College Hockey:

This Week in the CCHA: March 19, 2009

Get Down to It

Congratulations to the four teams in Detroit this weekend for the CCHA tournament. Two teams had to earn their way to The Joe by playing three games. Two teams posted two shutout wins each, one with a shutout sweep of its opponent. One team had to win on the road.

Already the CCHA postseason is interesting.

Here’s a look at the field of four representing the states of Alaska, Indiana and Michigan.

The stats are overall. Stats that follow the slash in each list indicate at team’s ranking among CCHA opponents in overall play. Head-to-head matches are to the right.

No. 1 Notre Dame

Overall record: 29-5-3
Last 10 games: 9-1-0
Goals scored per game: 3.43/2nd
Goals allowed per game: 1.65/1st
Power play percentage: 23.7/1st
Penalty kill percentage: 89.3/2nd
Top scorer: Erik Condra (13-24-37)
Top goal scorer: Christian Hanson (16-14-30)
Top goaltender: Jordan Pearce (.934 SV%, 1.62 GAA)

The Fighting Irish come to Detroit in impressive style; Notre Dame shut out Nebraska-Omaha twice last week, beating UNO 5-0 and 1-0. Senior goaltender Jordan Pearce was perfect, turning aside all 60 shots he faced in the two games.

“I watch him now and he competes as hard as any goalie I’ve ever coached,” said Irish head coach Jeff Jackson after Pearce’s second shutout in a row. “It’s just his nature. It’s a great trait in a goalie to be emotionally under control.

“Tonight, he just looked like he wasn’t going to give up a goal. He had that look about him, that confidence, like there was nothing getting by him.”

There isn’t much getting by Pearce, period. In his last five outings, Pearce has allowed just one goal. That’s four shutouts in five games, dating back to Feb. 21. Three of those goose eggs came at the expense of UNO.

In his last 299:59 minutes of play, Pearce’s goals-against average is 0.20 with a save percentage of .971. Never mind that all of that play came against UNO and Michigan State. Completely shutting down teams that have no business scoring on them is something good goalies should do, and something few do.

In Notre Dame’s 20-game unbeaten streak (Oct. 30-Jan. 31, 17-0-3), Pearce was the goalie of record with a 1.36 GAA and .944 save percentage in that span. He has eight shutouts this season, 12 in his career.

But the Irish are no one-man show. In fact, Notre Dame is very much a committee. Six different ND players scored the six goals in last weekend’s sweep of UNO: Ryan Guentzel, Billy Maday, Calle Ridderwall, Ben Ryan, Ryan Thang and Justin White. That’s three sophomores, one freshman, one junior and one senior.

Notre Dame is the whole package in every sense of the word. The Irish can score, they can defend, they’re excellent on special teams and they have the ability to change up their style of play to match an opponents — or shut one down.

Head coach Jeff Jackson is 32-7 all-time in CCHA postseason play. With last week’s wins, Jackson now has 101 in his four years as the Notre Dame head coach.

No. 2 Michigan

Overall record: 28-10-0
Last 10 games: 9-1-0
Goals scored per game: 3.68/1st
Goals allowed per game: 2.00/3rd
Power play percentage: 16.0/5th
Penalty kill percentage: 88.1/4th
Top scorer: Aaron Palushaj (12-36-48)
Top goal scorer: Louie Caporusso (23-23-46)
Top goaltender: Bryan Hogan (.917 SV%, 1.89 GAA)

The Wolverines are the other balanced team in this field of four. Although Bryan Hogan didn’t manage back-to-back shutout victories, he did limit Western Michigan to three goals in two games as UM outscored WMU 11-3.

After sweeping the Broncos, UM head coach Red Berenson delivered his usual mastery of understatement.

“It was a good game for us tonight, a good start again,” said Berenson after Saturday’s 6-1 win. “We got an important first goal and we were lucky this weekend. We were good, but we were lucky. We got the bounces. We scored those last-minute goals, just about last-second goals, three of them this weekend. Those are back-breakers.”

Last weekend, Michigan scored goals with less than two minutes to play in three of six periods, excluding the empty-netter Friday. Carl Hagelin’s shorthanded goal at 19:58 of the first gave UM a 3-0 lead. David Wohlberg scored at 19:57 of the first period Saturday for a 3-0 Michigan lead, while Aaron Palushaj’s goal at 19:35 in the second made it 4-1.

While Saturday’s game was perhaps as lopsided as it looked, Friday’s contest was nowhere near a done deal after one. In spite of the back-breaking, late first-period goal to make it 3-0 Friday, the Broncos came back with two of their own in the second period, including a late one at 18:24.

The key to the sweep may have been those last-minute goals, as Berenson said, but the relentlessness with which Michigan pursued the Broncos — especially Friday, when WMU fulfilled that old hockey cliche and left everything on the ice — is what earned them the sweep.

The hard-working Wolverines are 19-3-0 since the start of December, having averaged 4.2 goals per game in that stretch. During that span, Bryan Hogan is 16-3-0, while Billy Sauer is 3-0-0.

Michigan’s overpowering offense — balanced, fast, transitional — is its biggest strength. Six different Wolverines have reached the double-digit goal plateau, and 12 veteran players have matched or beaten their own single-season high for goals.

The Wolverines are the defending CCHA tournament champions and have captured eight post-season titles, all under the direction of Berenson.

No. 3 Alaska

Overall record: 17-14-6
Last 11 games: 6-5-0
Goals scored per game: 1.97/11th
Goals allowed per game: 1.70/2nd
Power play percentage: 9.9/12th
Penalty kill percentage: 88.2/3rd
Top scorer: Dion Knelson (10-12-22)
Top goal scorer: Dion Knelson
Top goaltender: Chad Johnson (.939 SV%, 1.67 GAA)

Even though the Nanooks needed three games to down the Buckeyes, Alaska twice shut out one of the top offenses in the nation to do so. Senior goaltender Chad Johnson sandwiched UAF’s 4-2 loss last weekend between 4-0 and 1-0 shutouts.

In doing so, Johnson tied former Nanook goaltender Wylie Rogers’ career shutout record with seven; six of Johnson’s shutouts are from this season alone. In three games last weekend, Johnson stopped 94-of-98 shots for a 1.35 goals-against average and .959 save percentage.

UAF won the series in the last possible minute of regulation when freshman Ron Meyer netted his fourth goal of the season at 19:10 in the third period Sunday night to win the Nanooks a trip to Detroit.

Junior Dion Knelsen scored two goals on the weekend, bringing him to a team-leading 10 goals on the season.

The Nanooks are making their third appearance in the CCHA championship tournament, and they rode a wave of defense to Detroit all season long. In addition to Johnson in net, the Nanooks have talented a talented but young blue line, with only senior Steve Vanoosten and junior Dustin Molle as the lone upperclassmen.

If the Nanooks are to be successful, they’ll need to get a top performance from the blue line back; while they beat Ohio State in three games, they netted just seven goals total in the contest, averaging slightly better than their season-long average of about two goals per game.

No. 4 Northern Michigan

Overall record: 18-16-5
Last 11 games: 7-3-1
Goals scored per game: 2.77/6th
Goals allowed per game: 2.59/6th
Power play percentage: 13.8/8th
Penalty kill percentage: 82.1/10th
Top scorer: Mark Olver (16-19-35)
Top goal scorer: Mark Olver
Top goaltender: Brian Stewart (.924 SV%, 2.33 GAA)

The fourth seed in the field is another team that rides excellent goaltending into Detroit — but don’t tell that to junior Brian Stewart, who credits NMU’s “offense” and “team mentality” for a solid second half that led to Jo