College Hockey Update:  Last week featured a couple of top ten matches and Boston University managed a sweep of Boston College in a couple of very close games; BU moved up a couple of spots to #3 and BC moved down a couple of notches to #10 based on the first BU win only (the poll came out yesterday and the second game was last night).  In other top ten action, Harvard took it on the chin from Union College, and Harvard dropped four slots down to #6 (Harvard had lost to RPI the night before), and Union moved up a couple of pegs to #9 (Union had also beaten Dartmouth the night before).

Elsewhere, Penn State moved up three rungs to #1 after sweeping Michigan State; Denver edged down to #2 after splitting with Western Michigan; and Minnesota-Duluth edged down to #4 after splitting with St. Cloud State.  Mass-Lowell edged up to #5 after beating UMass-Amherst; Minnesota moved up a couple of spots to #7 after sweeping Michigan; and North Dakota edged down to #8 after splitting with Miami of Ohio.

Last weekend Penn State had huge help from their sophomore forward Chase Berger, of St. Louis MO, who scored a goal and added an assist in his team’s 5-2 win Friday night, and scored two goals in his team’s 5-3 win Saturday night, as they swept Michigan State.  The 6″0″ 195lb sophomore is third on his team in goals scored, with ten, and is eighth in assists, with eight.  As a freshman he was tied for second in goals with thirteen, and tied for tenth in assists with thirteen.  Penn State is really quite an amazing story this year as they have shot up to the #1 ranking and they are only midway through their fourth season in DI hockey.  At 16-2-1 they are the only team in the country with only two losses.  The next closest to this are three teams with only four losses, and six with five losses.  It certainly looks as though the hiring of Guy Gadowsky in the 2012-13 season was the right move.  It was their last year as a club team, and since then he has taken Penn State to successive season records of 8-26-2, then 18-15-4, and then 21-13-4.  And now they’ve got sixteen wins and it’s only mid-January!  Gadowsky was previously the coach of Alaska-Fairbanks from 1999-2004, and he coached the team to a twenty-win season in that stretch.  He coached Princeton from 2004-2011, producing two twenty-win seasons, and NCAA Tournament appearances in both of those seasons.  Penn State will host #11 Ohio State for two games this weekend.

In Friday night’s game a Michigan State power play goal got the scoring started two minutes into the first, but it was all Penn State after that as Chase Berger scored four minutes later to tie it at 1-1, and Vince Pedrie scored with three minutes left in the first to put Penn State up 2-1.  In the second Liam Folkes scored four minutes into the period to make it 3-1.  Michigan State did get a short-hander at the ten minute mark to make it 3-2.  In the third, Andrew Sturtz scored four minutes into the period to extend the lead to 4-2, and with six minutes left, David Goodwin scored the final goal to make it a 5-2 Penn State win.

In Saturday night’s game Michigan State scored the sole first period goal thirteen minutes into the period.  In the second, Chase Berger scored on a power play half a minute into the frame to tie it at one apiece.  But Michigan State scored on a power play with five minutes left to end the second with a 2-1 lead.  But in the third the dam broke and it was all Penn State, as Ricky DeRosa scored at the ten minute mark to tie it at 2-2, then Dylan Richard scored on a power play six minutes later to give Penn State its first lead at 3-2.  Then only nine seconds later Chase Berger scored to make it 4-2, and three minutes later Denis Smirnov scored on a 4×4 to give Penn State another 5-2 lead.  Michigan State did manage a final goal with only twelve seconds left, and Penn State won 5-3.

Last night I watched the second of the two games between BU and BC.  It was surprising to see two teams with a total of twelve members from the World Junior Championships, and see so little in the way of good scoring opportunities for so long — in fact, nearly the whole game. BU somehow managed to hang tough in their zone near the goal, almost always seeming to have a body in front of the puck.  When BC was on defense they seemed to be able to get the puck away from BU more often, and transition down to put offensive pressure on BU.  It made watching the game rather tense if you were rooting for BU.  Seven minutes into the second, a puck came from behind the net and near two BU players and it looked as if it would be another missed opportunity, but Patrick Curry managed to get a piece of it, skate out and fire one across the zone and high into the net, beating the BC goalie.  What ensued from there was essentially BU milking a one-goal lead.  Sheesh!  Then at the end of the third, BC ended up two men short, and Jacob Forsbacka Karlsson managed a shot, from the side and down very low, which went into the small space between the goalie’s back and the pipe, to make it 2-0 with only a minute left.  BC went back to four men on the ice and pulled their goalie to skate five-on-five, but with only fourteen seconds left, Bobo Carpenter found the empty net to make the final 3-0, a score that makes the win look a lot bigger than it seemed to be played.

This weekend there is a great top-ten matchup as #4 Minnesota-Duluth will travel to play two games at #8 North Dakota.  Should be a screamer!

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

[table id=143 /]

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

— Tom