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.

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.

When a coach has spent more than two decades behind the bench, there’s not much that he hasn’t seen. But the beginning of this season marked new territory for New Hampshire head coach Dick Umile. In his first 21 years directing the Wildcats, Umile’s club had never gone opened a season with three straight losses, and had only once dropped two in a row to begin a season.

All of that made the beginning of the 2011-12 season all the more surprising for the Wildcats. Not only did New Hampshire lose its first four games, but the boys from Durham were outscored, 14-1, in the first three games, including being shut out in the first two contests.

But one of the benefits of having a coach with more than 20 years in the college hockey ranks is that Umile and his club didn’t panic, and no major alarm bells went off in Durham.

“Those first three games, they were against some pretty tough teams,” Umile said. “We didn’t score goals, and we were making mistakes in front of our goal, key mistakes against good teams, and they punished us for those mistakes.”

Yet here we are, less than a month later in the season, and the Wildcats have clawed and scratched their way back to .500 on the season. Winners of four straight and unbeaten in their last five – including a 3-2 victory at home last Saturday against their fiercest rival, Maine – New Hampshire has scored 20 goals in those five games, while allowing only 11. Even when New Hampshire was losing their fourth straight to open the season, they started to show life on offense, scoring five times in a 7-5 loss at St. Cloud State.

New Hampshire's season, and that of Nick Sorkin, turned around following a road trip to St. Cloud State.

The beginning of New Hampshire’s turnaround came before that first game against St. Cloud State, when Umile moved sophomore Nick Sorkin from the left wing to center on a line with senior right wing Stevie Moses. Sorkin scored three goals and had an assist that weekend, while Moses had a goal and two assists.

That combination of Sorkin and Moses, coupled with any one of three left wing options, has continued to produce. Sorkin leads the club with 11 points and Moses is second with eight, with the left-wing trio of sophomore Kevin Goumas, freshman Grayson Downing and junior Dalton Speelman joining junior right wing Austin Block with five points. Among the trio of left wingers, Speelman has scored four of his five points in three games playing alongside Sorkin and Moses, while Downing has three of his five in two games with Sorkin and Moses.

“We’ve had a lot of younger guys playing, and had a lot of new faces in different roles,” Umile said. “Some of our guys were pressing a little bit, gripping their sticks a little too tight early on, and we had a little bit of bad puck luck. Now, we’ve gotten scoring from everyone, and that’s been a good thing. It was great to get the monkey off our back by beating a very good Union team.”

New Hampshire’s turnaround hasn’t completely come as a result of their increased production on the offensive end. Defensively, a young unit with a freshman and two sophomores has begun to mature and settle into their roles, guided by lone senior Damon Kipp. Additionally, senior goaltender Matt Di Girolamo has picked up his play after struggling early on. After sitting out the club’s first non-defeat of the season in a 3-3 tie at St. Cloud State on Oct. 22, the senior has posted a .933 save percentage and a 2.00 goals-against average.

But again, the veteran coach who has seen nearly it all in his 21 years knows better than to assume that his club has isn’t going to lose another game the remainder of the season. The only other time his tenure at New Hampshire that Umile’s club started out the season with two straight losses was in 2009-10, and that didn’t turn out quite so bad – the Wildcats still advanced to the NCAA tournament and defeated Cornell in the first round before falling to RIT in the regional final in Albany.

“We’re going to play plenty more tough games ahead,” Umile said. “We know that we have a good team that, if we play the way we are capable of, will have the opportunity to win every night and can compete against anyone. Hopefully, though, we won’t have another bad stretch like that.”

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• Providence junior Tim Schaller (this week’s INCH Player of the Week) is tied for second in the nation with a pair of short-handed goals. As we mentioned on Tuesday, Schaller entered the season with just seven goals, but has scored five goals already this season for a Providence club that has already matched its Hockey East win total from last season.

• How big of an impact have new coaches Norm Bazin (UMass-Lowell) and Nate Leaman (Providence) had with their respective clubs? The River Hawks rank seventh in the nation in scoring offense, with Providence right behind. Both clubs are averaging better than 3.5 goals per game after both averaged fewer than 2.5 goals per game last season.

• Boston University ranks 13th nationally in scoring offense (3.43 goals per game), but is just 3-3-1 overall and 2-2-1 in Hockey East play, due in large part to a defense that is conceding 3.71 goals per game, ranking 51st in the country. The Terriers also lead the nation in penalty minutes per contest, which doesn’t help with a penalty-killing unit that averages one goal allowed for every five opponents’ chances.

• Vermont is the only club this season to have beaten the team atop this week’s INCH Power Rankings. Unfortunately for the Catamounts, that’s the only win on the ledger so far this season. The Catamounts have struggled mightily on the penalty kill this season, ranking 57th with a 65.6 percent kill rate.

• Merrimack leads the nation in scoring defense, with senior Joe Cannata leading the way with a sparkling .939 save percentage and a 1.41 goals-against average. It’s no coincidence, then, that the Warriors are the lone team in the nation without a loss.