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.
Paula: What a wild weekend of hockey, Dan, to give us much to discuss in this week’s TMQ.
Three-game quarterfinal series in two conferences, the last weekend of regulation for the NCHC, a new format for ECAC playoff hockey, overtime games, surprising heroes, Alaska looking decent in the PairWise – it’s even better than what early March usually offers us.
To no one’s surprise, I’ll start with the Big Ten, which told three really great stories in a weekend of quarterfinal play.
The first is No. 5 Michigan State upsetting No. 4 Notre Dame in three games to advance to face No. 1 Minnesota in single-elimination conference semifinal play this Saturday.
After losing 1-0 Friday, the Spartans beat the Irish 4-2 Saturday, their first Big Ten playoff win ever and their first conference playoff win since March 2013, in the final year of the old CCHA. Obviously, their win Sunday means that’s the Spartans’ first B1G playoff series win, too. Michigan State is one of two Big Ten teams that has yet to win a conference title since the league’s inception in 2013-14.
The second great story is Michigan defenseman Steven Holtz’s first-ever career goal, the OT game-winner for the Wolverines Friday against Wisconsin. In November, Holtz was in an induced coma for several days as adenovirus swept through the Michigan team. An incredible development.
The third story is Ohio State’s in in three games over visiting Penn State, a year after the Nittany Lions ended the Buckeyes’ season by winning two games to one in B1G quarterfinal play in Columbus. Ohio State is the other team looking for its first-ever Big Ten conference championship.
What stories, Dan, captured your fancy this past weekend?
Dan: My goodness, there were a ton of compelling stories that the postseason wove this weekend, even if the conference in question wasn’t technically in the playoffs.
The biggest story was the goal by Steven Holtz, which filled my hockey heart with joy given the aforementioned story about his health, and it was one of those moments that we celebrate in sports because they provide the organic feels that is impossible to recreate… you can’t script it. It’s that simple.
As for the postseason itself, ECAC saw what happened in its first-ever single-elimination first round when Yale and Princeton eliminated RPI and Union. I was admittedly not a fan of the shortening of the first round, but the elimination of the Capital District teams is the wild card that factored into the decision to cut the first-round games.
The Clarkson-Brown matchup and Colgate-Dartmouth result didn’t really provide much drama, but the fact that Yale, which started the season with a four-game scoreless streak, and didn’t record a second league win until Jan. 13, is now in the second round is the chaos that I think the postseason could have hoped for. The Bulldogs – or Elis, if you’re a big fan of the Ancient Eight in the Ivy League – now head to Quinnipiac, which is a strange matchup between rivals that seems, at a surface level, like a guaranteed win for the Bobcats in a best-of-three, but I’ve been around the block enough to know that things aren’t always that easy.
This was one of those weekends where underdogs really felt like they fit into the February and March movie plot. Holy Cross eliminated AIC in Atlantic Hockey, which means there is going to be a new champion for the league after the Yellow Jacket dynasty won the last four titles, and two of the top three seeds lost in the conference tournament’s best-of-three first round. In the CCHA, Ferris State swept into the semifinals by beating third-seeded Bowling Green, and in the NCHC and Hockey East, movers and shakers resulted in teams like Merrimack clinching the No. 2 seed in Hockey East and Omaha dropping to third after gaining a single point against North Dakota.
The most underrated story, to me, though was Alaska, which moved into 13th in the Pairwise after sweeping Lindenwood. It looks like, barring some massive weirdness where four low seeds win their conference, that the Nanooks are heading to the NCAA tournament. Given what happened with the overall Alaska hockey conversation, how much of a major storyline is it, now that Erik Largen’s bunch is apparently dancing in 2023?
Paula: The Alaska story is enormous. I’m just hoping that this helps to write a next season – a lot of next seasons – for the Nanooks.
Alaska finished the season with a six-game win streak and have lost only one game in their last 12, a 3-1 road decision against LIU (Feb. 11). The Nanooks have played themselves into this NCAA tournament position with solid wins over Omaha, Northern Michigan, Notre Dame and Denver, plus their 22-10-2 season.
The Nanooks are averaging 3.06 goals per game and have the fifth-stingiest defense in the country, allowing 2.18 per. Senior goaltender Matt Radomsky has the sixth-best (2.05) GAA in the nation and a respectable save percentage (.916). In single-elimination NCAA tournament play, the Nanooks may do some damage.
And they would be hungry to do so. Now is not the time to discuss the future of independent teams and rant (again) about the need for realignment to accommodate independents and grow the sport, but Alaska hockey has powerful motivation to draw attention to itself in positive ways. The Nanooks – a sentimental favorite of mine from covering the old CCHA – are the D-I sport with the potential to focus a national gaze on the University of Alaska’s flagship campus in Fairbanks.
Alaska is sitting in a good spot – as you say, barring several upsets by teams lower in the PWR – for the NCAA tournament, and now the Nanooks will wait out the next two weeks to see their fate. There are a few other bubble teams, though, whose immediate storylines are just as compelling.
Look at Cornell, the three seed in the ECAC with a really good conference record, tied for 14th in the PWR and taking on a tough Clarkson team this weekend in a best-of-three ECAC quarterfinal series. Clarkson beat Cornell twice already this season.
Then there’s Merrimack, the team tied with Cornell in the PWR. The Warriors are the No. 2 seed in Hockey East, and they won’t know who they’ll play in a Saturday until Wednesday night’s first round of Hockey East playoff games is complete. Seeds six through eight are hosting seeds nine through 11 Wednesday, and all games in the current playoff format are single elimination. Every one of those first-round teams is lower in the PWR than the Warriors, and a single loss would put Merrimack – a team that has had an outstanding season – out of the NCAA tournament.
I’m sure there will be upsets this weekend – there nearly always are in conference playoffs – but I can’t begin to predict how they’ll play out. What are you watching closely, Dan, both in the ECAC and outside of the conference you cover?
Dan: I think the NCHC is completely wide open. Denver is a true powerhouse, but the league’s foundation has several teams capable of jumping the line to win a conference champion. I’ve been very high on Western Michigan in particular, largely because that team bounced back from a midseason dip and never really seemed to look back.
Western Michigan winning the NCHC is hardly an upset, though, so I need to look more at the Omaha-North Dakota rematch. I don’t think anyone considered Omaha as an underdog as a second-place team, but the losses to North Dakota lit a candle of doubt towards the Mavs’ chances of winning the league, in my mind. North Dakota, meanwhile, hadn’t done anything this year to warrant my consideration as a conference champion, but as our colleague Jim Connelly pointed out on last week’s USCHO Edge podcast, the Fighting Hawks have a team that we could all see running the table. I know it’s incredibly hard to win a series in a rematch – Princeton lost to Union last week to wind up going back to the Capital District for the playoffs (even in a single game series), but I really like the winner of that series, which I think is going three games, to come out firing in the conference semifinals.
Out East, I had Maine penciled into that role, but the Black Bears losses to UMass pulled the rug out from some momentum that I thought would carry the Black Bears into Boston as returning heroes. There are seeds of doubt planted now, but on the flipside, UMass has officially beaten Northeastern and Maine on back-to-back weekends during which I said it had no chance of winning.
Shows you what I know.
Given all of that, I think someone is going to crash the party that we’re not expecting, but I also think it’s likely going to be one of those 18-win or 20-win teams that is hanging around the middle tier of the Pairwise. That means Merrimack, UMass Lowell, UConn, North Dakota, even Northern Michigan in the CCHA are all contenders in that regard.
One thing that is going to be a big tell is how a team won the first series while heading into a series against an idle team. In the Big Ten, I really like Michigan State at large, so I want to cycle back to that matchup in particular. After winning an emotional three-game series, which, as you mentioned earlier, is the first time Sparty both won a game and series in the Big Ten, what are the odds that the team returns from Minnesota with a win over the biggest, baddest team in the nation right now?
Paula: While anything can happen in a one-and-done situation, I do see the possibility of Michigan State beating Minnesota as a long shot. The Gophers swept the Spartans this season, winning two on the road and two at home. Minnesota shut out Michigan State twice and outscored the Spartans 25-6 in four games. At home at the end of January, Minnesota won 8-0 and 6-3.
Again, in a one-game situation, almost anything can happen and in all but twice of the few times that the Gophers were caught out of sorts this season, they falter on the first games of two-game sets. Minnesota had the bye this past weekend, but I doubt that cooled the Gophers as much as it allowed for some banged-up players to recover a bit.
Hey, since this is one of the last TMQs of the season, any speculation on who will be competing in Tampa? I’d wager on Minnesota, if I were a betting woman, but I’ll be honest: the odds of the Big Ten taking a national championship this year don’t look especially high to me, in spite of the number of B1G teams among the top 10 in the PWR and the way the conference has performed against nonleague foes.
I’m worried about the way B1G teams match up nationally in several categories. Minnesota and Michigan are the top two scoring teams in the nation, but Penn State is the next best-scoring team nationally among B1G teams at 15th. Minnesota’s seventh defensively and Ohio State is 12th. After that, Notre Dame – a team that won’t be in the tournament – is the next-best defensive team in the Big Ten (21st). Penn State, Michigan State and Michigan are among the bottom half of teams nationally in defense.
And special teams are not very special in B1G Hockey. The exceptions are Minnesota’s and Michigan’s power plays, which are pretty good, and Ohio State’s nation-leading penalty kill plus Minnesota’s (13th), which is solid.
In addition to Minnesota, I like Quinnipiac in Tampa – two very non-bold picks, I know – and for reasons that are squishier, my next five in no order are Cornell, Harvard, Western Michigan, Denver and Ohio State. I think both the ECAC and the NCHC are tougher than they appear. Also, I wouldn’t take anything I pick to the bank, as longtime readers know.
This season has been so strange in so many ways, Dan. Big Ten hockey has been really fantastic and really strong – and I didn’t see that coming – but I’ve loved how close Hockey East has been. Watching the NCHC split into a two-tier league has been fascinating after the conference’s outright dominance for its first nine seasons.
What have you enjoyed the most? What has taken you by surprise? How does this season end, my friend?
Dan: You know, maybe I’m being a bit cliche or touchy-feely, but I’ll never take the feeling of showing up at the rink for granted. This year has been especially strange for me, and I’ve missed more time this season than any other season I can remember between the birth of my second child in October and a self-imposed paternity leave prior to my whole house getting the flu in December. In my interim periods, the emotion of arriving at arenas never changed. Seeing the buildings crest over a horizon and knowing I’m getting closer – it’s always been something I’ve done for myself.
We analyze a lot about hockey and try to make sense of what we know or see on the ice, but at the end of the day, the sport itself offers some of the most exciting thrills of the year. To be able to celebrate those moments – and experience the requisite lows – as a community is something I treasured when we lost it and getting it back – even as things continue to remain uncertain in the world – is a gift and a privilege.
I cherish the time I talk to coaches, and I especially close my eyes and recall moments in vivid clarity on the insides of my eyelids. The sound of the horn, the team-based celebrations, everything about this game is, at its best, what we should strive for as we confront the sometimes-icky and uncomfortable realities of the sports world’s attitude towards diversity, race, religion, gender identity, and anything else to which we have to have conversations.
I don’t know how this season ends, but I know it ends with a team exulting in the ultimate prize. Brian Riley once told me that hockey is the ultimate team sport (in context, the Army is the ultimate team), so whichever team is the best – the most cohesive, together, family-oriented, committed, and holistic – is going to raise a trophy in Tampa. Over the next few weeks, we’ll experience and witness raw emotion with an unmatched anticipation.
Even if you’re taking it in from afar, you’re there. Hockey is our sport to grow and cultivate. I hope nobody ever discounts that, and I hope I can cross paths with it again in October when we reconvene to start it all over again.
In the meantime, I root for the best of hockey … with the subtle edge towards whichever Atlantic Hockey team is defending our league’s honor … and maybe a little extra love for ECAC this year.
