While last weekend was light on college hockey action, there was the marquee matchup of #11 Union travelling to play #5 Merrimack.  This was a tough defensive game, especially by Union, throughout.  With about six minutes remaining in the first, Merrimack found itself double-shorthanded, and surrendered a goal that Union’s Daniel Carr made off of a rebound from a prior shot.  Throughout the game Union’s defense was aggressive with many players stepping up and blocking Merrimack shots.  Merrimack’s Shawn Bates scored in the second off of a quick feed out of a faceoff, with five minutes left in the second.  But three minutes later Merrimack again found itself shorthanded, with Union capitalizing again, scoring with two minutes to go in the second.  In the third Union’s solid defense kept Merrimack out of the net, and in fact, Union badly outshot Merrimack 34-20 in the game.  Union managed to pick up an empty netter with twelve seconds remaining, to take the win 3-1.  The win lifted Union up to the #10 spot in the rankings, and  the loss dropped Merrimack down to #7.  Since Merrimack ascended to the #1 ranking earlier this season, it has lost half of its last six games, and scored only one goal in four of its last five games.

Elsewhere, Colorado College swept Mankato, but needed OT in the first game, and climbed up one spot in the rankings to #6 in the process.  Meanwhile, Denver had its hands very full with St. Cloud State, splitting on the weekend, also needing OT on Friday night to get the win, and then getting hammered by St. Cloud Saturday by a four goal margin.

And if the loss of Corey Trivino wasn’t enough to shake up things for Boston University, early this week BU lost another top player as Charlie Coyle has left to start his professional career with the St. John Sea Dogs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.  Coyle was a first rounder in the NHL draft, going #28 to the San Jose Sharks.  He subsequently was part of what the Minnesota Wild acquired in exchange for trading Brent Burns to the Sharks.  How signficant is the departure of these two for BU?  Very.  Trivino and Coyle collectively have taken 563 faceoffs for BU; the next closest player has done maybe 100, in fact, the entire rest of the team has done a total of 470.  And Trivino and Coyle are the only two on the team who are above .500 in faceoffs.  Ouch.

Last week we noted that a new coach had made a big impact half way through his second season at Ohio State.  While they may not be ranked #4, Providence College has started out well this year, and is #27 in the poll voting.  Last year Providence replaced six-year coach, and PC alum Tim Army with Nate Leaman, who had coached Union College for eight years.  Prior to Union, Leaman had been an assistant at Harvard, and was a volunteer coach at Maine prior to that.  And what happened to Union?  Well, Rick Bennett, assistant at Union the previous six seasons, and Associate Head Coach the last four of them, has taken over, and seems to be doing just fine, as he has Union ranked #10.  And where did Bennett come from, prior to Union?  Would you believe . . . . Providence College?  He was an assistant there for five years, and is a PC alum.  Bennet had a distinguished playing career at PC and was a Hobey Baker finalist in 1990; he was inducted to the PC Athletic Hall Of Fame in the Fall of 2010.  Bennett played three seasons with the New York Rangers as well.

And what’s up next in college hockey?  No games this weekend, surprise, surprise.  And next week there are a good number of tournaments, with many top fifteen team matchups possible in the championship rounds.  Outside of second round possibilities, there are three known top fifteen matchups.  For starters, #5 Notre Dame will host the new-look #9 Boston University Terriers on New Year’s eve; this game is known as the Lefse/Kringle Game in some corners, and is slated to be broadcast on Versus — don’t know if it’s national, but game time is 4pm Pacific Time.  In addition, #10 Union will travel to play both #15 Denver, and #6 Colorado College on Friday and Saturday nights.

This provides the top fifteen teams, rankings, records, and last weekend’s results:

[table id=33 /]

That’s all for now.  Merry Christmas to all, and, of course, go Terriers!

 — Tom