 goals, however, including four from Travis Oleksuk and three from Mike Seidel.

Michigan at Northern Michigan (Friday-Saturday): The Wolverines have scored 24 goals in their first four games, all at Yost against non-league competition that would make Brady Hoke drool. We’ll know more about Michigan in a month; series with Ferris, Western Michigan, and Miami follow this trip to Marquette. The Wildcats, notoriously slow starters, won three of four against Wisconsin and St. Cloud State. Senior forward Justin Florek has four goals in as many games and goalies Reid Ellingston and Jared Coreau have been solid.

Union at RIT (Saturday): In its first three games, RIT played Niagara to a scoreless draw, beat St. Lawrence in overtime (tying the match with nine seconds left in regulation and getting the winner 14 second into OT), and dropped a 3-1 decision at Canisius. Does that mean Saturday’s game will be a shootout? The Dutchmen, fresh of a pair of ties against Western Michigan, start a stretch in which they play five of six away from home. Sophomore goalie Troy Grosenick has been outstanding in his three starts as evidenced by his 1.90 goals against average and .923 save percentage.

Also: Michigan Tech, a.k.a. America’s Team, has a chance to do something it hasn’t done in forever in its series at Bemidji State. A win Friday would be the Huskies’ fifth straight—Tech hasn’t won five in a row since 1990. With a series sweep, the Huskies would have a six-game winning streak for the first time since the 1983-84 season. … Rensselaer travels to Notre Dame in a dress rehearsal for the 2013-14 Hockey East regular season (we kid, we kid). Seriously, the game is the first at the Compton Family Ice Arena, the 5,000-seat venue replacing the quirky Joyce Center. … Most years, North Dakota at Wisconsin would be the highlight of the weekend. This year, it’s a series featuring a Fighting Sioux team that hasn’t hit its stride and a Badger club trying to infuse a bunch of new faces into the lineup.

• INCH Pick ‘Em is back for the 2011-12 season. Log in and make your picks by 4 p.m. Friday.