Last weekend’s schedule was light but presented some great games, starting with North Dakota’s very convincing sweep of Michigan Tech, elevating the Sioux to the #7 ranking; this was North Dakota’s first sweep of this season.  Making a space for North Dakota’s ascent in the rankings, #8 Western Michigan split with Michigan, so the Sioux and the Broncos traded places in the poll.

Last week we spotlighted a couple of matchups.  Nebraska-Omaha split the weekend with Mankato — Friday night’s game started out as a battle, with UNO scoring first in the first minute of the first, but Mankato responded midway in the first and early in the second to go up 2-1.  UNO started a very busy middle of the second, in which four goals were scored in a four minute period, each team scoring twice, to end it 4-3, Mankato.  In the third it was all Mankato with two more goals, to make the final 6-3.  In Friday night’s game, nine goals were scored by eight different players; the only player to score two goals was Mankato’s Johnny McInnis.  Saturday night UNO had a commanding 3-1 lead late in the third when Mankato pulled their goalie with three minutes to go, and Mankato found the empty net to go up 4-1, and then scored again with both teams at full strength, to make the final 5-1.  In two nights, fifteen goals were scored by twelve different players.  Scoring one each night were UNO’s Matt White and Ryan Walters.  Both teams rose in the rankings on the weekend, with UNO up from #13 to #12, and Mankato up to #18 from #20.

Our second mentioned matchup was St. Cloud State and Colorado College.  Friday night’s game  saw a resilient and determined bunch of Huskies down 2-0 late in the second period, only to scored one late in the second and three in the third to go up 4-2.  Can you imagine how nuts the home crowd at St. Cloud was going at that point?  But CC pulled their goalie with two minutes to go, and it paid off as they scored with an extra attacker to make it 4-3 with 1:45 remaining.  St. Cloud found the empty net a half minute later to make the final score 5-3.  As was the case down in Omaha, this game saw eight goals scored by seven different players, and only St. Cloud’s David Morely scored two goals.  Saturday night St. Cloud went up 1-0 in the first, and CC responded early in the second with each team shorthanded, to tie it at 1-1.  But St. Cloud came back scoring two in the middle of the second to make it 3-1, and the two teams stalemated for the remaining twenty-seven minutes to make the final 3-1, St. Cloud.  In two nights a total of twelve goals were scored by nine different players.  The only players to score one each night were St. Cloud State’s Kalle Kossila and Johnny Brodzinski.  The sweep dropped CC to #25 in the rankings.  On the other hand, St. Cloud closed out the first half of the season moving up from the #17 ranking to #16, and atop the WCHA standings.

Elsewhere, #3 Notre Dame beat Bowling Green, one game, and #5 Miami-Ohio took a tie and a win against Ohio State.  Every other team in the top twelve not mentioned to this point was idle.

This week, wow!  One game — tomorrow night, Thursday, Vermont travels to play one game at Providence.  PC has been a pretty up and down team this year with some shining moments, including a strong comeback from a 3-1 deficit in the third, to tie #1 BC last week.  Next week there are a number of tournaments, “classics,” and interesting inter-conference games scheduled, including four top-twleve matchups.

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

[table id=52 /]

That’s all for now.  Stay tuned, and go Terriers!

— Tom