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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

runwiththedogs: about 4 hats on the ice … pathetic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MARC CHEVERIE
Denver
Jr. | G | Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia

His Statistics: 2 GP, 2 shutouts, 60 saves.

His Impact: It was a weekend of historic proportions for the Pioneers and for Cheverie, who whitewashed Minnesota on back-to-back nights—the first time that has happened to the Gophers since 1930—with identical 30-save efforts. In doing so, Cheverie extended his personal shutout streak to 203:19, second in the DU hockey annals behind Peter Mannino’s run of 208:42 without allowing a goal.

Cheverie has three shutouts this season—he also blanked Ohio State on Oct. 15—and seven for his career. Minnesota has been the victim of Cheverie’s perfection on three separate occasions. In addition to the shutouts this past weekend, he was also the goalie of record in a 4-0 win over the Gophers at Magness Arena on Nov. 22, 2008.

Heading into the Pioneers’ weekend series with Minnesota State, Cheverie leads the nation in shutouts, is tied for first in wins with four, ranks second with a .966 save percentage, and is fourth with a 1.00 goals against average.

His Runners-Up: Blake Kessel (New Hampshire); John Kruse (Air Force); Jerry Kuhn (Western Michigan); Chris McKelvie (Bemidji State); Brandon Pirri (Rensselaer); Bill Sweatt (Colorado College)

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

This past weekend was fairly enjoyable for hockey fans in Colorado. In addition to Denver’s series sweep at Minnesota, Colorado College took two games from visiting Michigan Tech. The Tigers were paced by senior forward Bill Sweatt, who in the two games piled up 1-6—7. Up the road a spell, Air Force got off the schneid with a pair of wins over RIT at Cadet Ice Arena. Rookie forward John Kruse led the Falcons with 1-5—6 and a plus-minus rating of +4. (As an aside, INCH hopes Kruse has designs on being a fighter pilot, and gets tagged with the nickname “Maverick.” We feel the need for speed.)

Although it hasn’t yet been formally announced, all indications are that next summer’s NHL Entry Draft will be held at Staples Center in Los Angeles, home of the Kings. We know that the North American geographic footprint for the NHL is significantly larger than that of college hockey, but it was nice for college hockey fans and media to consider nearby locales such as Montreal, Ottawa, and Columbus in recent years.

“They outworked us at times but I think we deserved at least one this weekend.”—Minnesota captain Tony Lucia, to Roman Augustovitz of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune following Denver’s second shutout of the weekend at Mariucci Arena Saturday.

When Lucia the younger says “one”, is he referring to a win or a goal?

INCH has stood by without comment for two weeks, but in this, the third week of absurdity, we are compelled to shed our cloak of silence. What, we ask, is up with one renegade pollster consistently going off the board with his/her first-place vote in the national polls?

It started two weeks ago when Boston College garnered a lone no. 1 mention in both the USA Hockey Magazine/USA Today and USCHO.com/CBS College Sports rankings. Last week, another Hockey East school, Vermont, earned a sole no. 1 vote in both polls. This week, Yale got the outlier in the polls.

Don’t get us wrong; we’re certainly open to radical thinking when it comes to voting in the national polls. Perhaps the voter in question can only give his/her top spot to institutions located in one of the 13 original colonies. We’ll know that’s the case should Old Dominion gets a first-place vote. But this pattern is odd, to say the least.

Obviously, we don’t know the identity of this person (or people). We don’t even know if it’s the same person responsible for the lone vote each week. We’d love to hear this particular voter’s rationale, however. One thing we can tell you is that it’s not us. INCH casts a vote in the USA Hockey Magazine/USA Today poll every week. The ballot we submit aligns with the top 15 teams in that week’s INCH Power Rankings.

@ThatKevinSmith: Via @nerdbastards “If Gozer the Gozerian asked you to choose the form of your destructor, what would it be?” Gretzky, circa ‘84 Oilers.

The successful writer/director (”Clerks”, “Chasing Amy”, etc.) is a big hockey fan, a bigger New Jersey Devils fan, and an even bigger Gretzky fan. A prolific Tweeter, Smith will soon start production on “Hit Somebody”, a hockey-themed flick based on the Warren Zevon song of the same name.

Feels good to be back, doesn’t it?

We’re trying something different this season in order to get more of a national feel to our early-week coverage before delving into the conference stuff as the weekend nears. Every week, the First Shift will feature INCH’s national Player of the Week, Stick Salute, and Bench Minor. We’ll also take a lighter-hearted look at the weekend that was in our Say What?, Rankings Outrage, and Tweet of the Week segments.

This is a work in progress, to be sure. But unlike Phil Cuzzi, we promise not to miss anything.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK
RICH PURSLOW Nebraska-Omaha Jr. | F | Greenlawn, N.Y.His Statistics: 2 GP, 2-2-4, +3 vs. Army and UMass LowellHis Impact: If the results from this past weekend’s Icebreaker Tournament in Omaha are any indication, Dean Blais’s tenure as the Mavericks’ head coach should be, at the very least, exciting. UNO, which ranked 42nd in the country in scoring offense last season with an average of 2.45 goals per game, exploded for 10 goals in wins against Army and UMass Lowell.Purslow, the Icebreaker MVP, led a balanced scoring attack with a goal and an assist in each of the Mavs’ two wins. He helped set up Terry Broadhurst’s game-winning goal in Friday’s 6-4 decision against Army and sparked UNO’s come-from-behind triumph against the RiverHawks Saturday with a first-period goal less than three minutes after UML jumped out to an early 2-0 advantage. His Runners-Up: Dan Bakela (Bemidji State); Mike Cichy (North Dakota); Scott Greenham (Alaska); Brayden Irwin (Vermont); Dan Morrison (Canisius); Eric Lampe (Quinnipiac); Cameron Talbot (Alabama-Huntsville). The INCH Player of the Week is presented by The INCH Shop
STICK SALUTE	Good on the hockey fans in the Rochester area (7,421 of them, to be exact) for showing up at Blue Cross Arena for Saturday’s Colgate-RIT tilt. The game turned out to be a real treat—the Raiders’ Austin Smith scored a shorthanded goal in the third period to give his team a 3-2 victory. The building’s primary tenant, the American Hockey League’s Rochester Americans, averaged a little more than 4,000 fans in 40 home dates last season.
BENCH MINOR	The opening weekend wasn’t a high-water mark for the CCHA’s upper echelon. Most notable (and by notable, we mean cringe-worthy) were Notre Dame’s 3-2 loss to Alabama-Huntsville at the Joyce Center Friday, Michigan’s shutout loss to Alaska in Anchorage that same night, and Ohio State’s pair of losses to visiting Quinnipiac, a team picked to finish in the bottom third of ECAC Hockey.
SAY WHAT?	“I’m not one who’s going to make a lot of changes when things are working.” — UNO coach Dean Blais to the Omaha World-Herald’s Chad Purcell following the Mavs’ Icebreaker Tournament championship game win Saturday. But when things aren’t working—especially for a goaltender—Blais gets out the hook quicker than Tony LaRussa. UNO senior Jeremie Dupont learned as much against Army and UMass Lowell, allowing six goals on 20 shots in just under 54 minutes of work. Sophomore John Faulkner earned both wins in relief.
RANKINGS OUTRAGE	It’s early and it’s gonna take a while for the national polls to sort themselves out. That said, we’re not sure how Boston College, the 12th-ranked team in this week’s USA Hockey Magazine/USA Today poll, earned one first-place vote. By the way, 27 teams received at least one vote in the same poll. The Alaska Nanooks, who beat Michigan and Mercyhurst at the Kendall Hockey Classic in Anchorage, were not one of them.
TWEET OF THE WEEK	@HackswithHaggs: God bless the dude at Angels stadium wearing a Whale T-shirt while waiting in line for a hot dog. What are the odds?

Notre Dame
Sr. | G | Anchorage, Alaska

His Statistics: 2 wins, 2 shutouts, 60 saves, 0 GA in quarterfinal playoff sweep of Nebraska-Omaha.

His Impact: This marks the fourth straight week in which a goaltender has been named INCH Player of the Week, which reflects quite favorably on the quality of play between the pipes over the past month.  And as good as the netminding has been, Pearce may be the best of them all.

His back-to-back shutouts against Nebraska-Omaha this past weekend are part of an amazing five-game run during which the Fighting Irish senior has allowed just one goal while posting a 0.20 goals against average and a .991 save percentage. One of three finalists for CCHA Player of the Year — this in spite of not being named to either the first or second all-league teams — Pearce leads the nation with a 1.62 GAA, 28 wins, and eight shutouts, and his .934 save percentage ranks fifth in the country.

His Runners-Up: Evan Barlow, Cornell; Blake Geffrion, Wisconsin; Jeff Gumaer, Bentley; Matt Read, Bemidji State; Alex Tuckerman, Northeastern

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

Brown
Fr. | G | Great Falls, Va.

His Statistics: 2 wins, 2 shutouts, 86 saves, 0 GA in first-round playoff sweep of Harvard.

His Impact: In 120 minutes of hockey action, Clemente wrote his name into the record book on lines that will belong to him for much longer. His back-to-back shutouts helped the Bears, seeded 12th in ECAC Hockey, defeat No. 5 seed Harvard on the road in a first round series. It was the first time that the 12th-place team advanced to the quarterfinals under ECAC Hockey’s current playoff format. Also, the Crimson had never been shutout in back-to-back games in their 111-year history.

Brown advances to the quarterfinal round for the first time since 2005. They last advanced to the ECAC Hockey championship weekend in 2003, when they won a quarterfinal series at Yale. Are the stars aligned? Brown will play at Yale this weekend.

His Runners-Up: Brock Bradford, Boston College; Kevin Clark, Alaska Anchorage; Corey Elkins, Ohio State; Dave Jarman, Sacred Heart; Tyler Schofield, Bemidji State

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

St. Lawrence
Jr. | G | Kirkland, Quebec

His Statistics: 2 wins, 2 shutouts, 62 saves, 0 GA at Union and Rensselaer.

His Impact: The Saints needed a little bit of help, but also had to take care of their own business on the latst weekend of the ECAC Hockey regular season. Mission accomplished. Petizian stopped all 31 shots he faced each night as St. Lawrence blanked Union and RPI on the road.

Some say a goalie is a team’s most important penalty killer. In Friday’s win, Union was 0-for-7 on the power play and nine of their 31 shots came with the man advantage. Saturday, Rensselaer was 0-for-6 on the power play with five of 31 total shots coming on the power play.

Those back-to-back wins, and Quinnipiac’s win over Dartmouth on Saturday, helped St. Lawrence finish in fourth place in ECAC Hockey. Their reward is this weekend off, before hosting a quarterfinal series at Appleton Arena March 13-15.

His Runners-Up: Bryce Christiansen, Alaska Anchorage; Brett Hextall, North Dakota; Jason Lawrence, Boston University; Nathan Longpre, Robert Morris; Luke Miller, Holy Cross; Jordan Pearce, Notre Dame

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

Bemidji State
So. | G | Clinton, Ontario

His Statistics: 2 wins, 56 saves, 2 GA in a sweep of Niagara.

His Impact: Even though Niagara is still mathematically alive in its quest to win the College Hockey America regular-season championship, Bemidji State effectively sewed up the league crown by sweeping the Purple Eagles at Dwyer Arena last week.

Central to that effort was Dalton, who stopped 26 shots in the Beavers’ 3-1 win Thursday, then came back the following night to make 29 saves in a 4-1 BSU win.  The wins at Niagara are just the last two pieces of what has been an impressive stretch run for the sophomore netminder — Dalton has battled back from a four-game midseason losing streak to post a 7-1-1 mark in his last nine starts, and he’s allowed two or fewer goals six times during that span.

Dalton’s overall numbers are solid — he’s 15-9-1 with a 2.29 goals against average and a .917 save percentage — but CHA foes have found him nearly impenetrable. In league games, he’s 11-4-1 with a 1.88 GAA and a .927 save percentage.

His Runners-Up: Tom Fenton, American International; Zane Kalemba, Princeton; James Marcou, Massachusetts; Riley Nash, Cornell; Brian Stewart, Northern Michigan; Patrick Wiercioch, Denver

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

Notre Dame
Sr. | F | Livonia, Mich.

His Statistics: 2-5—7, PPG in the Irish’s weekend sweep of Northern Michigan.

His Impact: Last March, Condra went down with an injury in the Fighting Irish’s first playoff series against Ferris State. His teammates rallied to pick up the slack, propelling Notre Dame to within one game of a national title.

Nearly a year later, the Irish are in first place in the CCHA standings and trying to keep Miami and Michigan at bay as they chase their second league regular-season crown. They’re also hampered by injuries to two of their top offensive threats.

Enter Condra, who helped fill the void by netting two goals and five assists in Notre Dame’s sweep of Northern Michigan at the Joyce Center this past weekend. Five of those points — both goals and three assists — came in Friday’s 9-5 romp. His first assist in Saturday’s 5-2 win was the 150th point of his career, becoming the 14th player in school history to reach that plateau. Condra needs five goals to become the 11th Fighting Irish skater to have career totals of 50 or more goals and 100-plus assists. 

His Runners-Up: Ryan Carroll, Harvard; Phil Ginand, Mercyhurst; Brooks Ostergard, Robert Morris; Mark Roebothan, UMass Lowell; Jordan Schroeder, Minnesota

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