College Hockey Update:  Last week featured one top ten matchup as North Dakota held on to its lead late in the game to fend off Boston College for a narrow win, which edged North Dakota up to #8, and BC down  to #4 (BC had also beaten Northeastern the previous Tuesday).  Elsewhere, Denver remained at #2 after sweeping Colorado College, Penn State leaped up four spots to #3 after sweeping Michigan, and Boston University edged up to #5 after managing a win and a tie against Providence College.  Harvard moved up two pegs to #6 after beating St. Lawrence and Clarkson, Quinnipiac dropped a couple of slots to #7 after beating RPI and losing to Union, UMass-Lowell dropped five notches to #9 after suffering a loss to, and settling on a tie with, Connecticut, and Ohio State held at #10 after splitting with Minnesota.  An idle Minnesota-Duluth held onto the #1 spot.

Penn State is quite a story this season, and on that team, there is quite a story in their sophomore forward Andrew Sturtz, of Buffalo, NY, who scored two goals in his team’s 6-1 win over Michigan Thursday night, and scored another goal in his team’s 5-1 win over Michigan Friday night.  The 5’8″ 185lb Sturtz is first on his team in goals scored, with thirteen, and is tied for fifteenth in assists, with two.  As a freshman last year he was first on the team in goals scored, with eighteen, and he was tied for twelfth in assists, with nine.  Penn State is now 13-1-1, ranked #3, and has an eleven game winning streak, and a thirteen game unbeaten streak, going back to its sole loss to St. Lawrence on October 7th.  Penn State takes off the remainder of December and resumes play when they travel to play two games at Ohio State on January 6 and 7; Ohio State is currently ranked #10

Last Thursday night Penn State hosted Michigan, and Sturtz got things started eight minutes into the first to give Penn State a 1-0 lead they took into the break.  In the second it was all Penn State as Liam Folkes scored five minutes into the frame, Trevor Hamilton scored on a power play ten minutes later, and Ricky DeRosa scored with two minutes left to give Penn State a 4-0 lead they took into the break.  In the third Sturtz scored again twelve minutes into the period.  Michigan struck back only thirty seconds later, but a power play goal by Eric Autio with four minutes left gave Penn State the final 6-1 advantage.  Penn State badly outshot Michigan in all three periods, and the final shot tally was 48 for Penn State and 29 for Michigan.

Friday night Penn State again welcomed Michigan to its ice, and James Robinson scored four minutes into the period to put Penn State up 1-0.  Michigan scored one minute later to tie it at one apiece, but a Trevor Hamilton power play goal twelve minutes later, follwed by a Denis Smirnov goal with two minutes left in the first gave Penn State a 3-1 lead they took into the break.  The second saw relatively even play and neither team scored.  Andrew Sturtz scored only twenty-four seconds into the third on a five-on-three power play, and a Brandon Brio goal with fifteen minutes remaining in the game was the final score, which gave Penn State the 5-1 win.  Penn State outshot Michigan in all three periods, but by an avalanche in the first and third periods, to give them a 58-23 shot advantage.  These are not typos.  Penn State got 48 shots off Thursday night, and 58 off Friday night.

This weekend features a real top-ten scorcher as #1 Minnesota-Duluth travels to play two games at #2 Denver.  Who wouldn’t want to see that live?  This weekend presents a full slate of games being played before the Christmas wind-down.  The following weekend will only feature a total of about ten games being played, with none then being played on Christmas weekend.

This provides the top ten teams, rankings, records, and last week’s results:

[table id=138 /]

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

— Tom