This week’s top ten stays intact with some minor shuffling, except for one school.  Six of the top ten played each other and there was one sweep among the three matchups.  Of the remaining four in the top ten, all four swept the weekend for two wins.

Let’s start with the top ten head to head matchups.  #2 Boston University faced last week’s#7, New Hampshire and split the weekend; BU remains at #2, and UNH is now ranked #6.  #4 Nebraska-Omaha split with last week’s #8, North Dakota; UNO remains ranked #4, and the Sioux dropped to #9 in the rankings.  Both of these two games were close, with North Dakota winning 6-5 Friday, and UNO barely beating the buzzer to break a 0-0 deadlock and take home the 1-0 win.  Boston College seems to have woken up from their nap, as they had their way twice with Maine, ranked #3 last week; BC climbed from #10 to #7, and sent Maine tumbling from #3 to #10 in the rankings.

Minnesota-Duluth, Yale, Miami of Ohio, and Michigan all swept the weekend.  Minnesota Duluth swept Wisconsin, but it took a  pair of OT performances, winning the first of the two with only eleven seconds remaining in OT.  UMD remains #1 in the rankings, the first time in 25 years they have been ranked #1 in consecutive weeks.

Minnesota Duluth is an interesting story because they have NOT changed coaches.  Scott Sandelin is in his eleventh year, so this rise to prominence is far from a coaching change overnight sensation.  In fact, he has compiled a losing record to date, and has losing records in six of the ten previous years.  But this year he has a team that has won 22 games in each of the last two seasons, and features five seniors; two years back UMD made it to the NCAA tournament, and they won their first round game.  They have a high scoring trio of their own in senior Justin Fontaine and juniors Mike Connolly and Travis Oleksuk, all three of whom have scored nine goals each, for 27 of the team total of 57 goals.  Over the weekend Connolly scored one of the team’s six goals on Friday night; on Saturday night, Fontaine scored one of the team’s three goals and the other two were scored by Olkesuk, including the OT game winner.  What an Autumn for Minnesota-Duluth sports; their football team is in the DII football playoffs and will face the mighty Huskies of St. Cloud State on Saturday at noon!  These guys are more than just hockey rivals!

So what is up this weekend?  There are a total of only 18 conference games to played over the weekend.  There are three tournaments/showcases featuring some great non-conference matchups.  Here’s a good one — Saturday night #9 North Dakota faces #11 Notre Dame in North Dakota.  Also, Wisconsin and Minnesota will each host the pair of Michigan and Michigan State on Friday, then Saturday night.   So the #8 Woverines will travel to face the #15 and 16 teams (as will Michigan State, currently ranked #22).

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

 [table id=5 /]

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

 — Tom