Your team might be holding its own, but the story right now continues to be the surprising slide of a few highly-ranked teams, and the strong performance of a handful of teams in the lower ranks of the poll.

Let’s start off with the top matchups from last week, and then we’ll get into this story — no, wait, getting into the top matchups walks us right into it, so here goes.  #1 Minnesota split the weekend with #15 Mankato State — Mankato has piled up a bunch of wins and has a solid record, and should it continue, they could end up having a great season.  Our next featured matchup is #12 St. Cloud State, continuing on its roll as it beat and tied #7 North Dakota.  Same idea as Mankato here.

Let’s take a look at the other two teams in this group of four — they are ranked #12 through #15.  #14 Nebraska-Omaha tacked on another two wins to their record by sweeping Bemidji State, and UMass-Lowell’s winning streak came to an end, but only with a tie, as they tied and beat Northeastern over the weekend.  These seem to be four teams to watch right now, and with three of the four in the WCHA, things should be really heating up there in these last six weeks as these three teams press for prime positions in the WCHA tourament.  Oh, and the hottest team of all, #2 Quinnipiac, was idle over the weekend.

What do you know about St. Cloud State and Mankato State?  FYI, they are both approximately an hour away from Minneapolis, St. Cloud to the Northwest of Minneapolis, and Mankato in the warmer, sunny climes to the Southwest of Minneapolis.  This is the line I am fed by the folks I know from Northern Minnesota, and sure enough, the temperatures at the time of this writing are 27 in St. Cloud, and a balmy 28 in Mankato.  They are both pretty old schools, with St. Cloud established in 1869, and Mankato established in 1868.  And they are about the same size, with about 17,000 at St. Cloud, and about 16,000 at Mankato.  And right now they are playing solid hockey, and making it interesting.  Both schools are located in what I’d call good-sized smaller towns, with about 45,000 in Mankato, and about 66,000 in St. Cloud.

Then there is the story of the sliders, particularly since Christmas break.  #9 Notre Dame might be having the toughest go, but managed to get a split with Ferris State last weekend.  #11 Boston University has been in about the same straights as Notre Dame, and managed to get a win and a tie against Providence over the weekend.  #5 Boston College dropped two more over the weekend to Maine, and while that looks very bad for them, this is the team that is the most likely to just be playing possum right now — they will be back and ready come playoff time.  Denver, which has slid considerably, was idle over the weekend.  Throw into this group possibly New Hampshire, which split the weekend with Merrimack — seems this should have been a sweep for the Wildcats.  New Hampshire dropped a 3-2 decision to Merrimack at Merrimack, but was hot the next night in New Hampshire as they won 6-2, and spread the puck around well, getting six goals from six different players.

#4 Miami of Ohio swept Bowling Green (a team that had been causing a lot of heartache for ranked teams the last few weeks), and Western Michigan jumped up to #6 after sweeping Michigan.  #8 Yale split its weekend, beating Cornell, and losing to Colgate.  #16 Dartmouth also split its weekend, losing to St. Lawrence, but beating Clarkson, while #17 Niagra tied and beat RIT.  #18 Union beat RPI, #19 Wisconsin swept Alaska-Anchorage, and #20 Alaska-Fairbanks swept Northern Michigan.

This weekend there are a number of top twenty matchups, starting with #2 Quinnipiac taking the eleven-mile drive to #8 Yale for one game, and #4 Miami of Ohio will host #20 Alaska-Fairbanks for two games.  #7 North Dakota will host #19 Wisconsin for two games, and #16 Dartmouth will travel to play at #18 Union for one game — this game is Friday at 4pm Pacific Time, and will be broadcast on the NBC Sports Channel.  Some games of note that are not top twenty matchups, but get into good rivalry territory, are Michigan hosting Michigan State Friday night, and the two play Saturday night at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.  Then Monday night the first round of the Beanpot Tourament in Boston takes place.  Northeastern and Boston University play in the early game, with Harvard and Boston College playing in the late game.  Both BC and BU are teams on slides right now, so this opening round is both tricky, and should be interesting, to see how each team handles it, as both BC and BU would probably like to win and get the opportunity to play each other the following week as a possible marker for getting back on track.

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

[table id=58 /]

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

— Tom