Each week, USCHO.com will pick the top 10 moments from the past weekend in our Monday 10 feature.
1) Gophers sweep undermanned Michigan
At a surface level, the Minnesota-Michigan series was always going to capture headlines regardless of the outcome, but nobody could have foreseen or foreshadowed the layers and surreality of what occurred at Yost Ice Arena over the two-game sweep by the second-ranked Gophers, who moved into first place in the Big Ten by taking the six available points.
Minnesota outscored the No. 3 Wolverines by an 11-5 margin over the two nights, but Michigan gutted through the weekend without a full roster. Six skaters were down due to an illness that sapped the line chart on Thursday night, and while five remained out of the lineup on Friday, Eric Ciccolini was forced to miss the second game after suffering an injury the night before.
It didn’t stop the Wolverines from gutting out two tight periods on Thursday, but a protocol violation at the start of the third gifted Minnesota a 5-on-3 advantage that helped produce an insurance goal in a one-goal game. It ultimately wouldn’t matter after Luke Mittelstadt scored four minutes later in what became a 5-2 win.
Minnesota rode that wave into Friday’s second game, where a more decisive 6-3 game featured two three-goal leads in the second period before Michigan clawed to within two in the third period.
2) Northeastern gains signature win, BU gains two points
One of the biggest criticisms facing the early part of Northeastern’s season centered on the Huskies’ lack of a signature victory. They had swept New Hampshire at the start of the month, but poor results against Maine and Boston College kept them out of Hockey East’s top three spots with a weekend home-and-home against Boston University looming. The Terriers, meanwhile, unquestionably looked up at the rest of the conference but carried enough weight from splits against Connecticut and UMass-Lowell and a six-point weekend against UMass to draw favored status to start the series.
That assessment overlooked Northeastern’s skill, but despite gaining a signature win with a 2-0 shutout at Agganis Arena, not much else could be decided in the series split. The Huskies gained a fourth point by going to overtime on Saturday, but the Terriers trailed twice in that game before Ryan Greene scored halfway through the third period and Lane Hutson scored halfway through overtime to give BU a two-point weekend.
It was the kind of gritty performance that had people envisioning a future, elimination matchup between the two teams. Stellar goaltending, timely goals, and packed houses made for an incredible atmosphere, and both teams walked away with enough to justify success while simultaneously working through more areas of improvement.
3) North Dakota on the verge of falling out of rankings?
The herky-jerky start to North Dakota’s season continued this weekend when the 19th-ranked team in the nation, which had been clinging to the rankings despite a 4-5-2 record, found its position threatened with peril after Miami rallied to win, 4-3, on Saturday night at Ralph Engelstad Arena.
It was a night after North Dakota dominated the RedHawks with a 7-1 win, but after six different players scored on Friday, the Fighting Hawks watched Miami score twice in the first period and once in the second to stake a 3-0. North Dakota battled back with goals from Riese Gaber and Gavin Hain, but after Jackson Blake tied the score at 3-3 in the third period, Jack Clement scored for the first time this season to lift Miami to its first win in NCHC play.
The win over Miami might offer enough to buoy North Dakota in the national polls, but the home split kept the Fighting Hawks in the bottom three of the early NCHC standings. They’ll step out of league play for a home-and-home with Bemidji State this weekend, but a key stretch looms with road games at both St. Cloud and Western Michigan to close the first half of the season.
4) Minnesota State’s CCHA streak ends
It’s been common, custom practice to watch Minnesota State dominate and destroy parts of its conference over the past decade, which is why it’s still surprising to watch the Mavericks lose a game, even in overtime, against a league opponent. The seven-time regular season champions in the WCHA and CCHA over the last eight years, Minnesota State won its four games over Bowling Green and St. Thomas before hosting Northern Michigan this past weekend.
They still took four points, but the Wildcats’ 3-2 win in overtime on Friday was the first time the Mavericks felt themselves challenged. They took a 2-0 lead with help from Lucas Sowder’s power play goal in the second period, but dual goals from Artem Shlaine and AJ Vanderbeck tied the game at 2-2 before the middle frame ended. After a scoreless third, Vanderbeck scored past the three-minute mark of overtime to give NMU the extra point in a game played before 4,300-plus fans in Mankato.
The universe righted itself on Saturday, but the loss on Friday was the first conference defeat for Minnesota State since January 14 of last season, also to Northern Michigan. It was the first regular season home loss since a 3-1 defeat to St. Cloud in October, 2021, though the team hasn’t lost a regular season conference home game in regulation since Lake Superior defeated them by a 1-0 count on January 19, 2019.
5) The autumn wind is a Raider
Standing pat in ECAC play is sometimes good enough to sneak a team into the conversation for the top four spots, but Colgate did itself one better this weekend by sweeping Brown and Yale with a pair of resounding victories over the visiting travel partners from Southern New England.
The first came on Friday night when a comeback against the Bears spurred the Raiders to a 3-2 overtime victory. Matt Verboon started the game off with a 1-0 lead for the hosts, but Ryan Bottrill and Bradley Cocca tallied second period goals off assists from Jackson Munro to give Brown a 2-1 lead into the third period. Halfway through the frame, Ben Ryamond tied the game off an assist from Owen Neuharth, and Colton Young, a third goal scorer on the night, scored 3:30 into overtime to give Colgate an extra point in a comeback win over its ECAC counterparts from the Ivy League subset.
One night later, Colgate opened up an 8-0 lead over the first 54 minutes of game play with goals from six different scorers. Nic Belpedio bookended the team’s offensive output with a pair of goals, and Alex DiPaolo followed it up with two goals of his own, while Verboon added a second power play goal and Ethan Manderville, Alex Young, and Levi Glasman all scored once.
The five points amassed pushed the Raiders into fourth place of the young season, one point ahead of Union and a Clarkson team that swept Arizona State in non-conference play. They’ll step out of conference play this weekend with a road series at Niagara before returning to ECAC play with home games against Dartmouth and Harvard to start December.
6) Speaking of Clarkson…
It’s no secret that the start of the season wasn’t ideal for a preseason favorite in ECAC, but after losing five of seven games in October, the Golden Knights surged into their non-conference series against the Sun Devils by sweeping Colgate and Cornell with an offensive explosion last week. This past weekend, they beat Arizona State with a pair of tight victories highlighted by stingy defense and advanced goaltending from Ethan Haider.
The junior didn’t have to make 30 saves, but after his defense covered for him in the sweep one week ago, he contributed 56 saves across two games while allowing four goals in total in the two wins. It anchored the back end, which allowed the front end to take the 2-1 win on Friday after Alex Campbell scored twice, the latter coming with less than 20 seconds remaining in the third period. One night later, a gritty, bruising affair led to a 5-3 win that featured two ties and two one-goal spots in the second and third period. Four different Knights scored, led by two goals from Jacob Schmidt-Svejstrup, and Anthony Callin, Ayrton Martino and Mathieu Gosselin all contributed multiple points for a team that’s now won five in a row.
It sets up a potentially explosive weekend in two weeks when the Knights head south to play Princeton, its longest road trip, and Quinnipiac, the prohibitive favorite in the early runnings of the conference after it remained undefeated in ECAC play this past week.
7) Independents batter non-Division I teams
Arizona State was one of two exceptions this week as the entire independent roster of Division I hockey stepped outside the D-I ranks for a number of games. The Sun Devils’ sweep loss aside, Lindenwood played out at Wisconsin and gave the Badgers fits in a one-goal loss on Friday before dropping a 5-1 decision on Saturday. Alaska, meanwhile, was the lone team to experience some success against a Division I opponent after the Nanooks beat ECAC’s Rensselaer, 3-1, before tying, 3-3, with RPI winning an otherwise-meaningless shootout.
The rest of the D-I independents played out their games against either lower division teams or high-level club hockey teams with a marked success rate. Stonehill and LIU continued their respective runs by playing Division II teams out of the Northeast-10 Conference, with the Skyhawks defeating Post University, 5-2, and the Sharks beating Assumption, 5-1.
Alaska Anchorage rounded out the weekend by beating UNLV and Liberty in games played in Las Vegas with a combined 12-2 output. Playing a Wednesday-Thursday schedule, the Seawolves beat the host Rebels first by a 3-1 margin before decimating the Flames, 9-1, in a second exhibition game.
8) Ten-Hut!
Atlantic Hockey has long been the home of a parity race for seeding, but the switch to an eight-team playoff meant the conference playoff race placed even more premiums on early-season games that could now potentially decide a team’s playoff fate.
Such was the case at Army West POint, at least, where the Black Knights of the Hudson swept Bentley behind Justin Evenson’s hot goaltending. The senior firstie made 33 saves on Friday before shutting down the Falcons’ offense in the third period of Saturday’s game, and Army walked out of its home arena with six points after beating Bentley, 2-0 and 5-2. Joey Baez, meanwhile, carried the proverbial artillery on the offensive end with two goals on Saturday, the latter of which was the go-ahead goal in the third period of a 2-2 game, while Anthony Firriolo scored on Friday night in what essentially was a 1-0 game with an empty net goal.
The six points can’t be overstated for their impact on an Atlantic Hockey race where two teams are running away with the early season standings. Both RIT and Sacred Heart have a combined 46 points and 15 wins, and the five point gap between fourth place and fifth place Holy Cross separates the home ice quarterfinal teams from a grouping of six teams battling for four spots. Army’s six point weekend included its first league wins of the season and pushed the Black Knights right back into the playoff hunt, while Bentley fell into 10th.
Even if there’s a whole half-season left, the gap at the top of the conference makes it more likely that games in November will impact the second half race even more than simple math might feel.
9) Eddie the Eagle returns home
I grew up loving Ed Belfour in the early 1990s. I thought his eagle-themed mask was the coolest thing that didn’t involve Andy Moog, and the Chicago Blackhawks oozed cool thanks to a goaltender who was a little weird like me. I really came of age by watching both him and the New York Rangers, and it broke my heart when he was traded to San Jose, which felt like hockey’s equivalent of another planet to a 12-year old who couldn’t watch west coast games from his home in Boston, though the acquisition of Rhode Island’s Chris Terreri at least made the move noteworthy to a pre-teen hockey fan in New England.
Because I was born in the mid-1980s, I never knew Belfour played at North Dakota until I became more exposed to college hockey, but as I researched more into an era dominated mostly by western schools, it became clearer to me just how intricate he was to the then-Fighting Sioux’s national championship.
They were the only team to finish with 40 wins in 1986-1987, and their championship run in the WCHA Tournament included two series with double digit scores, including a 10-6 aggregate over second place Minnesota, which had earlier scored 17 goals in its two games against Michigan Tech. The hero, though, was Belfour, who earned dueling two-goal wins over the Gophers in the championship round while holding Colorado College to four goals in the semifinals.
In total, UND was the only team in the WCHA to avoid giving up 100 goals, and Belfour earned All-Tournament Team honors after the Sioux beat Michigan State in the national championship game after previously leading the team to a 3-1 win in the first game against St. Lawrence and a 5-2 win over Harvard in the semifinals.
Belfour returned to Grand Forks this weekend, and one night before Miami won the return bout of a two-game weekend, the former North Dakota goalie participated in a “one final skate” program while wearing the home jersey for the Ralph Engelstad Arena faithful. As he skated to the crease, Belfour pulled off his sweater to reveal the old school Fighting Sioux logo one more time, and the crowd, ever proud of its heroes, roared in delight as Eddie the Eagle gave them a lasting image from a former champion.
10) Can they just play every weekend?
Nothing beats a good sell-out crowd in a small, loud barn, and this weekend’s women’s hockey series between No. 1 Minnesota and No. 3 Wisconsin offered Exhibit A to the thrills and associated with two top-ranked teams stocked to the gills with incredible talent. More than 4,000 fans filed through turnstiles at the Badgers’ La Bahn Arena for the two WCHA conference games, and after watching the home side rally for a 3-3 tie on Saturday afternoon, the rabid, frothing fan base watched their team dominate the top-ranked Gophers for a 4-1 win on Sunday.
No Badger scored more than one goal, and after Britta Curl scored with 10.5 seconds in the third period, Nicole LaMantia, Sarah Wozniewicz, Kirsten Simms and Jesse Compher scored on Sunday to push Wisconsin to 11-2-1 on the season with an 8-1-1 record in conference play.
Minnesota lost for just the second time this season, and while Ohio State stood lodged between the two teams, all three drew first place votes in last week’s DCU/USCHO Division I Women’s Poll. It’s likely there will be a new No. 1, but whether the voters sway to the Buckeyes or the Badgers won’t be revealed until Monday afternoon.
