Each week, USCHO.com will pick the top 10 moments from the past weekend in our Monday 10 feature.
1) BC Steamrolling into Beanpot showdown…
One last test stood between the No. 1 Boston College Eagles and an anticipated showdown with two-time defending Beanpot champion Northeastern, but any threat from the upset-minded UMass Lowell River Hawks slipped into the ether after Ryan Leonard scored a mind-bending hat trick at Conte Forum on Friday night.
The BC sophomore snuck his way atop the national goal scoring charts by pushing a hat trick across the crease for the second consecutive weekend, but Leonard used the tongue-in-cheek joke about empty-net goals from last week’s trifecta against BU to throttle the UML net for three contested shots across a quick span in both the first and third periods. Coupled with Gabe Perreault’s ninth goal of the season, goalie Jan Korec recorded his first shutout of the season and second of his career in just his second appearance of the 2024-25 campaign.
Anticipated to remain No. 1 in the country, the lightning-hot Eagles head into Monday’s Beanpot first round with heightened expectations for their first Beanpot championship game appearance since 2019.
2) …Against a team still hanging in the rafters.
That said, any road to the first BC Beanpot championship since Barack Obama’s final year in office requires the Eagles to first eliminate the team that’s hung the banner in the TD Garden rafters for the last two seasons. For Northeastern, the game against BC isn’t so much an attempt to clinch its seventh straight appearance in the late game on the second Monday as much as it’s a must-win game for a team seeking a rebound from this weekend’s loss to Maine.
Ordinarily, a team well outside the Pairwise Rankings bubble wouldn’t draw much attention for its loss to a program faring well enough to warrant No. 1 seed consideration, but the Huskies are starting to run out of options for a possible trip to the national tournament. Playing at Alfond Arena against a top-four side, Eli Sebastian knotted a 1-1 game after Maine’s Owen Fowler scored a short-handed goal in the first 70 seconds of the second period. Taylor Makar later broke the tie before adding an empty net goal in the last minute of regulation.
In total, Northeastern failed to capitalize on five different power play opportunities while surrendering the one shortie in the second period, but getting outshot 32-21 spelled doom for a team that at least still plays eight games against teams inside the Pairwise bubble and more specifically ranked around the inner top 10.
As for the Beanpot, Northeastern hasn’t lost in the first round since Harvard scored a one-goal win during the 2017 edition, and over the last decade, the team once regarded as the tournament’s also-ran holds five wins against BC.
3) Extra Innings
The first weekend game between No. 5 Denver and an unranked Omaha side receiving upwards of 30 votes required a two-goal comeback by the Pioneers to even sniff and force an overtime period. DU never led, but Eric Pohlkamp’s goal with under 30 seconds remaining in the second period bookended Zeev Buium’s goal in the first 80 seconds of the third period to send the visiting Mavericks into an overtime and shootout that didn’t look likely after they built a 3-1 lead in the second period.
But once the game hit the shootout, it went on. And on. And on. And on. And on. And on. And on.
And on.
And on again.
Sixteen rounds to be exact.
As far as the national Pairwise Rankings are concerned, Denver didn’t lose much space, but the second point dropped in the 16th round of a home-based shootout was enough to keep the Pioneers away from the NCHC’s top four after Saturday’s night 11-2 outburst. For what it’s worth, Omaha also led that game by a two-goal margin in the first period, but Denver scored six times in the second and another four times in the third despite having only one goal-scorer, James Reeder, hit the back of the net more than once (he had two power play goals).
At last count, Denver remains in fifth place in the NCHC with a one-point differential separating it from North Dakota, but an eighth-place spot in the Pairwise Rankings precariously kept the defending national champions within shouting range of Western Michigan’s NCHC-leading fifth spot.
4) USA! USA! USA! USA!
The NCAA doesn’t hold onto any records for games held between the respective military colleges of both the United States and Canada. None of the 85 previous meetings before this year’s edition are considered official games because of their exhibition nature, but the Challenge Cup offered between the two sides is often a measure of pointed pride after a week spent training and building camaraderie between the two national institutions.
Seventy-one years ago, head coach Jack Riley won his first Challenge Cup as part of the West Point program and found himself hoisted on the shoulders of the American contingent after a 5-3 victory. On Saturday night, son Brian Riley won his final Cup over the Royal Military College with a 3-2 victory that sent Army West Point south of the border with its 49th victory in the series.
Goals by Dylan Wegner, Adam Marshall and Barron Woodring staked the Black Knights to a 3-0 lead in the second period before the Paladins roared back with two of their own, but the 18-save performance from Evan Szary kept the Canadians at bay long enough for the retiring Brian to find himself hoisted on his team’s shoulders in an homage to the longtime family tenure at the academy.
5) The Gopher saw his shadow. Six more Minnesota wins?
No. 4 Minnesota truly lurked behind No. 2 Michigan State and No. 3 Western Michigan for that final spot behind the top-ranked Eagles last week, but busting through Wisconsin for a six-point weekend should move the Gophers ahead of both programs after both teams dropped results before the end of their overtime periods.
One week after the Spartans crushed Minnesota with a 9-3 win, a 4-2 loss on a Thursday night in Buckeye Country opened the door for a weekend split. The Broncos, meanwhile, beat Colorado College in their first game before enduring an overtime loss in the second game in the altitude-induced atmosphere of Ed Robson Arena. Back in the Twin Cities, a pair of resounding sweeps over Wisconsin dispatched the bubble-bound Badgers after a combined eight unanswered goals across both nights.
Having trailed 2-0 in the first game, five straight goals led directly to a scoreless first 40 minutes on Saturday, but three goals in five minutes in that second game sunk Bucky and kept the Gophers within earshot of Michigan State’s Big Ten-leading 40 points with six games remaining on their Big Ten schedule.
More than that, Minnesota grabbed an opportunity to replace Michigan State as the No. 2 team in the Pairwise Rankings if the Spartans faltered over the next three weeks. Their RPI is separated by approximately .03 points, the difference between two straightaway losses. It amounts to a half-game difference, which accounts for the two-point separation within the Big Ten standings.
6) All roads are nearly leading to Martire
The Atlantic Hockey America postseason is notoriously chaotic, but the four-weekend postseason is likely to begin with all teams chasing a chance to play at Sacred Heart’s glittery and new Martire Family Arena.
A five-point weekend on the road at Niagara was especially huge for the Pioneers, who maintained a five-point lead over surging Holy Cross despite the Crusaders earning five points in a home series victory over Canisius. The inability to gain more than one point in Connecticut summarily left the Purple Eagles seven points removed from the race for No. 1, while Bentley’s 37 points, even with games in hand, is starting to lose steam after the Falcons struggled against both teams in front of them.
If ever a game pulled air out of the late season race’s balloon, Saturday was the prime example. Through the first 30 minutes, Niagara nursed a one-goal lead, but 30 seconds after Trevor Hoskin staked the Purple Eagles to a 2-0 lead, Matthew Guerra and Mikey Adamson scored twice in two minutes to tie the game. Holding that score until the end of regulation then allowed Adamson to nail down a 4-on-3 power play goal in the overtime period.
To be fair, Niagara threw the kitchen sink at Sacred Heart, but the 2-1 lead in the first period on Friday night likewise was erased by goals from Cole Galata and Max Dorrington in a 3-2 win.
7) Don’t tell these guys that they’re not playing for the postseason
Neither Alaska school is heading to the national tournament this year. Their respective Pairwise Rankings place them on the back half of college hockey, and the lack of a conference tournament ensures that their respective seasons end before the month completes its final cycle. Alaska Anchorage at least has two home games remaining in the Last Frontier, but this weekend’s games at the Carlson Center set the stage as two of the final Nanook appearances at home before next season.
Perhaps it was fitting that the team played their archnemesis from the state capital, but the 8-1 aggregate victory sent Alaska’s flagship fans into their season-ending road trip with a glut of goodwill against the encroaching UAA banner. Matt Hubbarde scored a Texas-sized hat trick with four goals in the second game’s 5-1 win after providing a fifth goal in the first game of the weekend, and Broten Sabo, Matt Koethe and Nathan Rickey each allowed goalie Lassi Lehti to improve to 4-2-1 on the season.
Each of the Nanooks’ last six games take them down into the Lower 48 with a season-long trip to LIU ending the year, but one game still remains against the Seawolves on Feb. 8. After that, UAA will travel to Connecticut and LIU before returning home for a pair of games at the Wells Fargo Sports Complex against Lindenwood.
8) Women’s tournament taking shape
Anywhere from two to three weeks remain in the women’s college hockey regular season, but several games from the past week allowed the national picture to round into form after results provided some final shifts among the Pairwise Rankings’ top-ranked sides.
Minnesota, for example, split with Ohio State, but the Buckeyes’ road win allowed the team to maintain a slight edge for the No. 2 seed in the national picture behind No. 1 Wisconsin. Colgate’s overtime wins over Clarkson and St. Lawrence, meanwhile, allowed the Raiders to remain in shouting range of travel partner Cornell after the Big Red likewise dispatched their North Country opponents in ECAC play.
Few other opportunities remain, though, for teams to claim possible at-large locks in a tournament capable of producing conference champions from outside the top 11. Northeastern and Boston University are currently tied for the No. 10 spot, which means this week’s home-and-home is likely an elimination round for the national picture unless one of the two teams falters or surges along the way. Once the NEWHA champion is in the field, the remaining four leagues would prevent the next teams from advancing only if:
— An Atlantic Hockey America team other than Penn State wins the league tournament
— A Hockey East team other than the non-Northeastern/BU winner wins the tournament, though that would essentially just swap the team with whichever team is potentially bumped from the bubble.
— A WCHA team that isn’t Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio State (the top three national teams) or Minnesota-Duluth wins the conference championship
— An ECAC Hockey team outside of the top four wins the league tournament
9) Showing love to D-III
Wentworth entered Saturday’s game against No. 14 Endicott without a win since a 3-2 win over No. 10 Wilkes on Jan. 12. Having only won that game in the 2025 portion of their program extended further to the beginning of the year after the only other win following a 3-2 start to the season came on Dec. 7 in a 2-1 victory over Nichols. To recap, that’s a five-win team with two wins after Nov. 15, but the second of those wins was against a ranked opponent.
Yet playing the Gulls in the friendly confines of a home arena located 10 miles and 20 minutes from campus, Wentworth scored three times in the second period before holding Endicott long enough to gain a 4-2 victory. Ethan Lim scored a hat trick for the Panthers after netting two goals in that eponymous second, while goalie Jack McGovern stopped 41 of 43 shots to earn his fourth win of the season.
10) To refute my eastern bias, here’s some western D-III love, too
On the other end of the national D-III spectrum, third-ranked Aurora swept No. 4 Trine in a game with major implications towards both the national picture and the upcoming NCHA postseason race. After boxing a 6-3 win on Friday night, the Spartans broke out with three straight goals across the first 30 minutes of Saturday’s game against the visiting Thunder. Not to be outdone, power play goals by Logan Furstenau and Tyler Blanchard flanked an even-strength goal by Bobby Price to negate the original work, but Landry Schmuck’s D-III leading 24th goal kept him running a goal-plus per-game average that lifted the hosts to their 18th win of the season.
Bids to the Division III tournament often differ in their approach. Last year’s tournament granted nine different slots in the 13-team tournament to the eastern teams, which resulted in all four western teams being grouped into their own bracket while No. 1 Hobart and No. 2 Trinity received first round byes. Under the similar structure for this year’s tournament, No. 1 Hobart and No. 2 Utica would receive byes among the nine-team east contingent while the four-team west is left to play among itself.
Sweeping the weekend created distance for Aurora at a time when Trine can’t necessarily fully close the gap, which means potential postseason meetings in both the NCHA tournament and the NCAA tournament would return to the Fox Valley Ice Arena.
