In picking Colorado College to win the WCHA in our preseason predictions, we knew that the Tigers goaltender, and a guy named Schwartz, would be the keys to their success. Apparently, we just didn’t figure which goalie, or which guy named Schwartz, would be the Tigers true difference-maker.

Rylan Schwartz

In truth, the goalie we were counting on was senior Joe Howe, and the Schwartz we had our eye on was sophomore Jaden. Well, we were close. While Howe has played some important minutes for the Tigers thus far, going 4-3-0 with a team-best 2.99 goals-against average, he’s suddenly got some competition. After Howe allowed six goals in a loss at Nebraska-Omaha a month ago, Tigers coach Scott Owens gave sophomore Josh Thorimbert got the start versus the Mavs the next night. Thorimbert turned aside 45 shots in a 5-2 Tigers win and has been an important piece of the team’s defensive picture since then.

In last weekend’s 7-6 loss at North Dakota, Thorimbert got the start but was pulled for Howe. The next night Howe started in a 4-3 loss. But Owens insists that there’s no goalie controversy in Colorado Springs.

“Nobody says you have to have one goaltender,” Owens said. “We going to keep both Josh and Joe involved until somebody puts together a consistent streak or gets a little bit hot.”

Owens added that he likes the “little bits and pieces” he’s seen from both goalies, but he’s still looking for that hot streak, and he’s looking for his defense to give up fewer quality scoring chances.

On offense, the hot streak has appeared in the form of junior Rylan Schwartz. Playing before a few dozen family members who had made the eight-hour trip to Grand Forks from Wilcox, Saskatchewan, last weekend, Rylan posted a hat trick each night and had 13 goals in 11 games.

“It’s tough enough to see hat tricks, let alone to get back-to-back hat tricks,” Owens said. “We go up there and score nine goals and don’t get a point. That’s just part of the unusual nature of our team right now.”

Howe will get the start this weekend as the Tigers host archrival Denver in a single game. After that comes a home series with Alaska Anchorage and a trip to Minnesota State before the holiday break, and Owens plans to split the goalies, hopeful that they’ll do good work, and the defense will make things a little less exciting.

“We’ve got a funny team. It’s a good team, but we’ve got things we’ve got to work on,” said the coach. “We’re a fun team to watch because we’ve been scoring a lot, but we’ve got to work on our team defense.”

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• Yes, Minnesota State is 3-10-1 heading into this weekend’s visit to league-leading Minnesota, but don’t tell the Mavericks they’re the underdogs. Their recent head-to-head records say something different. “I don’t want to jinx it, but since I transferred to Mankato we’re 5-1 against them,” said Mavs forward Michael Dorr, who played two games with the Gophers before transferring to Mankato halfway through the 2008-09 season. “Gotta keep that streak alive.”

• Not that we didn’t see this coming, but it was still a bit of a strange feeling to get the official word this week that as of Jan. 1, North Dakota will no longer use the nickname Fighting Sioux. There’s no new nickname yet, and may not be for a few years. The school has asked that teams there be referred to simply as North Dakota and that the interlocking-ND logo be used instead of the warrior head that has been on their hockey sweaters for a decade now.

• Arena public address announcers routinely remind fans to kindly refrain from throwing objects onto the ice. At St. Cloud State this weekend, they’re taking the opposite approach. During the first intermission of the Huskies home game with Bemidji State on Saturday, the school will hold a Teddy Bear Toss, where fans are encouraged to throw stuffed animals onto the ice. The plush toys will be donated to Toys for Tots, and distributed to needy families for the holidays.

• After CC’s Jaden Schwatrz was injured while skating for Canada at the World Juniors last year and missed more than a month of the college season, one might think he’d have had some trepidation when Hockey Canada invited him to wear the maple leaf again this season. Not so, said Tigers coach Scott Owens, saying that the disappointing run last season makes Jaden even more determined to bring home gold for his native country this season.

• Asked about the prospects for a long-rumored outdoor hockey game to be played at the 50,000-seat TCF Bank Stadium, Gophers coach Don Lucia said he hasn’t heard anything on that front for some time. Last year the collapse of the Metrodome roof forced the Minnesota Vikings to play a December game there, and the thousands it cost for snow removal was not in the school’s budget. Lucia said that some of the money for an outdoor hockey game may have been eaten up by the hasty preparations for the Vikings unplanned trip outdoors last year.

• With Minnesota Duluth playing at Michigan Tech this weekend, one would figure that something has to give. The Bulldogs are 2-0-2 on the road this season, while the Huskies have lost just once at home.

• There will reportedly be free general admission tickets available this weekend in Nashville, where Nebraska-Omaha and Alabama-Huntsville will play a non-conference series in the home rink of the NHL’s Predators. Previous college games there have drawn less than 2,000 fans. Of course, with the Mavericks averaging around 7,000 fans in the 16,600-seat Century Link Center, playing before a few empty seats would be nothing new for them.

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.

Want an example of what has happened to Alaska Anchorage since conference play started for the Seawolves? Look no further than Mickey Spencer, the junior forward who leads the team with five goals after 10 games. Four of those goals were scored in the team’s first four games, as the Seawolves started 3-0-1. Since then, in the six WCHA games that Alaska Anchorage has played (all of them losses), Spencer has one goal, and the Seawolves have scored just four times in those six games.

Spencer looked to be the comeback story of the year early with that quartet of goals. After a promising rookie season, he played just 14 games as a sophomore, undone by ankle and shoulder injuries. But he came back for the end of the season, and scored the game-winner in Alaska Anchorage’s playoff upset clinching 2-0 win at Minnesota in March, earning the Seawolves just the second trip to the Xcel Energy Center in program history.

After a pair of losses at Minnesota Duluth last weekend, they’re back home for two games with Michigan Tech, and another crack at that elusive first conference win.

HUSKY-GOPHER RIVALRY COOLING?

It will still be a huge deal for some folks on Friday when the Gophers visit St. Cloud State for the first time in two years – most notably Minnesota sophomore defenseman Nate Schmidt, as the St. Cloud kid plays in his hometown as the enemy for the first time.

Schmidt recalled going to games at the National Hockey Center as a kid with his parents – both SCSU grads – and rooting hard for the Huskies versus all of their opponents, especially the Gophers.

Where tickets to the central Minnesota games in this in-state rivalry were once the hottest of commodities, SCSU actually issued a press release earlier this week letting folks know that there were still seats available. But Huskies coach Bob Motzko assured INCH that the available seats were fewer than 100 by Wednesday evening and he expected a sellout by Friday. He added that as a coach, the job was to downplay the intensity of the fans and get his players to just play hockey.

It reminded us of a friend that captained Minnesota Duluth years ago and said that even in the most intense rivalries, the feelings of being hyped up to face a certain opponent last maybe two or three shifts, and after that it’s just another game.

“Once the hoopla wears off, it’s just a hockey game,” Motzko said. “And it wears off very quickly.”

ANOTHER BLOW IN MANKATO

Yes, we picked them for 12th in the 12-team WCHA, and yes, they’ve been a mess of injuries, but Minnesota State has shown an impressive amount of pluck recently, earning splits with Michigan Tech (on the road) and St. Cloud State (at home) in the past few weeks. All of that has come while Troy Jutting has juggled lines and defensive pairs to deal with an unfortunate number of trips to the sick bay for his club.

The most recent bit of bad news came this week when sophomore forward Chase Grant was shut down for the season and will have surgery to repair a torn labrum in his hip.

“Obviously, it’s not good for our hockey team,” Mavericks coach Troy Jutting told Shane Frederick of the Mankato Free Press this week. “But the good thing is it happened early enough in the season where he can get a medical redshirt and not lose a year of eligibility.”

The Mavs travel to face red-hot Minnesota Duluth (on a 6-0-2 run) at Amsoil Arena this weekend.

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• In contrast to Michigan Tech, which played eight of its first 10 games at home, Bemidji State has been the road warriors of the WCHA early on, starting the season with eight of 10 on the road. The Beavers got just one point last weekend at home versus Nebraska-Omaha, but get another chance on home ice this weekend when North Dakota visits. After spending the first weekend of December at St. Cloud State, the Beavers will play eight of their next 10 games at home.

• After playing just seven games in the first month of the season, Colorado College won’t have many weekends off from here on out. Not counting Christmas weekend, the Tigers will play at least one game per weekend between now and the final Friday of January. And if you like offense, you like the Tigers, win or lose. In the team’s two losses, CC has scored a total of nine goals.

• Minnesota coach Don Lucia called it “good timing” when Wisconsin football players brought Paul Bunyan’s Axe out onto the ice of the Kohl Center in the third period of last Saturday’s game between the Gophers and Badgers. Wisconsin had won the trophy from Minnesota earlier in the day in Minneapolis. The appearance of the trophy on the ice during a TV timeout ignited the crowd, and the Gophers, who quickly turned a 1-1 tie into a 4-1 win. “When you looked down our bench, you saw everyone grit their teeth and clench their fists,” Gophers defenseman Nate Schmidt said. “It gave us a little extra incentive that, hey, they’re not going to beat us tonight.”

• North Dakota is off to a surprising 1-5-0 start in WCHA play, but if history is any guide, you have to like the Fighting Sioux chances at Bemidji State this weekend. NoDak is 21-1-1 all-time versus the Beavers, and the lone loss was more than 40 years ago – Feb. 7, 1970.

• There was a pair of familiar last names among the three early signings announced by Denver this week. Forward Quentin Shore, a hometown Denver boy, is the brother of current Pioneers star forward Drew Shore. Defenseman Nolan Zajac, from Winnipeg is following in the footsteps of his father, Tom, who played for the Pioneers, and not in the footsteps of brothers Travis and Darcy, both of whom played at North Dakota.

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.

Nebraska-Omaha coach Dean Blais grew up in northern Minnesota. He coached high school hockey there, he spends part of his summers there, and he does plenty of recruiting there. One would think that Blais would be comfortable bringing his Mavericks to play there.

But recent history adds an air of something more to play for this weekend when the Mavs visit Bemidji State, and the two most recent additions to the WCHA meet for the first time since the league playoffs last March.

UNO’s first season in the league featured 21 wins and the second trip to the NCAA tourney in school history. And, somewhat bewilderingly, it featured an 0-5-1 record versus the Beavers. That included 4-2 and 3-2 losses in Omaha in the WCHA playoffs, meaning Bemidji State went to the Final Five, while the Mavs got an unexpected and unwanted weekend off.

True to his practical and hyperbole-free nature, Beavers coach Tom Serratore brushed it off this week when a visitor mentioned his team’s mastery of the Mavericks, saying that results from a previous season have no relation to what might happen at the Sanford Center this weekend.

Jordan George shares the team lead in goals with five, through Bemidji State's first 10 games.

“Last year we got some breaks. The bottom line is there were a lot of tight games and we got the last break,” Serratore said in his weekly press conference. “We also got good goaltending. But this is a new year, they’re a lot older and they’ve got a lot of offense. So I don’t like to dwell about what we accomplished last year.”

It’s a different story in Omaha, where thinking of the Beavers’ green sweaters make the Mavs see red.

“With the way they took a trip to the Final Five away from us, everybody’s been thinking about it,” senior forward Alex Hudson told Nate Tenopir of the UNO Gateway this week. “From Dean (Blais) on down to the coaches and the players, we all want to beat that team.”

Unlike last year, where the Mavs were clearly the dominant team everywhere except the scoreboard when they played the Beavers, there’s what looks like an even matchup this weekend on the shore of Lake Bemidji. The Mavs are 5-5 after splitting their last two weekend series (at Wisconsin, and versus Colorado College in Omaha), while the Beavers are 4-6 after a split at Lake Superior State last weekend.

Just playing at home will be a nice treat for Bemidji State, which has played just two of its first 10 wearing the home whites. Encouragingly, the Beavers are 2-0 in the Sanford Center, with a home sweep of Michigan Tech in October. Between now and New Year’s Eve, the Beavers will play 10 of their next 12 at home, and don’t leave the state of Minnesota again until mid-January. Home games are a nice luxury that the Beavers haven’t enjoyed much of, and their coach is hopefully that the familiar surroundings will inspire a more complete on-ice product.

“We split on the road and I’m happy with that, I’d just like to get more of a consistent effort from our team,” Serratore said. “I’d like to play 60 minutes of hockey and we’re not playing 60 minutes of hockey. I’d like to get to that point because if not it’s going to get dicey for us.”

If a game versus the Beavers this weekend suddenly turns dicey for Nebraska-Omaha, that’s a feeling the Mavs know all too well.

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• Is there a goalie controversy brewing in Colorado Springs? After regular Joe Howe surrendered six goals during Colorado College’s first loss of the season last Friday in Omaha, sophomore Josh Thorimbert got his first start of 2011-12 for the Tigers and made 45 saves (23 of them in the second period) in a 5-2 win.

• Jack Connolly had a goal and two assists last weekend as Minnesota Duluth grabbed three of four points in Denver, and now has a nice symmetry to his 150 career points. Connolly has notched 50 goals and 100 assists in his three-plus seasons with the Bulldogs.

• While their nickname was again being debated at the State Capitol in Bismarck this week, North Dakota’s extended family suffered a sad loss. Roger Christian, brother of former Sioux players Bill and Gordon Christian, and uncle of more recent Sioux stars David and Eddie Christian, passed away at 75. Roger was a gold medalist (along with his brother Bill) on the 1960 U.S. Olympic Team and was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 1989.

• While players from the self-proclaimed “State of Hockey” still dominate the Minnesota-Wisconsin rivalry (renewed this weekend with a pair of games at the Kohl Center) there is an increasing Dairyland presence on both rosters. The 2011-12 Badgers feature a dozen Wisconsin natives (versus just six from Minnesota) while the Gophers feature Wausau native Nate Condon, who is the third prominent Wisconsin kid to play at Minnesota in recent years (Sam Lofquist of Somerset and Phil Kessel of Madison are the others).

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

Tim Schaller

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@umichhockey Michigan Hockey

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

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

New Michigan Tech coach Mel Pearson is not one to say, “I told you so.” At least not yet. So consider the conversation we had with his this week as a friendly reminder of things we’d been told before.

Milos Gordic returned to Michigan Tech's lineup last weekend against Denver.

Speaking with Pearson two months ago, he told INCH that the cupboard in Houghton wasn’t as bare as one might think, despite the Huskies not finishing in the upper half of the WCHA in what seems like forever. As November begins with the Huskies nationally ranked and having just captured seven of a possible eight points in home series with Wisconsin and Denver, Pearson is quick to reiterate the vibe he had about his first team at the helm of his alma mater.

“We’ve got some good players here,” Pearson said, mentioning by name Brett Olson and Jordan Baker, both of whom missed all or part of last season due to injuries, and both of whom are atop the Huskies scoring statistics currently.

At 5-2-1 heading into this weekend’s home series with Minnesota State, the Huskies have already eclipsed their win total from last season, when they started 3-0-2, then won just one of their final 33 games en route to a 4-30-4 mark. That prompted the departure of coach Jamie Russell and the opportunity for Pearson to finally run his own show after decades as an assistant for Red Berenson at Michigan.

While he didn’t bring any players from the national runners-up in Ann Arbor when he moved north, Pearson did import a more up-tempo style of hockey that has meant an average of better than three goals per game and some much-appreciated offensive support for goaltender Josh Robinson.

After winning two games in the previous two seasons, Robinson has been the goalie of record for four of the Huskies’ five wins this season, and is benefiting greatly from the arrival of Steve Shields as Tech’s new volunteer goalie coach. Shields, you’ll recall, starred for the Wolverines and played parts of 10 seasons in the NHL.

“Steve wanted to get into coaching, and so far, he’s loving it. He’s all in,” Pearson said, acknowledging that his team has sneaked up on a few opponents so far, but said the Huskies are having fun and getting some wins to validate the hard work they logged in the off season, which is vitally important early in the season.

At Michigan, many weekends Pearson was charged with convincing his highly-ranked and talented Wolverines that despite their opponents’ lesser record, they were still foes to be taken seriously. In his first month at Tech, the challenge was just the opposite, as he worked to convince the Huskies that they had a chance every time they hit the ice, despite the lofty reputations of opponents like Wisconsin and Denver.

“We cherish that role, because we’ve been on the other side of it, and its easier to build an opponent up and let the team know that they still have a lot to prove,” Pearson said, specifically mentioning the example of last season’s Frozen Four semifinal game, when the Wolverines were clearly the underdogs to top-ranked North Dakota, and managed a 2-0 upset win.

Ironically, this weekend Pearson and his new charges are thrust back into a role familiar to him, but not so to the Huskies. Minnesota State comes to town with a 1-5-0 record and a mess of injuries that have the Mavericks staring at the possibility of falling out of the race for home ice before it really even begins.

While the Mavs have no shortage of bad news, things seemingly keep getting better at Tech, where last weekend they got Milos Gordic back in the lineup after he missed the first month of the season while recovering from shoulder surgery. Pearson is getting flooded with calls, texts and emails from friends and Huskies fans who appreciate the up-tempo hockey, and the winning. And he knows that despite the hot start, the playoffs and the potential for a top-half finish for the first time in nearly two decades is still a long, long way off.

“People are pretty happy with the style we’re playing, and it’s more entertaining,” Pearson said. “But we still have a lot of proving to do, especially to ourselves.”

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• In a case of what we’ll call jumping-the-gun just a bit, we got our first National Collegiate Hockey Conference weekly press release in the email inbox this week, a mere 100 weeks or so before the NCHC actually starts playing games. Yes, we’re interested to see what happens when future NCHC members Minnesota Duluth and Denver meet up this weekend at Magness Arena, but the points still count in the WCHA standings.

• Our WCHA sleeper pick is looking, well, sleepy so far. After getting swept at home by Minnesota last weekend, Alaska Anchorage is off to a 0-4-0 start in league play, which is the Seawolves worst WCHA start under Dave Shyiak.

• An old friend who coached in the WCHA used to tell us that a shot on goal is never a bad play. That’s advice Bemidji State needs to take to heart, apparently. The Beavers are 1-5-0 in games where they’ve been out-shot this season, but a perfect 2-0-0 when they’ve recorded more SOG than the opponent.

• Work-related travel prevented the production of a WCHA notebook last week, which means we’re a week late congratulating former Badger legends Jeff Sauer and Mark Johnson on their receipt of the Lester Patrick Award last week in St. Paul. Sauer coached the Badgers to a pair of NCAA titles and is a great friend of INCH, while Johnson led the team to a NCAA title as a player, won a gold medal in 1980 and has coached Wisconsin’s women’s team to four national titles. The Lester Patrick Award is given for outstanding service to hockey in the United States.

• This was a surprise, considering the number of WCHA titles they’ve won in the span, but last weekend’s two wins by Colorado College at RPI marked the first time the Tigers have swept a non-conference series on the road since December 1994. That’s when Don Lucia took his new team to visit his old team, and won twice at Alaska.

• If you believe in history repeating itself, the MacNaughton Cup should be residing in Minneapolis next summer. Minnesota won seven games in October, making it the school’s best opening month since the 1987-88 season, when the Gophers started 8-0-0 en route to Doug Woog’s first WCHA title.