Each week during the season, we look at the big events and big games around Division I men’s college hockey in Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
Dan: Well, Paula, we’re reaching the end of the first half of the season, and once again, the No. 1 team in the nation in this week’s national poll is a new team. This week was Minnesota Duluth’s turn to give up the position after dropping a pair of games to Northern Michigan.
First, a shout out to the Upper Peninsula! It’s a fascinating part of the state to someone who forgets that life exists anywhere west of, you know, the Metrowest portion of Boston, but it’s always great whenever the perceived little guy gets an upset over the big bad team from Minnesota.
It’s why college hockey is so great.
Second, before I say, “here we go again,” it’s worth reminding people that the new No. 1 is an old, familiar team in Minnesota State, which was No. 1 two weeks ago and held the top spot for a two-week period back in October. Jim Connelly and Ed Trefzger touched on it a few weeks ago when they talked about the “not-so-new” No. 1, and now we’re in the same boat with Mankato ascending to the spot it held back before Thanksgiving.
We talk about biases a lot in this space, and you and I certainly beat the rankings discussion into the ground, so I’m not going to go back around and around on which team is No. 1 or which team should be ranked differently. I admittedly voted for Quinnipiac to the top spot and have done so over the past three weeks, if my memory is correct.
Where I will start is on this note: look at the teams behind Minnesota State, and you’ll see a whole bunch of four-loss, five-loss and six-loss teams (at least until you hit Cornell). Even though UMass Lowell, there are three-loss teams. If we sat down and watched every game, I know the margin for error is a bounce or shot here and there along the way.
So what is that real difference, and how do we sort through these teams to predict who is the team to watch as the first half winds down?
Paula: Great question, Dan.
I’ve always thought of the first half of the college hockey season as a prelude – inaccurate in every way, but that first half does help some teams figure out a way to come together if they’re lacking definition or have areas of fairly significant weakness, and in the case of teams that are consistently performing in the first half, the time prior to that push for the national tournament can help fine-tune what’s already working and build confidence.
One huge factor that can contribute to team confidence is goaltending. When it’s a matter of bounces and shots and a team is confident that the guy in net can make the difference in close games, both the offense and the defense may be comfortable taking chances that can change the direction of a game.
Nowhere are we seeing that more clearly (imo) than at Bentley. While not a top-tier team nor sitting at the apex of their division, the Falcons are riding a five-game conference winning streak in front of senior Evan Debrouwer, the Arizona State transfer who’s been in net for all five of those wins. While Bentley has had the ability to score all season, the Falcons have tightened defensively as a team with Debrouwer in net and they’ve played more consistent hockey.
Having said that, among the top 10 teams nationally, there are few with goaltenders who are among the top 10 netminders nationally both for goals-against and save percentage, teams that have a goalie among the top 10 in one of those two categories, teams that have a goaltender close to one of both of those categories, and teams whose goalies are nowhere near the top 10 yet.
In those instances where goaltending isn’t the statistically strongest aspect of a program’s game, those teams are scoring on average three or more goals per game, relying very heavily on the front end. As we know, that may carry a program to a good spot in conference play and even capture a league championship, but in national tournament play, that has been the downfall of many programs.
I’d say watch teams like Omaha and Northeastern in the second half, teams that have been able to rely on good goaltending in the first half to work out some kinks in other areas of their game. That applies to Quinnipiac, too, but only because Yaniv Perets appears to be playing next-level hockey right now. Wow.
Dan: Well, I’m glad you brought up Bentley before I did because the last two weeks are showing me the high ceiling of my beloved Falcons.
They saw two really rugged, hard-nosed teams in Army West Point and Mercyhurst, and in both weekends, Bentley managed to come ahead with six points and now enter semester break in first place in Atlantic Hockey. Additionally, the voters respected the team this week and offered up 17 votes, which is a modest amount for an Atlantic Hockey team with almost no name recognition in comparison to other regional eastern teams.
Bentley looked solid, and I think this is one of the most complete teams I’ve seen in a long time because of how it’s built through four lines and into the reserves. You mentioned Evan DeBrouwer, and he specifically made a couple of ten-bell saves against both opponents over the four-game regulation winning streak.
There was one major example against Army West Point where he dove across the crease like Marc-Andre Fleury in the 2009 Stanley Cup Final. It would’ve been the best save of the night by a Boston-based netminder if Jeremy Swayman hadn’t done the same thing in the NHL, though Swayman made his save with his stick and DeBrouwer went full body.
But outside of my shameless bragging about Bentley – which is well-earned – I’m going to leave it in Atlantic Hockey with the breadcrumbs that you asked about. I watched Mercyhurst up close and personal this weekend, and I don’t think any of the numbers (two losses and seven goals allowed) tell the whole story of how well the Lakers played. They went with a customary timeshare in the back, and Hank Johnson played well until Bentley broke through in the first part of the third period. Mercyhurst eventually rallied, though when it was 4-1, I thought the game felt like a one-goal game that was juiced up by the number of penalties dished out.
The next night, Kyle McClellan matched DeBrouwer save-for-save until Mercyhurst made a mistake that led to a shorthanded goal. Again, it was a one-goal game that sprung a leak.
That reminds me an awful lot of Robert Morris from the 2013-2014 season. Those Colonials were snakebitten by a lot of bad luck in the first half of the season and got swept at Bentley in early December by a combined 11-3 total. The next weekend, RMU tied Mercyhurst and went into its Christmas break at 2-10-2 with a 2-5-2 league record, good enough for last place. They finished the year with 19 wins and won the Atlantic Hockey championship after going on a nine-game undefeated streak to start the second half of the year.
It’s those teams that find their magic and pull it all together that should scare the daylights out of the bubble contenders. In Atlantic Hockey, Mercyhurst is in fifth, but Army could easily spring from a tie from eighth in the second half. In the Big Ten, I fear Michigan State, a team that swept consecutive weekends and swept Wisconsin. In the ECAC, Brown is sitting in seventh and could jump into the bye conversation. Truthfully, though, we never know who’s going to make that leap until it happens.
The one thing that helped that Robert Morris team was the Three Rivers Classic. The Colonials didn’t win, but they battled both Penn State and Bowling Green to the wire that year. In that vein, holiday tournaments are back this year. Dartmouth’s Ledyard Classic, the Great Lakes Invitational, the inaugural Holiday Face-Off out in Milwaukee…there are some options here.
First, how excited are you for Christmas hockey, and second, what field could give us something to really enjoy as we’re pouring that extra cup of eggnog we absolutely don’t need?
Paula: I am not going to lie: my enthusiasm for Christmas hockey is dampened by the format of this year’s Great Lakes Invitational.
The GLI originated when the Detroit Red Wings were playing at Olympia Stadium. When the Wings moved to Joe Louis Arena, so did the GLI, and the tournament followed Detroit into Little Caesars Arena. Only once has it been played at a venue other than the home of the Red Wings, and that was in 2013 when the GLI was outdoors at Detroit’s Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers.
In all years, it’s been a tournament, with Michigan Tech hosting from the beginning and adding Michigan as a cohost in the 1970s. Michigan State has been a permanent invitee since 1979.
This year, the GLI is a showcase, with Michigan and Michigan State each hosting Michigan Tech and Western Michigan. I can’t help but feel as though the GLI is now diminished – no longer playing in an NHL venue, no longer a tournament with the potential to pit the Wolverines and Spartans against each other for a title.
I do think the field allows for great matches, and I’m especially looking forward to seeing the Broncos and Wolverines face off.
I’m hoping that the inaugural Holiday Face-Off is a hit, as we now have so few holiday tournaments – once a staple of regular-season nonconference play – to enjoy. In that field, only Bowling Green and Providence have winning records. Both Yale and host Wisconsin are at the bottom of their respective leagues. I have no idea how this will draw at the Fiserv Forum, but Milwaukee has been a pretty good place for college hockey in the past.
And we both know that Boston College is looking at the Ledyard Classic as a way to create some momentum going into the second half.
Dan: I wasn’t aware that the GLI changed formats, but reading that actually really bummed me out. As a college hockey world, we need more ways to get some of these teams together, and even though Michigan and Michigan State play each other a bunch in the Big Ten, adding a tournament format is always a great idea.
Let me put it another way. BC and BU play each other as part of the Hockey East rotation, but any time they meet for the Beanpot championship, it’s an electric atmosphere, no matter how good Northeastern or Harvard are. I denied this fact for about five years, but without the Beanpot last year, I realized how much I missed waiting for BC and BU to play each other for the city title while skating over the Bruins’ spoked-B.
I’ll segue out of the tournaments to that point about rivalries, and I’ll use the NHL as an example. I was skeptical of the division-based format to both scheduling and the postseason when the NHL reintroduced it during realignment, and I hated the idea of a “weaker division” getting a team through to the conference final. Then I watched the Bruins form amazing rivalries with both the Maple Leafs, who weren’t a factor to me growing up despite being an Original Six team, and the Tampa Bay Lightning.
It taught me about adding frequency to matchups, and while neither match the passion of the Canadiens-Bruins matchup, I love those games.
Let me bring that back to the college game and repeat that we need to find more ways to get certain teams together. Michigan-Michigan State, BC-BU, North Dakota-Minnesota. However, we need to enhance those rivalries, let’s do it. And yes, I know most of these are conference matchups (NoDak-Minnesota notwithstanding), but that’s what college hockey is about: good, clean, fun hate for no reason other than that they chose to wear a different sweater.
Paula: Highlighting those rivalries helps to draw a little extra attention to the sport in general, I think. Michigan and Michigan State play in each other’s buildings during the regular season and always draws fans, but there were years during which the Wolverines and Spartans would meet annually for a regular-season game in Joe Louis Arena and routinely draw upwards of 15,000 fans – sometimes packing the house.
As much as college hockey benefits from the promotion of its traditional rivalries – that “fun hate” of which you speak – the sport also benefits from regular-season games played in NHL venues. That’s what dismays me primarily about this year’s GLI, that those four teams won’t experience the tournament in an NHL arena.
Look at the Red Hot Hockey game in Madison Square Garden Nov. 27. Boston University and Cornell gave over 13,000 fans a goal fest of a game – a big contest on a big stage for two big college hockey programs.
We need more of this. NCAA hockey is subset of a sport that is already a niche. Given how many NHL players have followed a college hockey path, it makes sense to highlight the connection between college and pro hockey. And it’s not like D-I programs and the NCAA aren’t trying.
