With some of the nation’s top teams off and others either victorious or splitting series against ranked opponents last weekend, Monday’s USCHO.com/CBS College Sports Division I men’s poll was largely unchanged from the previous edition.
Boston University, which swept Providence in a Friday-Sunday series, led the pack with 42 of 50 first-place votes, marking the Terriers’ sixth straight week atop the rankings. BU, which won the Hockey East regular-season title with Sunday’s victory, saw its nation-best unbeaten streak extended to 16 games heading into the conference playoffs.
Idle No. 2 Notre Dame — which holds the nation’s longest winning streak at six — received the other eight first-place votes. BU and ND have ranked one-two in one order or the other 10 straight weeks, with the Terriers in the top spot the last six times.
Spots three through nine in the poll were unchanged as well. No. 3 Michigan, like Notre Dame, was off last weekend awaiting the CCHA quarterfinals, while Northeastern split a pair with Boston College but held at No. 4. Denver was again fifth after tying its lone game of the weekend against Colorado College.
Coming in at No. 6 was North Dakota. The Fighting Sioux split with Wisconsin, claiming the WCHA regular-season championship with their Friday win. Vermont and New Hampshire were still seventh and ninth, respectively, after splitting their weekend series; those teams sandwiched idle Miami, which was No. 8 in the rankings.
In a bit of an oddity, Yale and Princeton swapped places with Yale moving to No. 10 and Princeton to No. 11 despite both sitting out the ECAC first round along with still-No. 12 Cornell.
Colorado College continued the pattern of much ado about nothing in this week’s rankings, staying at No. 13 after its tie with Denver. In 14th was Ohio State, which advanced to the CCHA quarters with a sweep of Bowling Green, while idle St. Lawrence was again No. 15.
Four of the last five teams in the top 20 belonged to the WCHA. Minnesota crept up to No. 16 after a split against Michigan Tech, while Wisconsin moved up to 17th and Boston College to 18th.
All three leapfrogged Minnesota Duluth, which was swept by Alaska-Anchorage and fell three spots to No. 19. St. Cloud State, which earned one of four points against Minnesota State, dropped two positions to No. 20 to round out the poll.
