Last weekend was very eventful as top ranked teams took losses, and an extremely long unbeaten streak came to an end.  With three weekends remaining in the regular season, the pressure is mounting on the teams that have been sliding down in the second half of the season, and it’s also on the teams that have been scrapping together the last few weeks, building their records, and improving their chances of making the NCAA Tournament.

Starting things off, #1 Quinnipiac ran into a wall last Friday night in the form of the Saints of Saint Lawrence University.  This game had many similarities to the last game these teams played on November 17th, but had one huge difference.  In November, St. Lawrence scored two goals, and they came from two of their most productive players, Greg Carey, and Kyle Flanagan, who I highlighted last week.  But the goals came in the last ten minutes of the November game with Quinnipiac up 6-0, and St. Lawrence lost the game 6-2.  Seems as though St. Lawrence might have remembered this as a lesson going into last week’s game. Quinnipiac has played very stingy defense all year long.  Friday night was no different in that regard, but this time Quinnipiac did not pitch a shutout through two and a half frames.  In fact Greg Carey notched a goal for the Saints only four minutes into the game — but Quinnipiac responded nine minutes later with a score to tie it up at 1-1.  The difference last Friday night was that St. Lawrence put the hammer down hard on defense and kept Quinnipiac off the scoreboard for the rest of the night.  And Quinnipiac played its usual stone wall defense as well, and the game remained knotted at 1-1 for the next twenty-nine minutes of play.  But two minutes into the third, Greg Carey was back in the net to give St. Lawrence the lead and the eventual win eighteen minutes later, the Saints 2-1 win ending the unbeaten streak of the Bobcats.  And what of these Saints?  They are now #22 in the poll and have gone 7-1-2 in their last ten outings.  With four games remaining on the schedule, and a possible hot hand in the ECAC tournament, as last week, I am not saying that they will make the NCAA Tournament, but they could have a whole lot better chance of making it than you might think by merely looking at their current overall record of 15-11-4, and their place at #22 in the poll

So which teams do you think will be in Pittsburgh for the Frozen Four?  Let’s feed the speculation engines with a look at what went on out there last weekend.  #2 Minnesota split with #18 Wisconsin (see below for a recap of game #2 by contributing field reporter Greg Schreader), and #3 Miami split with #11 Notre Dame (ditto on the game #2 recap below by Greg — yes, he attended two games in one day).  #4 Boston College lost to #17 Merrimack (Merrimack also went on to tie Providence), and tied #5 New Hampshire, while #13 Yale dropped two, to #20 Union (Union also beat Brown) and RPI.  #8 Western Michigan hit a bump, taking a tie and loss to Ohio State, while #9 Mankato continued on its roll, sweeping two from Michigan Tech.  #12 UMass-Lowell swept a pair from UMass-Amherst, and #14 Nebraska-Omaha swept two from Alaska-Anchorage.  #15 Boston University dropped two slots in the rankings after a tie and a win against Maine.  And Niagra dropped one spot to #16 on a split with Robert Morris, while Dartmouth dropped to slots to #19 after losing to Cornell and beating Colgate.  #6 North Dakota, #7 St. Cloud St., and #10 Denver were idle.

This provides the Miami/Notre Dame, and the Minnesota/Wisconsin game summaries by our contributing field reporter, Greg Schreader.  Greg Schreader writes:

As mentioned by the venerable Ernie Banks of the Chicago Cubs…”it’s a beautiful day for a….game, let’s play two!” In Chicago this past Sunday a doubleheader was played, but these games weren’t played at Wrigley or even Comisky. In a first ever event for Soldier Field, a college hockey doubleheader called the Hockey City Classic was played before an announced crowd of 52,051. The first game paired CCHA rivals #12 Notre Dame and #3 Miami. (On a small side note, it was the second time in approximately 4 months that Notre Dame has played a Miami at Soldier Field.) The temperature for the noon start was given at 19 degrees. The M of O Redhawks wore red and white stocking caps during their pre-game warm-up.  The 1st period seemed like a getting used to their new environment process and the period ended scoreless. In the 2nd period, the game opened up a little more and freshman Mario Lucia tallied a goal near the middle of the period for the Irish.  ND added a second goal near the 8 minute mark of the 3rd period with a strong push to the net by Anders Lee. His back hand shot was kicked out by the RedHawk tender Ryan McKay and the rebound was pounced on by Jeff Costello for a 2-0 Irish lead.  While the PA announcer was providing the ND scoring information, the RedHawks struck with a rebound goal by freshman Kevin Morris with an assist from Marc Hagel. The game ended with an important 2-1 win for the Irish.  Prior to this game, the RedHawks “owned” the Irish with a 10-1-2 record since the 2007-08 season.

Now on to game 2. WCHA foes #18 Wisconsin faced off with #2 Minnesota.  The temperature for this game climbed to a “warmer” 28.  Perhaps that’s why more people were in the stands for this game. Like the first game, this game was stopped by several ice repairs.  It interrupted the flow of the game, but the setting more than made up for the delays.  Unlike the first game, the sun had gone behind the stadium seats and didn’t impact the players. MN had the early jump and that’s evidenced by the Gophers edge in 1st period shots of 15 to the Badgers 6. The 1st period ended scoreless despite the marked edge in shots on goal.  In the period, the Badgers had a goal waived off due to a high stick.  The 2nd period, despite being outshot again, belonged to the Badgers.  WI scored 3 goals in a span of just over 3 minutes to take a commanding 3-0 lead.  The goal scorers were freshman Kevin Schulze, John Ramage and Sean Little. In the 3rd period MN narrowed the gap, but the Gophers couldn’t get the equalizer and the game ended with a 3-2 WI victory.  With the difficult ice conditions, this seemed to suit the Badgers better as they’re “grinders” whereas the Gophers speed and finesse game was somewhat limited.  The Badgers really like the great outdoors.  This is their third straight outdoor victory.  In 2006 WI beat Ohio State at Lambeau Field and later went on to win the Frozen 4.  In 2010 the Badgers beat Michigan at Camp Randall in Madison and later went on to the Frozen 4 and were runner-ups.  Is there a pattern here???  Overall, a fantastic inaugural Hockey City Classic.  In post game comments from Irish coach Jeff Jackson, in a tribute to the games and to Badger Bob, he said “it was a great day for hockey”.

Game notes:  The Red Hawks and the Badgers were the home teams; to make it more winter-like, artificial snow was put on the field next to the rink; hot chocolate was $8.

Thanks, Greg! And as regards those $8 host chocolates, feel free to submit form E-12-HC to Chris or Pat downstairs in accounting, to get reimbursed.

This weekend, and going through Tuesday, sees ten top-twenty teams facing each other in ten different games.  #1 Quinnipiac will host #13 Yale for one game.  #4 Boston College will play one game at #17 Merrimack, and on Tuesday will host #12 UMass-Lowell.  #6 North Dakota travels to play two games at #10 Denver, and this should be a killer weekend, as Denver struggled right after the Christmas break, but has been hot of late.  #8 Western Michigan will host #11 Notre Dame, and as is the case with Denver, Notre Dame seems to have shaken off the post-Christmas break blues and is playing solidly again.  #12 UMass-Lowell will play a home/road weekend against #15 Boston University, and then BU will play #17 Merrimack on Tuesday night.  With only three weekends remaining, and BU having dropped many, many games since the Christmas break, the remaining three weeks are critical for BU going into the Hockey East Tournament — and in the next four days they face two teams that have both been scrapping and winning in the past few weeks.

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

[table id=61 /]

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

— Tom