College Hockey Update:  Last weekend gave us a couple of great top-twelve matchups, starting with Miami hosting Minnesota-Duluth, and Friday night’s game was a tense as it gets, with each team scoring early, and then stalemating for about forty minutes of play, waiting for a shoe to drop; Miami held a slight edge in shots on goal until early in the third when it became all UMD as they scored twice, greatly outshooting Miami in that period, and taking the two goal win. Saturday night’s game was another great contest, a bit more of a fun, go out and score type of game, as UMD scored early and again early in the second for a two goal lead, but then Miami really came alive — they badly outshot UMD all night long and it started paying dividends in the second, as the two teams traded goals, giving UMD a one goal lead going into the third.  Early in the third Miami tied it up, and they were deadlocked until the end of regulation.  In OT Miami scored with a minute left to get the win and to split the weekend. The results edged Miami up to #5 and edged UMD up to #6.

In another top-twelve matchup, Quinnipiac hosted Yale Friday night, and the two teams traded goals for the first one and a half periods, then stalemated to end it in a 2-2 tie.  Quinnipiac edged up to #10 (they also tied Brown Saturday night), and Yale edged up to #12 (they went on to beat Princeton Saturday night).  One top-twelve team played another ranked team as Boston College hosted UMass-Lowell Friday night, and the two also fought it out to a tie; BC edged up to #9, and Lowell moved up a couple of spots to #14.

Elsewhere, North Dakota swept Western Michigan on the road, holding at #1, while Boston University suffered a tie and a loss at the hands of Notre Dame — at home — edging the Terriers down to #4.  Denver swept Colorado College and moved up a couple of rungs to #7, while Nebraska-Omaha was swept on the road by St, Cloud State, dropping the Mavericks three spots to #8, and Bowling  Green was swept at home by Northern Michigan, dropping the Falcons three spots to #11.  An idle Mankato State held at #2, and an idle Michigan Tech edged up to #3 on BU’s poor showing against Notre Dame.

Monday night Boston’s Garden hosted the consolation/final games of the 63rd annual Beanpot Tournament, and in the opening game, a late first period lead established by Boston College evaporated when Harvard took over in the middle of the second, as the Crimson rose up to stem a late-season slide, trying to avoid the basement slot in this heralded match; BC managed to tie it up mid-way through the third, and then prevailed a minute and a half into the OT frame to get the consolation win.  Following that consolation game, the championship game was a high-speed skating affair from the get-go.  Both teams were energized and on the attack, and both teams scored within the first three minutes.  The pace continued into the second but BU held the shooting advantage in this frame, and bagged a goal five minutes into the period, and again with six minutes remaining.  While BU had taken charge and kept up the pressure throughout the second, Northeastern was in the game and clearly had not conceded anything.  The third started and after a minute or so it seemed that BU was approaching things differently; BU seemed to be in a strict defensive set, as if they were trying to protect their skimpy two-goal lead.  After laying back at the net on defense and then simply clearing their zone over and over again, BU gave up a turnover to Northeastern’s Kevin Roy, who seemingly skated the length of the ice not only untouched, but uncontested, as he went left around defenders at the net and scored to make it a 3-2 contest.  Only ninety seconds later, Northeastern’s Dustin Darou complete the erasure of the BU lead when the puck squirted out to the left of a massive pile of bodies in the crease, and he flipped it in the net.  Sort of created a whole new game at that point, with only nine minutes left. BU did wake up and pressed their play, but Northeastern was up to the task, and regulation ended with the two knotted at 3-3.  OT started with BU on the attack, winning the draw and immediately pressing as BU’s speedy Jack Eichel quickly passed to Danny O’Regan, which led to a Northeastern penalty for hooking O’Regan.  It didn’t take long after that, BU’s power play action focused on the right side of the zone, and Northeastern followed, forcing a puck fight, which BU won; the puck got to BU’s senior Evan Rodgrigues from Eichel, and Rodrigues found Matt Grzelcyk wide open at the left circle and Grzelcyk quickly fired a laser into the net for the 4-3 BU win; and it’s about time, as BU had not won a Beanpot in four long years.

Last weekend Quinnipiac had huge help from senior defenseman Danny Federico, of Acton, MA., who scored a goal in Friday night’s 2-2 tie with Yale and scored a goal in Saturday night’s 2-2 tie with Brown.  Federico is tied for 12th on the team in goals scored, with two, and is tied for llth in assists, with six.  Prior to Quinnipiac, he played for the Boston Junior Bruins of the EJHL, and he notched six goals and 54 assists in 91 games from 2008-2011.

His hometown of Acton is 21 miles northwest of Boston, and is between Lexington and Concord. Its 20 square miles are home to 22,000.  It was settled in 1639, and incorporated in 1735.  Its residents signed a list of grievances and sent it to King George III on October 3, 1774, and the town celebrates that day as Crown-Resitance Day, to this day.  A company of Acton Minutemen responded to Paul Revere’s ride in the early morning hours of April 19th, 1775, and fought at the battle of Lexington-Concord that day, led by Captain Isaac Davis, who lost his life in that battle that day.  While born in Lexington, Steve Carrell of “The Office” fame, grew up in Acton.

This weekend presents three top-twelve matchup scorchers, as #2 Mankato State will host #3 Michigan Tech for two games; Mankato State holds a one point lead over Michigan Tech in the WCHA standings at this time.  #5 Miami of Ohio will travel to play two games at #7 Denver, and in another heavy-weight NCHC top-twelve matchup, #6 Minnesota-Duluth will host two games against #8 Nebraska-Omaha.  Add to that, a top twelve team playing another ranked team, as #10 Quinnipiac will play one game at #16 Harvard.

This is the last weekend of regular season games for Atlantic Hockey, the ECAC, and Hockey East.  The NCHC and WCHA have this weekend and next weekend remaining, and the six have this weekend plus two more weekends remaining.

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

[table id=107 /] 

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

— Tom