Wow!  There are four weekends remaining in the regular season, and the top ranked teams are, as I suspected six weeks ago they would be, looking a lot different than they were on January 1st.  Who do you think will be in the Frozen Four this year, given the directions teams have been going these past six weeks?  The story right now is the steady powerful teams, and the hot streaking teams.  Quinnipiac is both — after sweeping their weekend against Cornell and Colgate, they are now ranked #1 for the frist time in their history.  They are unbeaten since November 6th.  #2 Minnesota split with #8 St. Cloud State; in their weekend series Minnesota showed Friday night they were ranked #1 for a good reason, while Saturday night St. Cloud State showed they were for real, and that they had earned very well all the recent accolades from the esteemed College Hockey Update . . . .  Another barn-burner was #3 Miami of Ohio and it’s very bi-polar weekend with #6 Western Michigan —  Friday night Western Michigan shut out Miami, and Saturday night Miami shut out Western Michigan.  Hockey East rescheduled all Friday and Saturday games as a result of the snowstorm, leaving #4 Boston College with one game Monday night, and BC prevailed over Northeastern 6-3 to take their fourth consecutive Beanpot Championship.  In the early game, #13 Boston University lost for the second time in a couple of weeks to Harvard, and this time it wasn’t close.  Talk about a team in a tailspin!  The beanpot games were played after this week’s poll came out.

#5 UNH continues to be a team on a slide, settling on a tie with Providence on Sunday, and then losing to Providence last night, again, after this week’s poll came out.  #7 North Dakota swept #16 Nebraska-Omaha — one of these games was played outdoors in the College World Series Stadium in Omaha.  #9 Mankato State swept Minnesota-Duluth — Mankato and it’s sister-school St. Cloud State have been red-hot since the Christmas Break.  It appears that these two teams are headed to closing this season with top-notch records, high rankings, and that they are going to be well prepared for play in their conference and the NCAA tournaments.  #10 Yale lost to Brown Tuesday night, after this week’s poll came out.

#11 Denver seems to be battling between righting the ship, and trying to right the ship as they split with Colorado College.  #12 Notre Dame might have righted their ship with a rather convincing sweep of Michigan, and #15 Niagra followed in the footsteps of Miami/Western Michigan by trading shutouts with Canisius.  #17 Dartmouth tied Harvard, #18 Wisconsin tied and beat Bemidji State, #19 Merrimack beat UMass-Amherst, and #20 Alakska Fairbanks split with Ohio State. #14 UMass-Lowell was idle.

So what’s up this weekend?  Looking at the schedule, #1 Quinnipiac does not face a top twenty opponent.  But one might wonder how long this unbeaten streak can continue — it’s not unheard of, but it sure is rare that it could go this long.  It’s intersting to note that when the streak was underway early on, their goalie, Eric Hartzell, of White Bear Lake, MN, said in an interview “We’re not going to lose any more games.”  A rather intersting quote, but one he’s worked hard to make come true.  Eric Hartzell is the son of Kevin Hartzell, who played for Herb Brooks at the University of Minnesota, scoring 52 goals his last three years, 27 in his junior year alone, and has thirteen years of coaching USHL teams.  Kind of  a hockey family.  The Quinnipiac goals-against-average up to November 6 was 2.0; since that time it has been 1.43.  Hartzell’s average on the season is 1.46, and he has a .936 saves percentage.  Nice numbers!  Plus, Quinnipiac is 14-0-2 in the ECAC and they have an eleven point lead on the 2nd place team; their lead is so huge that should they win both games this weekend, they will lock up the ECAC regular season title.  But is there a snake in the grass (think about it — snake on the ice/under the ice just doesn’t work, does it?) coming up for Quinnipiac and Hartzell?  They might be best not to look the other way this weekend when they face St. Lawrence, now ranked #25 in the country.  This team was 7-9-0 going into the Christmas break, and is now 13-11-4, having gone 6-2-4 since the break, and importantly, 5-1-2 in their last eight outings — a streak of their own!  Add to this that St. Lawrence will put Greg Carey on the ice Friday night — he’s #1 in the nation in scoring, #1 in points, and he’s #2 in power play goals.  Carey’s teammate, Kyle Flanagan, is #6 in the nation in scoring and #2 in assists, and the pair play on the same line for the team.  I don’t know if I am going as far as to say St. Lawrence will win, but I am going to say this matchup should be a whole lot better than one might think just looking at the schedule and the records of the two teams.  Special thanks to our contributing field reporters, Bruce Carlisle, for pointing me to the subplot of this Friday night game, and John McLean for pointing me in the direction of the Quinnipiac/Hartzell subplot.  The two coming together could be quite a show.

Elsewhere, #2 Minnesota will play a home/road pair with #18 Wisconsin, and #3 Miami will do likewise with #12 Notre Dame — this is a chance for Notre Dame to demonstrate whether they have righted their ship, or if they’re still trying to do so, as is the case with Denver.  Miami is admittedly a tall order for this test.  And #4 Boston College will travel to play #19 Merrimack, and then host #5 New Hampshire.  Seems like a critical game for the Wildcats of New Hampshire as they have been dropping a number of games lately.

This provides the top twenty teams, rankings, records, and the most recent results:

[table id=60 /]

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

— Tom