College Hockey:

This Week in the NCHA/MCHA: Nov. 19, 2009

Another week brings another installment of the USCHO.com Division III men’s poll and in what is, as usual, no real shock, NCHA teams are all over the place.

Five in all grace this weeks edition, and once again St. Norbert is most newsworthy. The Green Knights two game sweep over the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point not only kept them in the top spot, but in the process they also sucked all the first place votes away from Plattsburgh and Oswego, neither of which lost last weekend. The Green Knights now lay claim to 16 of the 20 top tallies.

Two of the first place votes not going to St. Norbert were claimed by Adrian, and the Bulldogs remain in the five spot following a weekend sweep of Northland.

A three point weekend kicked UW-River Falls up two spots to sixth, and St. Scholastica, Stout and Superior fall into Nos. 8, 9, and 14, respectively. Interestingly, St. Scholasticas two spot jump was enough to leapfrog Stout even though the two played to a pair of draws last week.

This is the second week in a row that three MCHA teams have received votes, but after a 0-2 weekend the Milwaukee School of Engineering is no longer one of them. With two wins over those same Raiders, Marian snuck in with three tallies and in the process became the fourth MCHA team to receive votes this season. Lawrence lost to Superior but picked up a single vote and is still hanging on.

What does all this mean? Not much, but its pretty impressive that 10 of the 15 NCHA and MCHA teams have received votes at some point this season.

Objects In Your Mirror

One glance at the MCHA standings and everything looks pretty much in order. Adrian is undefeated and at the top while the five teams (Lawrence, Lake Forest, MSOE, Finlandia and Marian) that follow are those that were expected to battle it out for second through sixth this season.

A second glance, however, reveals one peculiarity: Marian is 2-2 and tied for fifth with Finlandia. Marian was picked second in the preseason coaches poll so seeing it in the bottom half the league is a little surprisingor is it?

The Sabres were roughed up in Adrian on opening weekend and came out on the short end of 4-1 and 9-1 drubbings. So while the 0-2 start wasnt aesthetically pleasing, losing to Adrian early isnt a relative setback considering the Bulldogs have yet to be beaten by any other MCHA team.

It gave us an idea of where we were at and what we needed to work on, said head coach Jasen Wise. Any time you play Adrian its a great measuring stick to see where youre as far as the national radar goes. If you have weaknesses they will expose them.

Things didnt get much easier for the Sabres last weekend as they faced a home-and-home series with MSOE, the preseason fourth place selection by the MCHA coaches.

When the weekend concluded, the Sabres had scored 3-1 and 4-3 wins. Wise was especially pleased considering MSOE took three of four in the series last year and, like Marian, is expected to be in the hunt for playoff home ice. It was the first weekend sweep over MSOE by Marian since January of 2008.

On Friday, the Sabres were outshot 26-11 through two periods but tallied twice in the third period to break a 1-1 deadlock and score the 3-1 win. A bit more experienced than they have been the past few years, Wise thinks it paid off late in Fridays contest.

I dont know if we would have won it last year, Wise said. Based on last year [MSOE] probably would have won that. Its definitely not the way we want to start out a game. They outplayed us for the first period and a half to two periods.

Saturday was a different story as the Sabres tallied three times in the opening 10 minutes and led 3-1 after the first period. They extended the lead to 4-1 midway through the second and held on for the 4-3 win.

We didnt change anything from a tactical standpoint, Wise said. We just talked about coming out and matching the third period intensity from Fridays game. We ended things well on Friday and we wanted to carry that over.

A bright spot on the weekend was the play of freshman netminder Alex Bjerk. He turned back 62 of 66 spots on the weekend, and performed admirably all season.

Hes played excellent. I thought we hung him out to dry a little bit in the second game with Adrian. We didnt help him out at all in that game, but aside from that hes kept us in some games. His job is to give us an opportunity to win and hes done that, Wise said.

While the Sabres stand at 2-2, there is no doubt they arent flying under the radar on anyone in the MCHA. Adrian and MSOE are two of the top teams in the league and Marian will not see either again in the regular season.

In a way its kind of nice. The big thing is that we got the sweep over MSOE. It would have been nice to get at least a split with Adrian, but any time you face teams like [MSOE and Adrian] you have to prepare all week for them. You better be on your game and do everything well in order to get the win.

Up next, Marian hosts a two game set with aforementioned Finlandia, who also stands at 2-2 in MCHA play. The Sabres went 4-0 against the Lions a year ago.

They are big games and we have to beat them, Wise said. If we want playoff home ice and want to compete for a conference title we have to win games at home. Its a great opportunity to play them at home and try to get the two wins.

Sorry, Stout

If one were to look at the Fan Forum this week, it is obvious one of the hot topics is what went down near the end of last Saturdays Stout-St. Scholastica game in Duluth. For those who are not yet aware, here are the basics of it:

In the final minute of overtime in a 1-1 game, Stout forward Joel Gaulrapp and St. Scholastica goaltender Zach Kleiman made contact. Both hit the ice, and as Gaulrapp and Kleiman both got up and struggle to rejoin the play, the Blue Devils hold the zone at the near left point and ultimately work the puck to forward Derek Hanson in the low slot. Hanson patiently waits and beats Kleiman short side to give Stout the 2-1 conference win. Or not.

The Stout celebration ensued and the Blue Devils lined up for the postgame handshake, but citing possible goaltender interference the goal was nearly immediately protested by the Saints.

After a lengthy meeting with the Saints bench, and with both coaches standing at center ice, the officials had about a two minute conference of their own near the scorers table. The ultimate decision? Man in the crease, no goal. The final 44.7 seconds of overtime played out and the game ended in a 1-1 tie.

As expected, everyone has an opinion of what went down, and as usual those opinions often seem to hinge on which team one happens to support. The difference between the usual issues with officiating and this instance, however, is that video of the incident has been posted publicly.

If you havent seen it, here it is. Video is courtesy of Stout radio broadcaster Matt Kaskavitch.

UW-Stout’s Overtime Goal At CSS (Called Back) from Matthew Kaskavitch on Vimeo.

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