One of the biggest question marks in Hockey East before the season began involved the Northeastern Huskies. With a rookie head coach and a young roster, not many knew what to expect. Early on, the results weren’t positive. Northeastern was just 1-7-2 in its first 10 games, all in Hockey East play, and scored more than three goals just once over that span, in a 4-0 victory over New Hampshire.

But as new coach Jim Madigan began to settle in, so too did his players, and they have turned their season around, courtesy of their current five-game winning streak. The Huskies began that string with wins at Providence and at home against Vermont before stepping outside of league play for the first time with a single game at Michigan the day after Thanksgiving and came away with a 5-2 win at Yost Arena. Then, last weekend, the Huskies returned to the midwest and handed Notre Dame their first two losses at their new arena, including a 9-2 victory in the opener of that series.

Junior forward Steve Quailer leads Northeastern with 15 points in 13 games.

Madigan has credited his players with the turnaround, from putting in the work needed to correct mistakes and for buying into the systems he and his coaching staff have put in place.

“Our players were playing hard, but they weren’t always playing with intelligence,” Madigan said of his team overcoming the slow start to the season. “We’re playing smarter, our discipline is better now, and we’re not shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Like most coaches at this point in the season, Madigan has his efforts focused more on his team and their systems – a situation made all the more imperative by the implementation of an entirely new system and coaching staff – and less on the opposition.

“We’re getting confident in our systems and in our approach,” Madigan said. “Our players have really embraced it, and we’re getting so much better each day in practice.”

Northeastern’s recent success has come as a true team effort. The Huskies boast a pair of lines that are capable of scoring at any time, and a balanced offensive approach that makes it difficult for the opposition to key in on a particular player. In last weekend’s series at Notre Dame, five of the six members of the Huskies’ top two lines recorded at least three points. On the season, junior Steve Quailer leads the club in scoring with 15 points on five goals and 10 assists, with an additional four others in double figures. Fellow junior Justin Daniels, freshman Ludwig Karlsson and sophomore Braden Pimm share the team lead with six goals apiece, while junior Vinny Saponari has equaled Quailer’s 10 assists to pace the squad.

Defensively, while Northeastern’s blueliners have accounted for only 20 of the team’s 122 points entering this weekend, they have been strong at even strength. None of the defensemen on the club has a negative plus/minus rating on the year. In goal, junior Chris Rawlings has seen the vast majority of time, posting a 6-6-2 record in addition to a .931 save percentage and a 2.27 goals-against average, ranking third among Hockey East netminders in both categories.

Still, the Huskies, like many clubs, aren’t without their warts; their 9.7 percent conversion rate on the power play ranks last in Hockey East and 54th in the country, and the penalty kill is at 79.7 percent, seventh in the league. Even in the series sweep at Notre Dame last weekend, Northeastern went a combined 1-for-9 on the power play, while two of the three goals allowed during the weekend came with the Irish on the power play.

Despite the special teams woes, it’s worth mentioning that Northeastern is an extremely young team. The Huskies last made the NCAA tournament in 2009, and team captain Mike McLaughlin – currently out with an injury – is the only member from that squad still with the Northeastern program, though McLaughlin did not play in that game, a 3-2 loss to Cornell in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Should the Huskies defeat UMass-Lowell on Saturday, Northeastern would close out the 2011 portion of the 11-12 season at .500 overall on the year – not bad for a team that had but one win on Nov. 12.

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• Maine’s Spencer Abbott posted nine points in the Black Bears’ two-game set at Vermont last weekend, catapulting him into second place in the nation in scoring average at 1.64 points per game. Teammate Brian Flynn (1.50) is the only other Hockey East player in the top 15 nationally.

• Providence’s Tim Schaller is a special player – literally. Schaller has nine goals on the season, but only one at even strength. Schaller has six power-play goals, tied for third in the nation, and a pair of short-handed tallies, tied for second in the country.

• Despite giving up 10 goals in the Warriors’ last three games over the past week, Merrimack still ranks second nationally in scoring defense, allowing an average of 1.69 goals per contest.

• The importance of special teams play in Hockey East cannot be understated. Four Hockey East clubs rank in the top 10 nationally in penalty minutes per game, with Merrimack leading the way in that category at nearly 22 minutes per game. Joining the Warriors among the most penalized teams in college hockey are Boston University (third, 21.1 minutes), Maine (eighth, 17.1) and Boston College (10th, 15.8).

• Following this weekend’s action, eight of the league’s 10 clubs will pack away their sticks for the semester. Only Vermont and Merrimack will be in action next weekend, with Vermont playing host to St. Lawrence and Merrimack at home against Union.

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.

It’s not often for a hockey club that a victory is a bad thing. For Vermont, the victory in the second game of the season at then-No. 8 Minnesota may very well have been just that.

Sophomore defenseman Nick Bruneteau is part of a young Catamounts team that has improved in recent weeks.

The Catamounts are a young club, boasting 15 freshmen and sophomores on the roster. And while it may have felt great to have come from behind to defeat the Gophers at Mariucci Arena, Vermont head coach Kevin Sneddon wasn’t entirely pleased with his team’s performance that night – or in the weeks that followed.

“That win didn’t feel that great, we didn’t play well until the second half of the game,” Sneddon said. “The win masked a lot of problems that we’ve been having.”

Vermont enters this weekend’s two-game homestand against Maine having recovered from a stretch that saw the Catamounts go 0-6-1. Winners of two of their last three, the Catamounts are beginning to show signs of breaking out of that youthful funk.

“We weren’t putting everything together, and being inconsistent in every part of our game,” Sneddon said of his team’s difficult start. “Our power play wasn’t working, our penalty kill was struggling, and we were getting just average goaltending – and a lot of that has really started to correct itself.”

Sneddon points to a busy stretch of the schedule as the catalyst for sparking improved play from his team.

“We had a stretch of five games in 10 nights, against five different opponents with very different styles of play, and we’ve made strides; only one of those were not up to our standards – Northeastern beat us pretty good and taught us a lesson,” he said. “We played really well against Massachusetts, but our best stretch was against Colgate, where we had two really good periods. We didn’t play very well against Dartmouth, but it was good to see that our second-level game was still good enough to get us a win.”

Sneddon has also adjusted his coaching philosophy slightly to allow his young team to make the kinds of mistakes that lead to growth.

“We’ve been trying to point out the positives, and it’s been important to learn that we can win even when we’re not playing our best,” he said. “We’ve been trying to build their confidence, and change the tone of practices, being more supportive and encouraging, and let the guys play a little bit more.”

As part of Vermont’s turnaround, the Catamounts have begun to get regular production from leading scorer Sebastian Stalberg, while sophomore Connor Brickley shares the team lead with Stalberg with six goals each. Stalberg enters this weekend’s series with 10 points in his last 11 games, while Brickley, who has scored a goal in each of the last two contests, has already surpassed his goal total from his freshman season when he had four.

“Both were inconsistent early on, and they’ve both worked hard to eliminate those inconsistencies,” Sneddon said. “For Stalberg, he needs to battle and compete more, and be stronger on the puck. Brickley was struggling defensively, making turnovers that haunted us on defense, and he’s worked to eliminate those mistakes. He can be an elite player, and he’ll be in the NHL someday if he plays his role; he’ll get his points and goals, but he’s got to create those chances.”

Vermont enters this weekend in last place, but four points back of Maine and UMass in the league standings, knowing that a strong weekend could launch the Catamounts right back into the middle of the pack in the league. Despite that, Sneddon has his charges focused on the immediate goals, and not getting too far ahead of themselves.

“We’re slowly taking the steps to get to where we want to be,” he said. “We can’t go into the weekend thinking about getting four points. We have to focus first on that first shift Friday night, and then worry about the second shift after that. We’re going to continue to push that process.”

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• Boston University and Boston College meet up in a home-and-home series this weekend, just under three weeks after the Terriers blanked the Eagles at Conte Forum, 5-0. That win sparked BU’s current four-game winning streak, while BC dropped two straight before snapping that skid with a 3-2 win at Yale last weekend.

• UMass has played the second-most games in Hockey East play to this point, one behind Northeastern’s 12. The Minutemen are done with league play until January 5 at Providence, playing four games in the interim – one of those potentially against Maine at the Florida College Classic the last week of December. The Minutemen close out the fall semester at home tonight against Harvard and host Yale on Wednesday before opening up the Florida College Classic against Cornell.

• Northeastern has won three straight to turn its fortunes around, scoring wins over Providence and Vermont in addition to a 4-1 thumping of Michigan last Friday at Yost Arena. The Huskies head back west this weekend for a two-game set at Notre Dame.

• So much for the slow start: after scoring just one goal in the club’s first three games, New Hampshire has recovered at least offensively and now leads Hockey East in scoring offense, averaging 3.64 goals per game. The Wildcats have scored at least five goals in a game six times this season.

• Merrimack, which leads the nation in scoring defense at 1.20 goals allowed per game, has allowed just seven goals through 10 games at even strength this season. The Warriors also lead Hockey East in power-play and penalty-killing efficiency.

• Next week is a busy one in Hockey East, as every day from Tuesday through Saturday features at least one conference game. All 10 league teams have at least one game over that span, with Boston College, Merrimack and UMass-Lowell each playing twice.

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.

It’s funny how much a change of scenery can impact a hockey program. When Norm Bazin took over for Blaise MacDonald as the head coach at UMass Lowell this summer, few could have predicted the dramatic change that would take place during the early part of the sesaon.

Not quite to the Thanksgiving holiday, the River Hawks have already matched their win total from all of last season, boasting a 5-3 mark on the year and a 3-2 record in Hockey East play, one victory shy of tying last season’s tally. And UMass Lowell hasn’t done it with a large influx of key newcomers—of the 13 scorers on the roster with more than one point this season, only three are freshmen.

In a final twist of ironic fate, pending the outcome of Friday’s game at New Hampshire, the River Hawks will have the opportunity to either match or surpass last year’s league win total against their former head coach, MacDonald, who is now an assistant coach at Massachusetts, which visits Tsongas Arena Saturday.

“Right now, our focus is on New Hampshire Friday night,” Bazin said of his players facing the coach who recruited them to Lowell. “We try to look one game at a time. We’ll have a better idea after Friday when we begin to look at Massachusetts.”

Riley Wetmore and UMass Lowell needed less than two months to match their win total from the 2010-11 season.

While the team may focus on a New Hampshire squad it will see three times in the next three weeks, it’s hard not to notice the thought of the River Hawks surpassing last year’s win total against MacDonald’s new team. Bazin himself has a little experience with facing a good friend; last weekend’s trip to Maine found the first-year bench boss taking on a coach he previously worked with in Tim Whitehead, for whom Bazin was an assistant coach at UMass Lowell from 1996 through 2000. And that weekend turned out pretty well for the River Hawks, who pulled off their first sweep of the Black Bears since 1985, which occurred before every member of this year’s squad was born.

“It’s a nice step in where we want to be,” Bazin said of the road sweep in Orono. “Right now, we’re just trying to accumulate points in league play. Last weekend was a great atmosphere for us. It mimicked playoff-style hockey.”

Bazin’s charges have responded to his both his coaching style and the style of play he has implemented.

“We try to play a puck-possession style, very aggressive on both sides of the puck,” he said of his coaching philosophy. “I can’t answer why the guys have responded so favorably this season. We came in with a fresh slate with the guys and we’re holding players accountable week to week. The guys enjoy playing this way, and it’s enjoyable for the fans to watch and for us to coach.”

One side effect of the style of play that the River Hawks have instituted is the fact that UMass Lowell has outscored its opposition by a 13-5 score in the third period of games, with the high-pressure system wearing down foes.

“We don’t put too much thought in statistics like that,” Bazin said. “If it was something I could bottle up, we’d have an awful lot of wins. We just try to play hard for all three periods and finish games just as hard as we start them.”

Lowell has also seen its success come by way of a balanced offensive attack and solid defensive play. The River Hawks, led by senior Matt Ferreira’s 10 points, have no one among the top 10 in Hockey East in scoring. Junior captain Riley Wetmore and freshman Scott Wilson are each have nine points. In goal, sophomore Doug Carr has emerged from the pack of a young group of netminders, posting a .913 save percentage and a 2.20 goals-against average with a 4-1 mark.

“I’m happy with quite a few of the players—we’re happy with the work ethic that they’ve all shown,” Bazin said of some of the standout players on his club. “Ferreira lacks the flamboyant style of some other players in our league, but he’s a complete player and does all of the little things that make us successful, and it’s good to see his hard work rewarded. (David) Vallorani has all of the intangibles of a great player, and he’s become a better player and makes others around him better.”

After this weekend’s split series at New Hampshire Friday and at home against Massachusetts Saturday, the River Hawks host Alabama-Huntsville the day after Thanksgiving before opening up December with a home-and-home pair with New Hampshire.

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• Boston College heads west Friday to face Notre Dame in a preview of what will be in 2013-14 a Hockey East game; it’s the dedication game for the Irish’s new Compton Family Ice Arena.

• Could Boston University’s 5-0 victory over Boston College Sunday be the turning point for the Terriers’ season? The schedule at least appears favorable for that possibility, as BU plays home games against Vermont and New Hampshire this weekend before next Saturday’s contest against Cornell in New York City.

• Northeastern is the only team in Hockey East that hasn’t played a non-league game this season, with all 10 of the Huskies’ contests coming in Hockey East play. The Huskies stand in ninth place in the league with a 1-7-2 mark on the year.

• With all of the big-name scorers in Hockey East, it’s a little surprising to see Providence’s Tim Schaller atop the league’s goal-scoring and power-play goal lists. Schaller has eight goals, tied with Boston College’s Chris Kreider, and his five power-play goals are alone atop the league charts. Schaller entered his third season at Providence with just seven goals through his first two years. Amazingly, only one of Schaller’s goals this season has come at even strength, with the junior potting a pair of short-handed tallies.