Ok, this is old news because I didn’t post last week, but the weekend of Saturday, December 29th and Sunday, December 30th, had some bigtime game performances, including Minnesota’s 8-1 shelling of Boston College.  I suppose I don’t need to say much more with that type of score, but I will — the lone Boston College score came with only seven minutes remaining in the game, and Minnesota up 7-1; Minnesota was double-shorthanded, so BC capitalized on their five-on-three advantage and got one in the net.  But I suppose just to add insult to injury, when Minnesota then gained one player back on the ice, they scored a shorthanded goal only 42 seconds later, to make the final 8-1.  Now I think I don’t really have to say a lot more about this game.  Minnesota took bigtime advantage of BC’s big night of penalties — BC had eight for 27 penalty minutes — scoring on four of eight power play opportunities.  Minnesota really spread the puck around, with their eight goals scored by six different players, and their fifteen assists accounted for by nine different players.  Nick Bjugstad had a career high four points with two goals and  two assists, and Kyle Rau also scored two goals, and tallied an assist as well.  Minnesota golie Adam Wilcox was busy in the net with a career high 32 saves on the night.  This moved Minnesota up from #4 to #1, and knocked BC down from #1 to #2.  Additionally on the weekend, Minnesota beat Air Force, and  BC beat Alabama-Huntsville.

Add to this #8 Dartmouth taking down #4 New Hampshire to the tune of 4-1, and #5 Quinnipiac sweeping #16 Nebraska-Omaha.  Next up:  #6 Miami of Ohio beat Ohio State, but then lost to . . . Robert Morris!!  Let’s throw in another bigtime blowout as #11 Denver crushed #9 Boston University 6-0 — certainly enough said on that one.  While we are at it, #10 Western Michigan beat Michigan State, but then went on to get smothered by Michigan Tech by a 4-0 margin.  And lastly in the top twelve, #12 Cornell beat Ferris State, but then was upended by Mankato 6-4.  #3 Notre Dame and #7 North Dakota were both idle.  So, clearly, on that weekend, some teams came to play, and some just didn’t.  Also on the weekend, St. Cloud State, ranked #15 at the time, hosted RPI for two games — RPI has one of the youngest coaches in DI hockey, and they have been very pesky for several years now, rising up to the occasion to cause ranked teams some real heartache.  Despite a generally losing record,  RPI, primarily an engineering school, proudly lays claim to having the highest average ACT scores of all entering freshman classes in the U.S.  And danger they were to St. Cloud, as they split the weekend.  So hats off to Minnesota, Quinnipiac, Dartmouth, Robert Morris, Michigan Tech, Mankato, and RPI, for staying focused during the peak of the holidays, between Christmas and New Year’s!

The following weekend (which was just this last weekend, so the games have been played, but I don’t really have the time to do two of these right now) there are/were some great top twelve/fifteen matchups, with some pretty significant outcomes: #5 Quinnipiac hosts #8 Dartmouth for one game, and #9 Denver hosts #12 Cornell for two (all three of these games have already been played and will be reported on this week.  Then, one night after their #1 ranked football team plays for the national title, Notre Dame will face #1 Minnesota tomorrow night, Tuesday the 8th, at Minnesota.

This provides the top twelve teams as of last week, rankings, records, and results of the weekend of December 29th and 30th:

[table id=54 /]

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

— Tom