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Each episode of USCHO Live! features a look at news around NCAA hockey, a look ahead at upcoming games and events, and conversation with people who coach, administer and play college hockey, and journalists who cover the sport.
Jim Connelly is a senior writer at USCHO.com and has been with the site since 1999. He is based in Boston and regularly covers Hockey East. He began with USCHO.com as the correspondent covering the MAAC, which nowadays is known as Atlantic Hockey. Each week during the season, he co-writes “Tuesday Morning Quarterback.” Jim is the winner of the 2012 Joe Concannon award, and is a studio analyst for NESN.
Ed Trefzger has been part of USCHO since 1999 and now serves as a senior writer and director of technology. He has been a part of the radio broadcasts of Rochester Institute of Technology hockey since their inception — serving as a producer, studio host, color commentator and now as RIT’s play-by-play voice for the last several seasons. Ed is based in Rochester, N.Y.
Editor’s note: This is part of an occasional series of stories checking in with college hockey personalities, past and present.
James van Riemsdyk is used to moving around. Though still only 23, van Riemsdyk has played on so many different teams, at so many different levels, it’s hard for him to think back on them all.
But he manages to do it just fine. Indeed, the left wing takes memories of all his stops with him wherever he goes. It’s part of what has made him a prolific scorer in the NHL. It’s part of what has made him a valued teammate, as well.
Now in his second stop in the NHL — with the Toronto Maple Leafs after an offseason trade from the Philadelphia Flyers — van Riemsdyk is blossoming. The 2007 No. 2 overall pick, who played two seasons at New Hampshire and left high school in New Jersey to play in the USA Hockey National Team Development Program, has fully grown into his 6-foot-3 frame, and has been the menacing presence in front of the net Toronto hoped he would be as it shoots for the playoffs in this shortened season.
Through 29 games, van Riemsdyk led the Maple Leafs with 14 goals, was third in scoring at 22 points, and was second only to forward Phil Kessel (103), with 90 shots on net.
Earlier in the season, van Riemsdyk, a Middletown, N.J., native, sat down with USCHO to talk about the past, present and future. Here’s an edited transcript of that conversation:
USCHO: You’re no stranger to big markets. You grew up outside of New York City and played in Philadelphia. But is Toronto on an even different level from a hockey standpoint?
van Riemsdyk: It is. And it’s great. There aren’t many players who are fortunate to have their first two NHL teams be in Philadelphia and then Toronto. There’s nothing like being a Maple Leaf. Everyone knows you, everyone is always talking about the team, good and bad, and it’s amazing to be a part of something that means so much to so many people.
USCHO: Does that status affect your daily life, outside of the game, in Toronto?
van Riemsdyk: It does. You get recognized even when you’re out doing the simplest things. I went to get my dry cleaning the other day, and got some looks from people.
USCHO: There’s a thought that players who changed teams this offseason might have had a particularly difficult time transitioning to their new locker room because of the lockout. That chemistry might become a problem because there was little “get-to-know-you” time with the new teammates. Did you feel any of that?
van Riemsdyk: I didn’t. It certainly helped that I knew some of these guys already. I was able to come in, get comfortable and just get going on hockey. We all have jobs to do here, we’re a young team that’s trying to establish itself, win some games and get to the playoffs. We’re all after the same thing here, we’re all pulling the rope in the same direction, and I think you can see that on the ice.
USCHO: You left New Hampshire after two seasons. Obviously, it was a calculated move, the Flyers had big plans for you, and so it was the right call. Less than two years after leaving, you were playing for Philadelphia in the Stanley Cup Finals, so you did something right. But do you have time to reflect on the decision?
van Riemsdyk: I have great memories there, for sure. But the NHL is the NHL, and the Flyers were in a position to bring me to Philadelphia and it was just a matter of something they felt that it was the right time. But I’ll always look back fondly on my days at New Hampshire, for sure.
USCHO: Philadelphia can indeed be a hot-and-cold town. They love you when you’re winning, and not so much when you’re losing. You had 15 goals in 2009-10, when the Flyers made the Finals. You had a breakout year the next, with 21 goals, and were a dominant force in the postseason. But last season, after injuries, you played in only 43 games, and things took a turn. Is there anything you regret in Philadelphia?
van Riemsdyk: I wish I could have stayed healthy last season, sure. We had a good team, we felt like we had a chance to do some things in the postseason, but things don’t always work out in this game. Philadelphia is a great town, with great fans, and you just take that stuff in stride. I loved it there, loved the staff and my teammates. But you don’t have too much time to reflect in the NHL.
USCHO: When you returned to Philadelphia in February, in a 4-2 win for Toronto, you received a mixed reaction from the crowd but still more cheers than boos. There were also some positive signs being held up in the stands. Did you notice any of that?
van Riemsdyk: I couldn’t hear much. You take the ice, there’s so much going on, the music, and the place is just loud in general, so I didn’t hear much of the reaction. The signs, yeah, I did see some of them, and that was great to see. I feel like I left everything on the ice each time I took the ice as a Flyer, and it’s great that people see that.
USCHO: The growth of this game in your home state has been incredible in the last 20 years. There are now more than 150 high school teams in New Jersey, and a lot of people credit your success with playing a part in that. When you get back to New Jersey, do you get a chance to see how far hockey has come in it?
van Riemsdyk: It’s unbelievable. There’s a rink being built in Middletown now, my hometown, and I never saw that coming. I’m running a camp there this summer, and it should be fun. But it’s great, there are travel organizations popping up all over New Jersey now, and there are a lot of Division I players, and some are getting to the NHL, too. Great to see, and I’m sure it’ll continue.
USCHO: Speaking of high schools, you were able to sneak back and see your school, Christian Brothers Academy, play for a state title last season in Newark when you were rehabbing your injury. Do you enjoy keeping tabs on your previous stops?
van Riemsdyk: I wish I could do more of it, yeah. Online these days, when we’re on the road, I try to keep track of CBA and New Hampshire, and it’s fun to see how the programs just keep up their success.
Senior Paul Rodrigues of Oswego has been voted as the USCHO D-III Player of the Year for 2012-2013. Rodrigues beat out goalie Brandon Stephenson and teammate Luke Moodie for the award. Rodrigues becomes the first forward to win the award since 2009-2010, after goalies Jonathan La Rose and B.J. O’Brien claimed it the previous two years.
Rodrigues finished second in the nation in scoring this year with 16 goals and 30 assists in 30 games to average 1.53 points per game. His 30 assists tied with Joseph Caveney for tops in the country. He nabbed one game-winning goal all year, but it was a huge one, as it came at 13:32 of overtime against Adrian in the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament. On the season, Rodrigues had 12 multi-point games, and was only held without a point in four games. For his career, Rodrigues tallied 50 goals and 83 assists for 133 points in 112 games, a 1.19 points per game average.
Rodrigues also won the Sid Watson Award as the ACHA Player of the Year, the 2013 SUNYAC Herb Hammond Most Valuable Player Award, and also earned All-America East Team honors from the ACHA.
In a news release after Rodrigues won the Sid Watson Award, his coach, Ed Gosek, said, “His speed has allowed him to wreak havoc on the forecheck, make goalies think twice about playing the puck behind the net and torment the opposition’s defenders from the first puck drop to the final horn. His unselfishness and skill set make him a top scoring option on one of the most lethal power-play units in Division III. Paul’s determination and tenacity also makes him a critical member of the penalty-kill unit, as well as one of Oswego’s top faceoff players in its defensive zone.”
USCHO’s D-III awards are voted on by the Division III columnists and editor. Still to come this week are the nation’s top coach, rookie of the year, and the All-USCHO first, second, third, and all-rookie teams.
Jim: Well, Todd, we’re down to 22 teams still looking to win their respective league title next weekend. And in that group, there are a number of teams that may have surprised someone.
The biggest of those in my mind is Brown, which upset one of the nation’s hottest teams, Rensselaer, on Sunday night. You can also add in Colorado College’s victory over Denver in that group. What are your thoughts on these two and all of the other quarterfinal series?
Todd: I think Colorado College got its best chance of advancing when it got paired with Denver in the first round. Yes, the Tigers lost the regular season series to the Pioneers but there’s no better way to even the odds in a first-round series than to have it be between rivals. There were no secrets there, and CC just did enough to overcome Denver.
In ECAC Hockey, Brown did what it had to do to win two games in the series: get good defense and goaltending. It was by no means going to win a shootout with the Engineers (the Bears are 39th nationally in scoring), so the performance from Anthony Borelli between the pipes — especially on Sunday — has to be considered one of the biggest factors. Goaltending usually is at this time of the year, isn’t it?
Jim: I watched Jon Gillies do what he had to do to shut down New Hampshire in Hockey East and help the Providence Friars advance to the TD Garden. It seems appropriate that PC will face Massachusetts-Lowell in the semifinals. Those are two teams that two years ago didn’t even make the playoffs. Their stories are among those you find this time of year that I just love.
Todd: What’s remarkable to me is that Michigan might be doing it again. Three years ago the Wolverines were the seventh seed in the CCHA playoffs and were staring at an end to what then was a 19-year streak of NCAA tournament appearances. Maybe seven is their lucky seed, because they are back in the CCHA semifinals after dispatching Western Michigan in two games on the road last weekend.
Michigan needs to win the CCHA tournament to extend the NCAA streak to 23 years, but after last weekend’s performance, I wouldn’t bet again it.
Jim: I think Michigan is an incredible story. Obviously, 22 straight NCAA tournament appearances is amazing, but knowing that years like three years ago exist make it a better story.
If Michigan does it again, it will again have had to play and win TWO series to get to the Joe. That’s just incredible to me. If the Wolverines streak survives, these may be two of the more memorable runs in NCAA history. So what do you think Michigan’s chances are?
Todd: I guess if you look at the matchups, the Wolverines split two games this season with Miami, their semifinal opponent, so you could call that game a tossup. And they swept Ohio State but lost four times to Notre Dame; that’s the kind of swing of fortunes that is emblematic of Michigan’s season.
But I think once the team got its swagger back, it became dangerous, and you just get that feeling that the Wolverines have something special going on.
Jim: Well, as we look at the weekend semifinals, what matchups intrigue you the most? In Hockey East, we have Boston College and Boston University facing off for what could be the final game behind the bench for Jack Parker. In ECAC Hockey, you have Brown looking to finish off an impressive playoff run. And in Atlantic Hockey, Niagara is very close to clinching an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, which means if the Purple Eagles lose in Rochester, two AHA teams could qualify for the NCAA field for the first time.
What are you watching?
Todd: There will be a lot of nostalgia going around in the west this weekend with the final CCHA tournament and the final WCHA Final Five with the league in its current format. I think a lot of people are hoping for one last Minnesota-North Dakota game in the semifinals, but UND has to get past a pesky Colorado College team first.
And for the CCHA, my only wish is that it goes out with some great games in great environments. I’m sure it will be emotional for people who have so much invested in the league, and they deserve a good show.
A quarrelsome quartet remains in the hunt for the Whitelaw Cup, and two teams are hoping to hoist their first title in the league’s last twirl (perhaps) on Boardwalk ice.
Brown and Quinnipiac each aim to raise the chalice for the first time, but they’ll have each other to tangle with first: The Bobcats battle the Bears at 4pm on Friday. QU – still the top-ranked team in the nation, as of this writing – qualified for the league semifinals by dint of Kevin Bui’s 95th-minute goal Sunday night. Even that wasn’t the most dramatic event in the rubber match with Cornell, as the Q-Cats needed Clay Harvey’s equalizer with 1:04 remaining in regulation to force extra hockey against the tenacious Big Red.
If only advancement were still based on two-game aggregates, think the exhausted Bobcats: QU blew the doors off Cornell in Saturday’s contest, wrecking the Red 10-0. The output was the most by the program since a 10-0 win over now-defunct Fairfield in 2000, and the most in ECAC tournament play since 2008, when Harvard lit the lamp 11 times against – wait, what? – Quinnipiac. We could go on and on about this game, but in the end, Sunday was much more representative of the way these two teams could play.
In Troy, Brown took the host Engineers to three games… then stunned the home team in Sunday’s decisive meeting with the first three goals of their own 3-2 win. Bruno leaned heavily on goalie Anthony Borelli, who stopped 40 of 42 shots, as his team mustered only 17 of its own.
The result obviously extends the Bears’ season and maintains their hopes for an NCAA berth, but almost as importantly for the program as a whole, the squad is now guaranteed at least a .500 record for the season for the first time under Brendan Whittet. The last time Bruno finished a season even was 2004-05 (16-14-3) under former coach Roger Grillo, which was the last of three straight winning seasons for Brown. The program has reached .500 or better numerous times in its history… just not so much lately. Credit to Whittet, his staff, and his players for achieving this significant developmental step.
The Dutchmen and Bulldogs took advantage of home ice to sweep their quarterfinal opponents, Dartmouth and St. Lawrence, respectively. Both squads managed nine goals on the weekend, with Union surrendering three to the exhausted Big Green and the Elis only giving one goal to SLU.
Yale and Keith Allain couldn’t be happier with the return of goalie Jeff Malcolm, who saved 29 of 30 Saints shots on the weekend. He was helped by his teammates as well, as he faced a maximum of seven shots in any of the series’ six periods. In Schenectady, Union shut down Dartmouth’s sputtering power play on five advantages, and took care of business elsewhere: Overall, a workmanlike and complete pair of victories for the Dutchmen.
It’s up, it’s up, it’s finally up: Take a twirl on USCHO’s PairWise Predictor to see how the NCAA field might shake out given any set of league tournament results. Early feedback with ECAC relevance? Leave comments below with updates, corrections, and such:
• Rensselaer is still alive.
• Quinnipiac is likely to finish as the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tourney at this point, though the Bobcats may not play in Providence, should Brown win the ECAC title. (Brown is the East Regional’s sponsor school.)
• Yale appears to be a lock for the NCAA field.
• Union has some work to do, but at least it’s still playing.
• Cornell and Dartmouth are likely done. Anyone find anything different?
• I believe Brown must win the league title to qualify, but I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to see the Bears earn an at-large by merely making it to the league finale.
How wrong am I?
Four survive to compete on the final weekend
A quarterfinal of the NCAA tournament may be the most pressure-packed game of the season. Win and a team is on to the Frozen Four, and by most measures, a season is judged as a success no matter where a team may have fallen short during the rest of the year. Lose, and the championship dream comes to a screeching halt.
For that one game, everything is magnified. Any decision by a coach, such as whether to juggle lines or how to match them against the opposition, what goaltender to start, or when to call that one timeout, could alter the outcome. So too for an action by a player, and those judgements have to be made in an instant.
In terms of advancing beyond that round, experience appeared to matter. The two teams that had not participated in the NCAA tournament since 2010, Clarkson and Harvard, were both eliminated in regulation. All four teams that gained a spot in the semifinals have at least some players on the roster that have participated in a previous Frozen Four, although admittedly, Mercyhurst was outgunned in that respect by Cornell.
Saturday did not prove to be a good day for the ECAC. The conference with the most teams in the NCAA tourney is the only one that won’t be represented at the Frozen Four.
Half of the quarterfinals required overtime, and one unseeded squad triumphed, along with three hosting teams.
Boston College continues success over Harvard
The storyline in this game may be as simple as the Eagles just matching up well against Harvard of late; they ran their head-to-head winning streak to five with a 3-1 victory.
Like they did in the Beanpot, the Crimson got on the scoreboard first, but again it proved to be their only goal. Gina McDonald had a chance to put Harvard ahead four and a half minutes into the contest, but with Corinne Boyles down, she was unable to lift the puck as Boyles kicked out a skate. At the 16-minute mark, Mary Parker’s quick shot on a power play got through Boyles and barely trickled across the goal line.
Exactly a minute later, Harvard’s lead was gone. Katey Stone decided to start freshman Emerance Maschmeyer over senior Laura Bellamy down the stretch, but that move did not pay dividends on this day. A rolling puck that did not appear threatening off of the stick of Haley Skarupa managed to find a route under Maschmeyer’s stick and into the goal. If one soft goal in a game of this magnitude is difficult to overcome, two can be back-breaking. A couple minutes into the middle frame, Caitlin Walsh released another shot that was more fortuitous than forceful; it fooled the goaltender, and BC was up, 2-1.
Alex Carpenter doubled the lead with a nice redirect. Harvard was unable to rally, as Boyles slammed the door with 30 saves.
Boston University overpowers Clarkson
The Golden Knights rely on a defense that allowed less than two goals on average. Their offense takes a conservative approach, averaging under three goals a contest, so when Boston University scored two goals 16 seconds apart to lead, 4-1, in the third period, that presented a challenge outside of Clarkson’s comfort zone.
The Golden Knights made a valiant attempt, answering 12 seconds later and pulling within one on a Shannon MacAulay goal with under five minutes remaining. Clarkson pulled Erica Howe for an extra skater with 1:06 to play, and Sarah Lefort converted into the empty net just seven seconds later, her second goal of the game. Lefort’s linemates, Marie-Philip Poulin and Jenelle Kohanchuk, each contributed a goal and a helper. Kerrin Sperry thwarted 34 shots to win her 23rd game, a career high.
Lakers outlast Cornell
When Caroline Luczak scored to put Mercyhurst ahead of Cornell, 3-2, at 18:47 of the third period, it appeared that the Big Red may have at last sunk into a hole from which they could not climb. Instead, a Lakers’ forward made one of those seemingly minor decisions that had major implications, dumping a puck without gaining the center line. The resulting icing call allowed Lauren Slebodnick to be replaced by an extra attacker and gave Cornell an offensive zone faceoff. Brianne Jenner won a draw back to Jillian Saulnier, and her shot wound up in the net. Just 17 seconds after falling behind, the Big Red were back to even. For the fifth straight playoff game, they had scored in the final two minutes of regulation to either tie or take the lead.
One would expect that such a dramatic turn would wreak havoc on a young team like Mercyhurst; rather than celebrating, it found itself in overtime with its season at stake. Perhaps that is where the Lakers’ youth served them well, and they were blissfully unaware that their program’s previous four trips into overtime in the NCAA tournament had ended in defeat. Saturday followed a different script, as Stephanie Ciampa made four more stops to bring her total to 29 for the game and freshman Jenna Dingeldein netted a game-winner 4:49 into the extra session.
Mercyhurst advances to its third Frozen Four and first since 2010, coincidentally also held in Minneapolis.
Minnesota takes marathon from North Dakota
The Gophers attempted to reproduce their quarterfinal recipe from a year ago against North Dakota in a quarterfinal. The first step went well, as Hannah Brandt scored in the opening minute to put the visitors in immediate trouble. However, North Dakota departed from precedent, pressuring Minnesota into mistakes, outshooting the hosts heavily in the opening 20 minutes, and taking a lead of its own before a half minute was played in the next period on goals by Ashley Furia and Meghan Dufault. Amanda Kessel squared the contest at 2-2 before the second intermission. Minnesota had to kill off a five-minute major, North Dakota survived a couple of minors of its own, and bonus hockey was needed.
Goaltenders Shelby Amsley-Benzie and Noora Räty overcame all challenges through the first overtime, a second, and most of a third. When North Dakota was assessed another penalty, the Gophers’ Kelly Terry was finally credited with the deciding goal off of a goal-mouth scramble at 18:51 of the third OT, the longest game in history for both programs.
Semifinals schedule
The resulting bracket pairs Boston College versus Minnesota on Friday at 6 p.m. EDT, 5 p.m. CDT., and Mercyhurst with Boston University at 9 p.m. EDT, 8 p.m. CDT. The same matches occurred in NCAA quarterfinals in 2011, with both Boston schools earning victories.
These are the three things I think I learned this week.
1. Boston College coach Jerry York could miss the Hockey East championships.
When news broke on Saturday that York had suffered a second detached retina of his right eye, he was ruled out of the weekend’s series with Vermont and nothing more.
But with surgery scheduled for this morning and considering that last time he missed four games and had to spend the bulk of most days lying face down as part of his recuperation, I wouldn’t think it likely that he’ll be back to the Hockey East championships this week.
Associate head coaches Mike Cavanaugh and Greg Brown will lead the team in York’s absence as they did previously. Both are exceptional coaches, but York will still be missed. That this won’t be uncharted territory for the team helps, but it still means the Eagles won’t be at 100 percent.
Keep in mind that BC is not an overwhelming powerhouse this year that can simply run on autopilot. This team needs York.
That said, let’s hope he doesn’t rush back and in any way endanger his health. Even of that means he doesn’t return until a potential trip to the Frozen Four.
2. Friday night promises to be a dose of the old and a dose of the new.
Is there anyone (other than the teams that were eliminated and their fans) who is disappointed that on Friday night at eight o’clock we’ll be watching Boston College and Boston University play for the bajillionth time in their storied programs’ histories?
It’s great theatre when these two teams clash whether it’s in the Beanpot, a regular season contest, or a playoff game for a shot at all the marbles.
There’ll be even more on the line than usual, at least for BU. The Terriers will certainly be hoping to prolong coach Jack Parker’s career at least one more game so they should come out flying. And as it stands right now, they quite likely need a win to prolong their own NCAA tournament hopes.
BU sits on the bubble, tied with four other teams for 16th place. Strange things could happen, most notably if other results propel Merrimack back into Teams Under Consideration status (by pushing its RPI above .500). This would help BU immeasurably since the Terriers went 5-0 against the Warriors.
Strange things aside, however, BU most likely needs to win or have its season end entirely.
As for the new, there’s Massachusetts-Lowell and Providence in the 5 p.m. game. Although the two teams did just face each other a week ago in a weekend series to determine the regular season champion, they’re still relative strangers to the TD Garden compared to BC and BU.
You have go back 12 years for the last time both teams advanced to the league semifinals. Kudos to Lowell coach Norm Bazin and PC coach Nate Leaman for the exceptional turnarounds they’ve performed in just two years at those schools.
3. It’s the end of the line for Maine, Vermont, and Merrimack.
While almost certainly New Hampshire can expect an NCAA tournament berth, the season ended for the other three quarterfinal losers.
All three can point to high moments in the season. Merrimack stood in first place just a few weeks ago. Maine and Vermont both put together strong second halves.
But even if that softens the blow a bit, the sting still lingers, especially for the seniors whose collegiate careers have come to a close.
So here’s a tip of the hat to all those players who provided so much enjoyment for all of us.
Three of the WCHA’s six opening-round, best-of-three playoff series required third games. In the end, only one of the pairings’ favored squads didn’t move on to this week’s Final Five showcase in St. Paul, Minn..
The only team that hosted a first-round series last weekend but didn’t advance was WCHA No. 5 seed Denver. The Pioneers, ranked 13th in the latest PairWise Rankings, split with intrastate rival Colorado College on Friday and Saturday before the Tigers upended DU in Sunday’s series-decider by a 4-3 count.
DU won Friday’s game 5-3, jumping out to a 3-1 lead before weathering a comeback attempt from the Tigers. CC then won Game 2 on Saturday, 2-1, before besting the Pioneers again on DU’s home ice Sunday night.
Elsewhere, as expected, the WCHA’s regular season co-champions sailed through to spots in Friday’s WCHA semifinal games. St. Cloud State swept Alaska-Anchorage at home last weekend (6-1 Fri., 5-1 Sat.), while Minnesota faced a sterner test against Bemidji State in Minneapolis but also won the series in two games (2-1 (OT) Fri., 4-3 Sat.).
The WCHA’s third and fourth seeds also won their first-round series on home ice. No. 3 seed North Dakota was in the driver’s seat following a 5-3 win over visiting Michigan Tech on Friday, but when the Huskies pulled out a shock 2-1 upset in Grand Forks the following night, UND was fazed but came back Sunday and downed Tech convincingly in a 6-0 rout.
There was one other sweep in the first round, as Wisconsin took care of Minnesota-Duluth in two games at the Badgers’ Kohl Center home. UW gave up the first goal on Friday, but the hosts ran out 3-1 winners in Game 1 before also coming out on top in the rematch, 4-1.
In Mankato, Minn., Minnesota State outlasted Nebraska-Omaha in three games in the WCHA’s final battles between its two sets of Mavericks before UNO leaves for the new National Collegiate Hockey Conference. MSU won Friday’s opening game in overtime by a 4-3 count before overcoming a 2-1 loss to UNO Saturday by winning Sunday’s deciding game by a 3-1 margin.
Final Five week pairings decided Sunday
Once the Magness Arena’s clock hit all zeroes at the end of Sunday’s series-deciding game between DU and CC, the WCHA’s teams that survived the first round and advanced to the Final Five learned their fates as to who they will be playing when this week.
As the two highest seeds, St. Cloud State and Minnesota earned quarterfinal round byes, which means the Huskies and Gophers earned an extra day off to watch the Final Five’s other four participants – yes, it’s really called the Final Five, and, no, don’t ask – beat up on each other in Thursday’s two games.
Minnesota State will play Wisconsin in the day’s early quarterfinal game at Xcel Energy Center, starting at 2:07 p.m. CT, and Colorado College and North Dakota will square off that evening at 7:07.
The same start times apply for Friday’s semifinal games. St. Cloud State will play the winner of Thursday’s MSU-UW tilt in Friday’s afternoon game, while Minnesota will face either CC or UND that night.
At 7:07 local time Saturday, Friday’s semifinal winners will vie for the Broadmoor Trophy in the league’s playoff championship game. The winner will earn the WCHA’s automatic bid for a spot in this year’s NCAA tournament.
NCAA spots still up for grabs, but how many WCHA teams will get in?
In terms of how many of the league’s teams will get into the national tournament, last weekend’s first round of the WCHA playoffs didn’t leave us with a whole lot of solid conclusions.
Minnesota, listed second in the current PairWise Rankings, is a lock for the NCAA tournament regardless of what happens in St. Paul this week. Also in fairly solid positions right now are North Dakota (tied for sixth with Hockey East regular season champion Massachusetts-Lowell) and Minnesota State (tied for ninth with both Notre Dame and Niagara).
After that, things get a little cloudier. SCSU (12th) is still somehow on the bubble, and Denver (13th) didn’t help itself in crashing out of the WCHA playoffs in the first round to Colorado College, which is 25th in the PairWise.
Wisconsin is still in with a chance of getting into the national tournament, but, as the Badgers are currently locked in a five-way tie for 16th in the PairWise, UW could use one or two more wins in order to further strengthen its case.
Once again, USCHO.com’s PairWise Predictor is live.
What’s the PairWise Predictor? It’s your opportunity to test out your choices for winners in next weekend’s five conference tournaments to see how they affect the PairWise Rankings.
You can find out which teams are in no matter what, which ones are definitely out, and which ones need a lot of help — or some weird results — to make it into the tournament.
Can you get more than five teams from one conference into the NCAAs? Is this the year Atlantic Hockey sends two to the big dance? Are Quinnipiac and Minnesota locks as No. 1 regional seeds? Give your match-ups a shot and let us know in the comments area below what odd scenarios you find.
Please be sure to check back all week as our resident bracketologist Jayson Moy and the rest of the USCHO.com staff adds its thoughts about who can make it in and what they need to do to get there.
What a weekend of hockey in the CCHA! Two sweeps, two series that took three games, and the team that won the very first conference regular-season and playoff championships returns to participate in the last-ever battle for the Mason Cup.
It’ll be Michigan vs. Miami and Ohio State vs. Notre Dame March 23-24 in Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena. The semifinal games are slated for 1:05 p.m. and 4:35 p.m. Saturday, but I don’t believe the league has announced who’s playing at which time yet. Sunday’s title game is at 2:05 p.m.
So, kids, what did we learn from this weekend of hockey?
1. Michigan is a freight train.
As I said going into the weekend, if the Michigan team that had been playing for the previous three weeks showed up to play in Kalamazoo, the Broncos were doomed. Well, the Broncos were doomed. Friday’s game was tied 3-3 going into the third and Jacob Trouba’s second goal of the night won it for Michigan on the power play at 9:15. Saturday, though, was another story completely. That game was tied 1-1 going into the second, when the confident Wolverines exploded for four unanswered goals, two by Alex Guptill. Michigan won 4-3 Friday and 5-1 Saturday.
This has been a pattern for Michigan this past month, a more tentative game Friday and a solid game Saturday, even when the Saturday score isn’t quite so lopsided. The UM defense is mighty strong right now in front of freshman goaltender Steve Racine, who seems to improve with each game. (He’s from Western New York, though, so nothing good he does surprises me.)
I know that haters will hate, but Michigan’s pursuit of its 23rd consecutive NCAA bid as a No. 7 seed is a great story.
2. Notre Dame is scrappy.
The two games that the Fighting Irish played against the valiant Bowling Green Falcons couldn’t have been more different. Friday’s 1-0 overtime win was grinding, grueling and in some ways a little too careful. The Irish limited the Falcons’ shots against Steven Summerhays to 22 in the 1-0 win, and Brian Rust had the game-winning goal 1:22 into OT. Incidentally, including the three goals Rust scored in this series, the junior has netted 10 of his 15 goals for the season in the second half.
In Saturday’s 4-3 win, five of the seven goals scored between the two squads involved some sort of special teams play, including Rust’s successful penalty shot at 8:28 in the third. That’s because there were 32 minutes of penalties total in the feisty, scrappy game. The Irish gave up two power-play goals in the second period and Anders Lee’s game winner came with the man advantage midway through the third.
In both games, the Irish were tough, physical, and did what they needed to do to survive each one-goal game.
3. Those teams from Ohio are beatable.
We knew this already, of course; there isn’t a team in the CCHA that can’t be beaten on a given night. Both series in Ohio, though, went to a third game, while the series in Michigan and Indiana did not. It wasn’t surprising that the series in Columbus between Ferris State and Ohio State went to three games. The Bulldogs and Buckeyes exchanged a pair of 3-1 wins earlier this season, and a quick look at the recent history between the teams shows a couple of ties and a goal’s difference here and there. After dropping Friday’s game 4-2, the Buckeyes won 3-1 Saturday and 3-2 Sunday night.
It was surprising to see Miami drop its opening quarterfinal game to last-place Michigan State, 3-0 — that is, until you realize that the RedHawks have been shut out by opponents seven times this season. Miami is capable of stunningly good offense, but that offense is sometimes inconsistent. The offense arrived Saturday and stayed for Sunday’s contest, each game a 4-1 win for the RedHawks. Sophomore Austin Czarnik had the shorthanded, game-winning goal in the first period of Sunday’s game; Czarnik had three goals total for the weekend.
For the record, it was Ohio State that won the first-ever CCHA regular-season and playoff championships in 1972. The Buckeyes never did win another regular-season championship, but they did capture the Mason Cup in 2004.
Miami has captured the Mason Cup once, in 2011. Michigan has won the CCHA playoff championship nine times, most recently in 2010. Notre Dame has won the CCHA playoff championship twice, in 2007 and again in 2009.
This isn’t what I expected the field of the last-ever CCHA championship tournament to be, but I now expect that next weekend in Detroit, we’ll be treated to a fantastic weekend of hockey.
Three things from the penultimate weekend in Atlantic Hockey for the 2012-2013 season:
For the first time since 2007, Atlantic Hockey will have a new champion. Air Force, which won titles in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012 will not be in Rochester for championship weekend for first time since entering the league in the 2006-2007 season. The Falcons were swept on home ice by Canisus, 4-3 on Friday and by the same score in overtime on Saturday.
Both games of the series had wild endings. On Friday, leading 3-2, Canisius got a power play with about a minute and half to go. That would seemingly have ended things, but Air Force’s Tony Thomas scored shorthanded to tie the game with 1:08 to play. That set the stage for a dramatic game-winner by Canisius’ Kyle Gibbons on that same power play with nine seconds to go.
On Saturday, Canisius trailed 3-2 with less than two minutes to play before Matthew Grazen got the equalizer at 18:02. Grazen had been suspended for eight games earlier in the season for a hit on Air Force’s George Michalke, ending Michalke’s season.
It took just 1:08 of overtime for Duncan McKellar to win the game and the series for the Golden Griffins. His shot deflected high in the air and into the net, bouncing off the back of Falcons’ goaltender Jason Torf.
Air Force outshot Canisius 43-26 on Friday and 53-25 on Saturday, but Tony Capobianco stood tall in net for the Golden Griffins.
“The difference in the game was Capobianco,” said Air Force coach Frank Serratore. “He was great. This game certainly didn’t go the way it was supposed to go for us. I give Canisius credit, they fought back to tie the game and then they got the bounce in overtime. This is a bitter pill to swallow. But we have been very fortunate in this league and we have done this to a lot of teams. I am very proud of our team. We got off to a rough start this season and these guys battled back to get a first-round bye. We were 14-4-4 in the final 20 regular-season games and credit those guys for hanging tough together.”
Rochester Institute of Technology, which also got as far as the conference semifinals every year starting with its first eligible season in 2008 and won the title in 2010, also won’t be playing in the Big House this weekend thanks to being swept out of the tournament at the hands of Niagara.
Niagara, Canisius, and Connecticut would each be first time Atlantic Hockey champs. Mercyhurst won an AHA title in 2005. The only other team to win a championship was Holy Cross in 2004 (the league’s first season) and 2006.
Connecticut did win a title in the MAAC, which began in 1998 and preceded Atlantic Hockey. The Huskies were MAAC champions in 2000.
As mention above, the other perennial team at Blue Cross Arena on championship weekend has been RIT, but the Tigers won’t be there after getting swept at top seed and 15th-ranked Niagara.
The results kept RIT winless against the Purple Eagles in 12 attempts at Dwyer Arena dating back to 1996. It also kept alive a streak of unbeaten games for the Niagara on home ice that has now reached 22 games, dating back to last season and now carrying over to 2013-2014, making Niagara the only Division I team to avoid a loss at home this season (15-0-2). Amazingly, the Purple Eagles have done this before, going unbeaten for 22 games between 2006 and 2007.
“I told the boys, we have a 22 game unbeaten streak going back to last year on the line,” said Nuagara coach Dave Burkholder on Saturday. “Now we’re the only team in the nation to go unbeaten at home so I can’t say enough about these guys. They are resilient; to bend and not break under the pressure is amazing.”
The 2006-2007 season was the first time Rochester’s Blue Cross Arena hosted the Atlantic Hockey championships. RIT was in the second of its transition years from Division III to Division I and ineligible for the AHA tournament.
Attendance for the tournament that year, which featured an Army-Air Force matchup in the semifinals, drew 780 people on Friday and 713 on Saturday. The rink holds 10,313 for hockey.
RIT has sold out the BCA three times for homecoming games, but drew considerably less there for Atlantic Hockey tournament contests with 3,933 setting the mark for the largest crowd, set during an RIT-Air Force semifinal in 2007.
Here’s a look at the attendance figures:
Can you guess which games didn’t feature RIT? That has to be a concern for the league office.
On the bright side, Canisius (75 minute drive to Rochester), Niagara (90 minutes) and Mercyhurst (2.5 hours) are the closest teams to Rochester not named Tigers. Hopefully, that will make for a good fan presence.
Championship hockey is wonderful, and all the more better when played in front of a big crowd. Hopefully that will be the case this weekend.
Regardless, USCHO.com will be there with wall-to-wall coverage including a live blog for each game.
Here are scenes from St. Cloud State’s 5-1 victory over Alaska-Anchorage Saturday night at the National Hockey and Event Center in St. Cloud, Minn. The victory means that St. Cloud State advances to the WCHA Final Five and also triggered the MacNaughton Cup presentation, which was scheduled for the end of the playoff series. The MacNaughton Cup is presented to the WCHA regular season champion. St. Cloud State shared the trophy with Minnesota this season.
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