ERIE, Pa. – The Wisconsin Badgers women’s hockey team earned the chance to become the latest back-to-back champion with a 4-2 win over Ohio State Thursday night.
It was the sixth meeting between these familiar foes this season. While the teams had traded wins during the regular season, Wisconsin has taken both post-season matchups against the Buckeyes. They beat OSU in overtime two weeks ago to win the WCHA tournament championship.
Caitlin Schneider and Casey O’Brien celebrate Schneider’s second-period goal in Wisconsin’s 4-2 win over Ohio State in the national semifinal on Thursday. Photo: Robert Frank
Wisconsin staked a 3-0 lead in Thursday’s national semifinal and that proved too difficult for Ohio State to surmount. Four of the five games these teams played this year were decided by a single goal, which made the Badgers’ lead all the more surprising. The Buckeyes clawed back in the third period to close the lead to the familiar one-goal gap, but Daryl Watts’ empty-netter at the end of the game made this a 4-2 win.
Though the teams are familiar with each other, Buckeye coach Nadine Muzzerall said her team was nervous and jittery in the first period. No matter how much you prepare, the national tournament is just different. The big stage and a national tv audience added to the importance of the game.
It didn’t help that Wisconsin scored on their first shot of the game in the opening 90 seconds of the match. The puck actually went in the net on a deflection of an OSU defender’s skate, but freshman Makenna Webster got credit for it as she was crashing the net as the same time as the defender.
Webster, rookie Casey O’Brien and senior Caitlin Schneider were a force for the Badgers in this game as their line was responsible for the first three UW goals. But coach Mark Johnson said he felt the three had been improving all season and the team felt their impact particularly over the final six or so games of the season.
Getting contributions from different sources and utilizing their depth is part of what makes Wisconsin so dangerous. Webster is eighth on the team in scoring and this was just the second goal of O’Brien’s career. Schneider nearly doubled her season output on Thursday – she had a goal and three assists before adding a goal and two more assists in the semifinal.
O’Brien scored the second goal on a great dish from Schneider from behind the net. O’Brien had eluded her defender and had a wide open look at the back post to double the lead.
The third goal was a group effort from all three. Schneider forced a turnover at the Badger blue line and quickly dished it forward to Webster as the women quickly moved in transition. They moved the puck from right to left and it ended up with Schneider with her own open look at the back post to make it a 3-0 lead.
Ohio State responded by out-shooting the Badgers 29-13 in the second and third periods. Kennedy Blair was stellar in net for Wisconsin, keeping the Buckeyes off the board until well into the third frame. Gabby Rosenthal took advantage of botched coverage and Blair dropping a puck to put the Buckeyes on the board. A few minutes later, OSU got an odd-player rush in on Blair and the puck deflected in. Sara Saekkinen was credited with the goal.
Johnson’s favorite phrase for his team this week is that the “bend, but don’t break.” The Badgers let Ohio State start to climb back into the game, but did not surrender the lead. In the end, the Badgers cleared a puck out that looked like it was headed for the Buckeyes’ empty net in the final minute. OSU was able to clear it, but Daryl Watts blocked the attempt to leave the zone and found herself with a free shot to ice the win for Wisconsin.
The Badgers will face top seed Northeastern for the No. 1 vs. No. 2 battle many have been waiting for. With no interconference play during the regular season this year, it’s been difficult to gauge exactly how good teams are relative to each other. So it comes down to a winner-take-all faceoff between the top two teams in the country.
The national championship game will be played Saturday, March 20 at 7:30 pm eastern time. It will be televised on ESPNU.
In a crazy back-and-forth game, Cameron Buhl’s second goal of the game at 8:07 of overtime gave St. Lawrence a 5-4 win over Colgate and an ECAC title game date at Quinnipiac on Saturday (Photo: Courtesy St. Lawrence)
Cameron Buhl’s second goal of the game at 8:07 of overtime ended an epic battle between St. Lawrence and Colgate and gave the Saints a 5-4 victory and a date with top-seed Quinnipiac on Saturday.
The Bobcats were given a bye to the title game when Clarkson chose to end its season last week.
Both teams struck in the first on goals by Tucker McIntosh for the Larries and Josh McKenhney for Colgate.
But the Raiders took a 3-2 lead into the third when Buhl’s first of the night for St. Lawrence was sandwiched between goals by Colgate’s Jeff Stewart and Evan Tuchumi.
Dylan Wooly evened the score at 4:36 of the third before McIntosh brought the Saints back on top with his second at 5:45.
Colgate, though, had the answer and tied the game on Tyler Jeanson’s goal with 9:47 remaining to force the overtime.
Emil Zetterquist was the story for St. Lawrence, finishing the game with 39 saves, including everything he faced in overtime when the Saints were outshot, 9-1.
This Week’s Picks*: *All games are subject to change.
Atlantic Hockey Tournament Semifinal Round Friday, March 19 Canisius vs. Army West Point Dan: It would take a crazy person to pick against the Black Knights given how they’ve played over the past couple of months. They’re cruising and haven’t really stopped, and their style lends itself to a big time postseason run. They took three-of-four from Canisius last year with the only loss coming in overtime. In all honesty, I just can’t believe we’re seeing crossover (finally). Army West Point wins. Chris: Seriously, how can you pick against Army at this point? I expect a low-scoring affair with the Black Knights finding a way to win, as they have for thirteen straight (12-0-1 with a shootout victory). Army West Point wins.
Niagara at American International Dan: AIC hasn’t played in almost two months, but Eric Lang indicated his team has practiced to be ready for this exact situation. I think there will be some rust early, and Niagara likely pounces on it, but even Cinderella’s glass slipper won’t fit after the Yellow Jackets right themselves. There’s a reason AIC barely lost to anybody this year, and even though Niagara is catching fire at the right time, the east is just so powerful. AIC wins. Chris: This will be intriguing for sure. AIC hasn’t play since January 30, a span of 49 days that saw Niagara play eight games, including four last week. Things could get off to a rocky start but the Yellow Jackets have enough talent to overcome the long layoff. AIC wins.
Championship Game Saturday, March 20 Canisius/Army West Point vs. Niagara/AIC Dan: I wish I could go back in time for a number of reasons, but I would love to go back anywhere from 7-10 years and tell myself that in 2021, two eastern teams would finish 1-2 in the standings despite playing in the same division and would dominate the league. I’d probably believe a team was a three-time regular season champion, but there’s no way I’d believe it was AIC. That said, I love an AIC-Army West Point championship game, and I love the idea of a two-team bid. That said, both would go on merit, and it’s based on pure hockey when I offer this one up. Army West Point wins its first Atlantic Hockey banner. Chris: Nothing ever goes exactly as planned, and while I think the top two teams in the league will play in the title game, I’m going for an upset here and possibly both teams in the NCAA tournament. Army West Point wins.
ERIE, Pa. – The Northeastern Huskies advanced to their first-ever NCAA championship game with a 3-2 overtime win over Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs Thursday night at Erie Insurance Arena.
Senior defender Skylar Fontaine intercepted a pass at the blue line and skated across the goal before shooting back at the far post to beat UMD goalie Emma Soderberg and win the game for Northeastern with 26 seconds left in the overtime period.
The Huskies came from behind and scored three unanswered goals to advance to Saturday’s title game. They’ll face the winner of semifinal number two between Wisconsin and Ohio State.
Northeastern’s Katy Knoll scores the game-tying goal in the NCAA semi-final on Thursday afternoon. Photo: NU Athletics
“We’re thrilled for the opportunity to play in our first ever national championship game. I’m proud of my team, their resiliency going down 2-0 and battling back to win in overtime today,” said Northeastern coach Dave Flint.
The top team in the country, Northeastern started this game slowly and looked to be in trouble. Minnesota Duluth flustered them and dominated the shot chart and puck possession in the first period.
The Bulldogs were relentless on the Huskies, pressuring them in every part of the ice and forcing them to make quick decisions, something Flint said his team was unprepared for.
“They were all over us in the first. We just weren’t moving our feet. We hadn’t seen that speed in awhile. They were doing a good job of taking away time and space. We weren’t making good decisions with the puck,” he said.
UMD had the Huskies on their heels, but could not convert in the opening frame, something coach Maura Crowell said it would be easy to look back and say was important, but her team had a lot of other opportunities to score throughout the game.
Northeastern goalie Aerin Frankel has already been named Goalie of the Year and today was named a Patty Kazmaier top-3 finalist and she showed why, especially early on in this game. She was stellar with her glove hand in particular, nabbing everything Minnesota Duluth put on her cleanly.“The style we play is pretty wide open and we’re gonna give up some odd man rushes. We rely on (Frankel) to bail us out in some situations and she did that today. Even when we had a slow start, she kept it 0-0. If we go into the first intermission down one or two, it might have been a different game,” said Flint.
Sophomore Mannon McMahon finally broke it open for the Bulldogs midway through the second. A puck deflected off a Northeastern player’s skate out to Kailee Skinner at the top of the circles. She would up for what looked like a slapshot, but purposefully hit the puck off the back boards. Frankel was tied up on the opposite side of the crease, leaving space for McMahon to get the puck off the boards and score. It was McMahon’s first goal this year.
Junior Taylor Anderson said that is a play the Bulldogs practice and her teammates performed it to perfection.
Five minutes later, Anderson doubled the UMD lead on a play that was set up beautifully by senior Anna Klein, who carried the puck through the neutral zone with speed. She took it wide and ran into a bit of traffic along the back boards before playing it to herself and coming around the other side of the net and trying to backhand it in. The puck hit the post and deflected out to Anderson, who took one touch and picked her spot to beat Frankel.
But things began to unravel for UMD towards the end of the second as Northeastern had a 5-on-3 power play that straddled the period break. They capitalized just 42 seconds into the third, just after the first penalty expired and that seemed to give the team a jolt.
Maureen Murphy slotted home a pass from Fontaine to make it a one-goal game.
Suddenly the smooth-skating, confidence team that entered the game undefeated in 21 games started to emerge. Less than five minutes later, they took advantage of some Minnesota Duluth mistakes to even the score.
The Bulldogs weren’t able to hold the puck in the offensive zone which allowed Northeastern to go on offense. UMD looked to have possession back behind the net, but Veronika Pettey fed it out to Andrea Renner. Her shot was blocked by Maggie Flaherty, but the puck fell to the slot and Katy Knoll had a moment to collect it and size up the net before scoring and tying the game.
“I love the way we started. We came out flying, put a lot of pressure on them,” said Crowell. “The momentum shifted at the beginning of the third. We weathered it. I liked our effort in OT. I thought we got better and better. It comes down to making plays and they made one more than we did.”
Northeastern controlled the puck and the momentum in the third and but UMD weathered the push and the teams played a much more even overtime period.
It was fitting that it was Fontaine that ended it. She ended the game with 16 shots on goal, more than double anyone else in the game.
“When we had four shots in the first period, I said we have to start getting pucks to the net, so if you have a shot, there’s no bad shot. If you have an opportunity, get the puck to the net. I guess Skylar took that to heart,” said Flint.
It was a tough way to end the Bulldogs’ season, but Crowell said she and her team are holding their heads high.
“We could have won that hockey game. We belong,” she said. “Our performances speak for themselves.”
Northeastern extended their unbeaten streak to 22 games. They’ll play for the national championship Saturday night at 7:30 pm eastern on ESPNU.
Minnesota goalie Jack LaFontaine has the Gophers in the NCAA tournament after winning the Big Ten tournament earlier this week (photo: Jim Rosvold).
We’re inching ever so close to Selection Sunday so let’s take another look at Bracketology.
Right now, there are just nine college hockey games remaining after the NCHC (North Dakota) and Big Ten (Minnesota) crowned their champions. Hockey East has whittled their field to two teams, ECAC is down to three and WCHA and AHA still have their final four to be played.
To cut down to the length, Jayson and Jim are simply going to walk through our process and develop our current NCAA regional field, beginning this week with Jayson:
Jayson: Let’s take a look at who I think is in the field already. These are my locks. This week, I have 12 of them.
AIC
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Michigan
Quinnipiac
Boston College
Massachusetts
North Dakota
St. Cloud State
Minnesota Duluth
Minnesota State
Bemidji State
Let me skip ahead and look at the teams that need to win its conference tournament in order to get in. Some of these teams are also on the bubble.
Army
Niagara
Canisius
St Lawrence
Colgate
UMass Lowell
Lake Superior State
Northern Michigan
If any of these teams win its tournament, they will grab the autobid and one of the four bubble spots available – there are four possible autobids available here.
Now let’s look at the true bubble teams. I count nine of them.
Army West Point
Notre Dame
Boston University
Providence
Connecticut
Denver
Omaha
Bowling Green
Lake Superior State
The only teams left playing are Army and Lake Superior – win and in. Simple for it. But, a loss in the semifinal and I find it hard for Army to get in, while Lake Superior still has a chance.
I want to apply some numbers to what I am looking at here. Let’s take a look at some of the records of these teams against locks or bubble teams that are above them in seedings or standings.
Notre Dame (0-3-1 vs Wisconsin, 2-2 vs Minnesota, 2-2 vs Michigan)
Omaha (2-4-0 vs North Dakota, 1-1 vs SCSU, 0-1-1 vs UMD)
Denver (2-5 vs NoDak, 0-2 vs SCSU, 0-2 vs UMD)
LSSU (0-2 vs Minnesota State, 1-2-1 vs Bemidji (WCHA Semi coming), 2-0 vs BG)
Bowling Green (0-2 vs Minnesota State, 1-3 vs Bemidji St, 0-2 vs LSSU)
BU (1-1 vs BC, 2-0 vs UMass)
UConn (1-2-1 vs BC, 0-1 vs BU, 0-2-1 vs UMass, 2-2 vs Prov)
Providence (0-2 vs BC, 0-2-2 vs UMass, 1-1 vs BU, 2-2 vs UConn)
Army (1-3 vs AIC)
Let me eliminate some teams to start.
Bowling Green has a record of 1-7-0 against Minnesota State, Bemidji State and Lake Superior.
Connecticut has a record of 1-5-2 against Boston College, Boston University and Massachusetts.
Providence has a record of 1-5-2 against Boston College, Boston University and Massachusetts.
Army is 1-3 against AIC.
All other teams, except Lake Superior, have at least two wins against the top two teams in the conference.
Lake Superior has one win against Bemidji State, but is still playing. Thus, I leave them on the bubble.
I would eliminate those four at this time.
That leaves five teams:
Notre Dame
Boston University
Denver
Omaha
Lake Superior State
For the four spots that are left.
How about their records versus the top teams?
Notre Dame (0-3-1 vs Wisconsin, 2-2 vs Minnesota, 2-2 vs Michigan)
Boston University (1-1 vs BC, 2-0 vs UMass)
Denver (2-5 vs North Dakota, 0-2 vs SCSU, 0-2 vs UMD)
Omaha (2-4-0 vs North Dakota, 1-1 vs SCSU, 0-1-1 vs UMD)
Lake Superior (0-2 vs Minnesota State, 1-2-1 vs Bemidji (with WCHA Semi to go))
Right off the bat I will call Boston University, with a record of 3-1-0 against BC and UMass, at the top of this list.
That leaves three spots.
Denver and Omaha are the next two teams on my list, as both have two wins over North Dakota, Omaha with a win over St. Cloud and a tie against UMD, but a loss to Denver in the NCHC Quarterfinals. That gives Omaha the edge over Denver.
That leaves one spot.
Neither Notre Dame or Lake Superior have a win over the top team in the conference.
But, Lake Superior is still playing. A win over Bemidji State will give them a 2-2-1 record against them, matching Notre Dame’s 2-2 against Minnesota. But then, it gives them a chance to take on Minnesota State in the Championship.
Notre Dame though has a 2-2 record against Michigan, who I have as in the tournament while Lake Superior doesn’t have any more games against teams that will be in the tournament.
So, I have to give the slight edge here, as of today, to Notre Dame.
My ranking of the five bubble teams:
Boston University
Denver
Omaha
Notre Dame
Lake Superior State
If there are no surprises from autobids, my 16 teams are:
AIC
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Michigan
Quinnipiac
Boston College
Massachusetts
North Dakota
St. Cloud State
Minnesota Duluth
Minnesota State
Bemidji State
Boston University
Omaha
Denver
Notre Dame
Let’s rank the teams.
My top four teams are:
North Dakota
Boston College
Minnesota State
Minnesota
My second band includes:
Wisconsin
St. Cloud State
Quinnipiac
Minnesota Duluth
My third band includes:
Michigan
Massachusetts
Bemidji State
Boston University
My fourth band includes:
Omaha
Denver
Notre Dame
AIC
Let’s bracket.
Fargo – North Dakota
Bridgeport – Boston College
Albany – Minnesota
Loveland – Minnesota State
Second Band:
Fargo – Wisconsin
Bridgeport – Quinnipiac
Albany – St. Cloud State
Loveland – Minnesota Duluth
Third Band:
Fargo – Bemidji State
Bridgeport – Boston University
Albany – Massachusetts
Loveland – Michigan
Notre Dame vs North Dakota
Bemidji State vs Wisconsin
Albany
Omaha vs. Minnesota
Massachusetts vs. St. Cloud State
Bridgeport
AIC vs. Boston College
Boston University vs. Quinnipiac
Loveland
Denver vs. Minnesota State
Michigan vs. Minnesota Duluth
I would only make one change in this bracket and that is to put Quinnipiac in Albany, swapping them with St Cloud State. This is for potential attendance purposes and because the ECAC is hosting in Albany.
Fargo
Notre Dame vs North Dakota
Bemidji State vs Wisconsin
Albany
Omaha vs. Minnesota
Massachusetts vs. Quinnipiac
Bridgeport
AIC vs. Boston College
Boston University vs. St Cloud
Loveland
Denver vs. Minnesota State
Michigan vs. Minnesota Duluth
Jim: I am going to take a slightly different approach from Jayson. I, too, will give you 12 locks. Teams that, in my opinion, can’t be bumped regardless of the four remaining league tournament champions.
My 12 locks:
North Dakota
Boston College
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Minnesota State
St. Cloud State
Massachusetts
Minnesota Duluth
Quinnipiac
Michigan
American International
Bemidji State
I, too, will develop a bubble. But I’m going to try to build my bubble based on my perceived relative strength of each league. I’ll explain why I am doing this.
When the NCAA committee gets together, they are going to have to somehow find ways to rank teams and I believe that one of the first thing they will do is rank the conferences based on overall strength given the limited about of non-conference play.
I’ll keep mine the same from past Bracketology columns:
Tier I: NCHC
Tier II: Hockey East, Big Ten
Tier III: ECAC
Tier IV: AHA, WCHA
I’m going to attempt to balance the field based on these perceived rankings.
So, my bubble teams are:
Tier I: Omaha, Denver
Tier II: Boston University, Providence, Connecticut, Notre Dame
Tier III: None
Tier IV: Army, Lake Superior, Bowling Green
Thus, for me, I want to prioritize balancing the number of teams in the top tiers as I fill my final four bubble teams.
Thus, without even doing much math, I’m inserting Omaha and Boston University into the field based on their overall winning percentage.
Those two feel easy for me and gives me a conference allocation of spots of:
NCHC: 4
Hockey East, Big Ten: 3
ECAC: 1 (of three eligible teams)
WCHA: 2
AHA: 1
I still have to fill two more slots, and have Denver, Providence, Connecticut, Notre Dame, Army, Lake Superior and Bowling Green to fill these slots.
Right now, I’m going to use the “eye test,” or my version of it, to take two teams out. I’m removing Denver because, despite a strong conference, a 10-13-1 mark simply isn’t strong enough for me. Wins still matter and despite a strong team, Denver’s slow start this season hurt. I’m also eliminating Bowling Green. The team did have a couple of quality wins at Quinnipiac, but went 1-7 in games against the top of the WCHA.
That leaves me with Providence, UConn, Notre Dame, Army and Lake Superior. Five teams for two spots.
With Hockey East being a Tier II conference, a fourth team would give that conference 36.4% of its teams in the tournament. NCHC already has 50%. Big Ten already has 37.5%. So I think that’s a fair balance. The top tier conference has 50% participation and the second tier conferences have 36.4% and 37.5% respectively.
My question is: which of these Hockey East teams – UConn and Providence – should be selected? Here is where the math gets tricky.
When you look at the PairWise, something that the NCAA has said they will use ONLY to compare teams within their own conference, Providence has slipped just behind UConn (by .0001 in the RPI). That’s pretty close so you have to worry about the subjectivity of the committee. Would they prioritize the fact that Providence beat UConn in the Hockey East tournament? Difficult to tell.
For my purposes, though, I’m going with the straight PairWise and picking UConn.
So, who is my final team? Well, again, subjectivity is coming into play. I’m picking Lake Superior because they are in a conference with four teams that are under consideration in my opinion. Might not be sound reasoning. But it creates the following NCAA field, by seeding bands:
First Band:
North Dakota
Boston College
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Second Band:
Minnesota State
St. Cloud State
Massachusetts
Minnesota Duluth
Third Band:
Quinnipiac
Michigan
American International
Bemidji State
Fourth Band:
Boston University
Omaha
Connecticut
Lake Superior
I’m laying out my regionals as follows:
Fargo:
North Dakota vs. Lake Superior
St. Cloud State vs. Bemidji State
Loveland:
Minnesota vs. Boston University
Minnesota Duluth vs. Michigan
Bridgeport:
Wisconsin vs. Connecticut
Minnesota State vs. AIC
Albany:
Boston College vs. Omaha
UMass vs. Quinnipiac
Ideally, I’d keep all six eastern teams in the east regions, but with Boston College a number one seed and both Boston University and UConn fourth seeds, that’s not possible.
There is very little uniformity to both Jayson and Jim’s brackets. Which shows you the challenge the NCAA Division I men’s ice hockey committee will have on Sunday.
So here are this week’s brackets:
Jayson:
Fargo
Notre Dame vs North Dakota
Bemidji State vs Wisconsin
Albany
Omaha vs. Minnesota
Massachusetts vs. Quinnipiac
Bridgeport
AIC vs. Boston College
Boston University vs. St Cloud
Loveland
Denver vs. Minnesota State
Michigan vs. Minnesota Duluth
Jim:
Fargo:
North Dakota vs. Lake Superior
St. Cloud State vs. Bemidji State
Albany
Boston College vs. Omaha
UMass vs. Quinnipiac
Bridgeport
Wisconsin vs. Connecticut
Minnesota State vs. AIC
Loveland
Minnesota vs. Boston University
Minnesota Duluth vs. Michigan
There’s only one game on the schedule in ECAC Hockey tonight, but it’s a big one, as the Raiders and Saints play at 5 p.m. for the right to face Quinnipiac in Saturday’s championship game. Here’s a link to the playoff preview from earlier this week for a more in-depth look at the matchups. For tonight, I think the best player on the ice for either team is St. Lawrence goalie Emil Zetterquist and that should give the Saints the edge in a close matchup.
Max Kouznetsov celebrates his goal last Saturday in Canisius’ 6-2 rout of RIT to sweep the Atlantic Hockey quarterfinal series (photo: Lindy Feider).
Quarterfinals week in Atlantic Hockey had all kinds of drama, starting with the unfortunate exit by Bentley from the postseason, due not because the program itself had any COVID issues, but because there was an uptick on campus, resulting in the suspension of school activities.
The Falcons were scheduled to play at American International in a quarterfinal series, but the cancellation moved the Yellow Jackets, the overall top seed in the AHA tournament, into the semifinals and the right to host the semis and finals on Friday and Saturday.
There was plenty of excitement in the three quarterfinal series that went ahead, with Army West Point, Canisius and Niagara advancing to Springfield over Sacred Heart, RIT and Robert Morris, respectively. For RMU, it’s the first time the Colonials have missed the semifinal round since 2014, a string of six straight interrupted by last season’s early and unexpected halt.
Over 260 minutes were played in three quarterfinal games on Saturday, highlighted by Army West Point’s series-clinching win over Sacred Heart. Colin Bilek scored his 18th goal of the season at 13:20 of the third overtime to put the Black Knights into the semifinals.
“Both teams battled hard,” said Army West Point coach Brian Riley.
“Games like that, it’s an emotional roller coaster, when the puck’s in your end especially. It can end so suddenly.”
The Black Knights extended their unbeaten streak to 13 games (12-0-1). That confidence, knowing how to win, helped on Saturday.
“Players were calm,” said Riley. “We’ve been a lot of close games (during the streak). Also, being up 1-0 (in the series), we were in a better spot (than Sacred Heart).
“We knew that we had a tomorrow.”
With the four semifinalists set, the matchups this Friday are:
Niagara vs. AIC
Canisius vs. Army West Point
Between the pipes
As the saying goes, goaltending wins championships, and there was plenty on display in the quarterfinal round. All three winners rode outstanding goaltending into the semifinals:
– Canisius swept RIT, 5-2 and 6-2 despite being outshot 68-47. Golden Griffins goaltender Jacob Barczewski stopped 64 of the 68 shots he faced.
– Niagara’s Chad Veltri made a whopping 125 saves in three games against Robert Morris, allowing only six goals.
– Trevin Kozlowski stopped 75 of 78 shots against Sacred Heart, including pitching a 4-0 shutout on Friday.
– An honorable mention goes to Sacred Heart’s Josh Benson who was outstanding on Saturday, making a school-record 68 saves in the triple overtime loss to Army West Point.
Four teams, one dream
To minimize travel, this season’s Atlantic Hockey schedule limited teams to a geographic pod (with the exception of Air Force, which played teams from both the East and West pods).
So it’s not until the semifinals that you see some crossover, with the top remaining East Pod team squaring off against the lower seeded West Pod team and visa versa.
This means all four teams will be facing an opponent they haven’t seen so far this season.
The coaches say it’s not that big of a deal.
“There’s a bit of a mystique,” said Niagara coach Jason Lammers. “It’s a building some of our kids haven’t seen before, a trip they haven’t made before. But I don’t think it will be much of an impact.”
“It’s not like we haven’t watched the western teams play all year,” said Riley. “You have an idea of tendencies. We’ll continue to focus on ourselves and what we have done and what we can do to be successful.”
“We won’t read too much into the east/west crossover,” said AIC coach Eric Lang. “Our staff covers every game of the weekend regardless of who we are playing. I don’t think we will see any surprises this time of year. You beat teams with your execution and getting the game scripted to how you want to play in order to have success.”
AIC faces a unique challenge, as the Yellow Jackets have been off since Jan. 30, a stretch that will reach 49 days before they take the ice on Friday against Niagara. AIC had its previous nine games canceled due to various COVID protocols.
“We had as good of a weekend as you could possibly have in terms of getting ready after not playing for six weeks,” said Lang. “We played two intersquad games with the exact game protocol, music, announcers, we even asked our coaches and players to wear their suits. We did our video and pre-scout exactly as we would on any game day. We wanted it to replicate exactly what we will be doing this week. We played two very intense games against ourselves and learned a lot from it.”
“(AIC’s layoff) is a factor,” said Lammers. “It’s a lot of time to sit, but they’ll be fresh. Being able to scrimmage helps.”
Canisius coach Trevor Large summed up the season and this particular situation in a word.
“It’s been weird,” he said. “But (the lack of crossover) doesn’t mean a lot. We know Army. While not seeing them is odd, we have video capabilities.
“I’ve coached with Brian Riley. I know how they want to play. They’re a really good team.”
For the four remaining schools, it’s going to come down to execution.
“We’re all the same,” said Large. “All four teams. We all have extreme confidence. We’ve all put wins together against quality opponents. It’s going to be ultra competitive.”
Managing the impossible
At this time last season, the college hockey world was coming to grips with the sudden halt of games and sudden ends to college careers.
This time (knocks wood), there will be champions crowned and closure found, at least for most teams.
“My heart goes out to Holy Cross and Bentley,” said Atlantic Hockey commissioner Bob DeGregorio. “It’s hard to put into words what this season has been like.”
From the start, nothing has gone according to plan, with adjustments being made on an almost daily basis.
“We started with a 34 game schedule,” said DeGregorio. “Going in, how can we make the best schedule possible? How can we make everybody safe and still play games? We got input from athletic directors and coaches. We brought in LIU (Long Island University) to balance the numbers. Air Force had a tough assignment.”
But operating in a pandemic meant constant adjustments, backed by the fear that the league might not make it to the finish line.
“We got shut down in October,” said DeGregorio. “There were concerns that there seemed to be some spiking (of cases). There was talk then of pumping the brakes and waiting (to start the season) until January. But I was concerned, the experts were saying, that January and February could be worse. I just felt like if we stopped, we’d never start back up.”
At the end of the regular season, Atlantic Hockey teams had played anywhere from 13-21 games.
“Everybody worked hard,” said DeGregorio. “Players, coaches, trainers, athletic directors. We tried to make sure we covered all of the bases.
“Make adjustments. Control travel. Control exposure.”
“It’s been a tough season, but in some ways our most rewarding season,” said Riley.” I’m thankful to people behind the scenes, trainers, health officials, all the way up to our Superintendent. I wouldn’t want to play for anyone else in a pandemic.”
In closing
This is my final column for the season. It’s my 22nd year at USCHO, my 15th covering Atlantic Hockey. I’m grateful to all the coaches, players and sports information directors who made time for me this season and every season.
I’m also thankful for Matt Mackinder, my editor, for being kind to my mistakes.
My co-columnist, Dan Rubin, kept things fresh and picked up the load for many weeks when my family and I were hit with health problems. I couldn’t have asked for more. It’s been a great partnership that I hope lasts for a long time to come.
And lastly, thanks to my family for continuing to support my passions. It’s been a rough year for us, and I know that’s been the case for many, many families. But we’re still standing.
It’s getting better. I truly believe that. Stay safe. Take care of each other. Enjoy the hockey that’s yet to come.
Wisconsin State Journal writer and USCHO editor emeritus Todd D. Milewski joins hosts Jim Connelly and Ed Trefzger to preview the semifinal and championship rounds in ECAC Hockey, Atlantic Hockey, and the WCHA and the Hockey East finals between UMass Lowell and No. 6 UMass.
They also consider NCAA implications of the four series, including what “eye test” criteria might be used by the committee.
From left, Aerin Frankel, Daryl Watts, Grace Zumwinkle – the three finalists for the 2021 Patty Kazmaier Award.
The USA Hockey Foundation announced Thursday that Northeastern senior goalie Aerin Frankel, Wisconsin senior forward Daryl Watts and Minnesota senior forward Grace Zumwinkle have been named as the three finalists for the 2021 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award.
Frankel is 19-1-1 this season for the Huskies with an 0.71 GAA and a .969 save percentage with nine shutouts.
Watts, who won the award as a freshman in 2018, has gone for 17 goals and 34 points in 29 games this season.
Zumwinkle has compiled 17 goals and 24 points in 20 games for the Gophers.
The 24th winner of the award will be revealed on Saturday, March 27, as part of a special broadcast on NHL Network. Jackie Redmond will serve as host and all 10 award finalists will be featured.
An award of the USA Hockey Foundation, the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award is annually presented to the top player in NCAA Division I women’s ice hockey. Selection criteria includes outstanding individual and team skills, sportsmanship, performance in the clutch, personal character, competitiveness and a love of hockey. Consideration is also given to academic achievement and civic involvement.
The award is named in honor of the late Patty Kazmaier, who was a four-year varsity letter-winner and All-Ivy League defenseman at Princeton from 1981 to 1986. An accomplished athlete who helped lead the Tigers to the Ivy League championship in three consecutive seasons (1981-84), Patty Kazmaier-Sandt died Feb. 15, 1990, at the age of 28 following a long struggle with a rare blood disease.
Miami goalie Ludvig Persson defends the RedHawks’ crease earlier this season in a game against St. Cloud State (photo: Miami Athletics).
Now that the Frozen Faceoff has ended, it seems fitting to look back on the NCHC season.
It’s likely that three teams from the conference may make the NCAA tournament, possibly four, but with so much up in the air with selection, it’s also possible only two teams, North Dakota and St. Cloud State, will be chosen.
If so, it would be a horrible way for Minnesota Duluth’s streak of three straight NCAA championship games to end. In addition to the Bulldogs, Omaha has to be sitting on the edge of its proverbial seat wondering whether the loss to Denver in the first round of the NCHC tournament will end what has been a fine season.
The waiting game is interesting.
Going strictly off the PairWise, only North Dakota is truly safe. St. Cloud currently sits at 16, Minnesota Duluth at 20, Denver at 21, and Omaha at 25. St. Cloud will likely qualify for the NCAA tournament. Minnesota Duluth sputtered down the stretch, losing five of its last seven, and that may cost the Bulldogs a spot. Omaha lost four of its last five, as well as three of five games to Denver since late January, and that will likely end the Mavericks’ season.
Denver, despite flashes of brilliance, was never quite able to establish consistency, and that will likely bring the Pioneers’ NCAA tournament streak to an end.
Back in December, just before the NCHC pod in Omaha began, I questioned whether we were really going to have a hockey season and whether it was worth the risks in our COVID-19 era. I stand by that statement, but I think we also need to give the NCHC an enormous amount of credit for how the season played out.
Each of the league’s eight teams was slated to play a 24-game schedule, and six teams actually managed that feat. Denver and Colorado College were the only two teams to not play 24 games, though they almost managed that at 22 games each.
Having said that, COVID-19 did still affect the season in multiple ways.
Four teams (CC, Denver, Minnesota Duluth, and Omaha) had games cancelled due to COVID. CC was hit the hardest, losing out on three weekends. CC was also short players in the NCHC tournament because of COVID, as was Denver; the Pioneers only had 10 forwards, yet came within inches of advancing to the Frozen Faceoff championship when Cole Guttman’s empty-net attempt just missed. North Dakota then tied it and won in OT. CC also gave St. Cloud all it could handle, losing 2-1.
The NCHC season began with a bang with the pod in Omaha, something all the league’s teams seemed to find an interesting way to manage playing hockey during a pandemic. It worked so well that the league went to a “mini-pod” for its tournament last week, bypassing the usual best-of-three first round series on campus sites in favor of a single-elimination format for all the games.
When the decision was made, league commissioner Josh Fenton acknowledged COVID was behind it while also stating that the league hoped to return to its traditional format, including the Frozen Faceoff at the Xcel Center in St. Paul, Minn., next season.
Said Fenton in a press release, “Due to continued challenges with COVID-19, we are forced to alter the structure and location of the 2021 NCHC Tournament. Circumstances surrounding travel, testing, and fan attendance made the traditional format difficult to complete. We are disappointed that we will not be able to culminate the season at Xcel Energy Center, but look forward to bringing one of college hockey’s best tournament experiences back to Saint Paul in 2022.”
Last week in his state of the NCHC press conference, Fenton also acknowledged that COVID may still affect the league next season.
“We’ll have to see where the virus is and the transmission of the virus across our society overall before we’re making determinations of whether there are specific protocols that we’ve been in this year, whether it be testing, masking, social distancing, attendance at games, those types of things, whether those will hold true for next year,” Fenton said.
“We certainly hope that we can return to some sense of normalcy, particularly welcoming fans back to venues, but I think there are things within that protocol that we’ll certainly want to be mindful of as we creep toward next September and October.”
Awards season
On Wednesday, the 10 candidates for the Hobey Baker Award were announced. The NCHC was represented by North Dakota’s Shane Pinto, who led the league in scoring with 28 points and finished first in scoring in the NCHC and ninth nationally.
In the league’s eight-year history, it has had at least one Hobey candidate every year. A total of 13 NCHC players have been named Hobey candidates, seven of whom have gone on to be named Hobey Hat Trick finalists.
Denver’s Will Butcher won the award in 2017 and Minnesota Duluth’s Scott Perunovich won it last season. Last year, two NCHC players, Perunovich and North Dakota’s Jordan Kawaguchi, were Hat Trick finalists. In the league’s previous seven years, 2016 is the only year an NCHC player wasn’t a Hat Trick finalist.
Pinto isn’t the only player up for an award.
North Dakota goaltender Adam Scheel has been named a finalist for the Mike Richter Award. During the regular season, Scheel had a 15-3-1 record with a 1.78 goals-against average and .928 save percentage with four shutouts. Scheel won NCHC goaltender of the year honors as well. Two NCHC goaltenders have been among the Richter Award’s seven previous winners: North Dakota’s Zane McIntyre in 2015 and Denver’s Tanner Jaillet in 2017.
Additionally, Kawaguchi and St. Cloud State forward Kevin Fitzgerald are among the 10 finalists for the Men’s Hockey Senior CLASS Award, which stands for “Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School.” Fans can help select the winner by voting at the Senior CLASS website until March 29.
Last Thursday, the NCHC announced the league awards. North Dakota coach Brad Berry was named Herb Brooks Coach of the Year, the third time he was won the award. Pinto was named conference player of the year and also earned forward of the year and defensive forward of the year honors. St. Cloud forward Veeti Miettinen was rookie of the year, and Western Michigan defenseman Kale Bennett was named NCHC senior scholar-athlete for 2020-21. Fitzgerald also won the NCHC sportsmanship award.
North Dakota’s Jacob Bernard-Docker was named defensive defenseman of the year, Western Michigan’s Ronnie Attard offensive defenseman of the year, and Miami goaltender Ludvig Persson won the league’s three stars award.
Former Michigan coach Red Berenson (left), now an advisor to Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren, chats with the commissioner in Ann Arbor last month (photo: Big Ten Conference).
Another sign of how much things have changed, as if one was needed, was evident in Sunday’s conversation with Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren.
When Warren took over at the helm of the conference in January 2020, a college hockey reporter opening an interview with a line of questions about an infectious disease wouldn’t have been normal.
Such is life for the Big Ten, and sports in general, these days.
Warren’s job as boss of the conference quickly delved into unchartered territory, where simply playing games as scheduled became a tall task.
As the hockey season wraps up, how’d he do?
“It’s always easier to turn around and look back and evaluate decisions,” Warren said on Sunday, about one hour before the puck dropped on the Big Ten’s hockey tournament. “We were doing everything we possibly could to create an environment to play sports in a safe manner during a global pandemic. I feel collectively that we made prudent decisions, we based our decisions on the health and safety of our student athletes and did all that we could for our conference.”
Now, with vaccines being distributed and the worst, hopefully, being in the rearview mirror, the commissioner reflected on some things that the conference can take away from the past 12 months.
“I think what it’s done, one, is reminded people to live in the moment,” he said. “Some of the things that we’ve done this year to make this season happen have really made us better, just from an operational standpoint. It just shows that it’s not one of these things where we do it this because we’ve done it that way. What’s the best way to do it? I know it’s really challenged people from a creativity standpoint to think outside of the ordinary proverbial box, so we asked ourselves, are there better ways that we can serve our student-athletes? That’s why I think this year’s so important also.
“It’s been a great, fair, non-offensive way to be able to ask ‘why?’ This also allowed us an opportunity to keep all the great things we’ve done in place and just improve upon certain areas.”
After a summer of uncertainty, a hockey season eventually came to be. So too, the interview eventually shifted from testing and temperature checks to the actual hockey that was played this season.
Put simply, Warren was impressed with what he saw and added that he was excited to travel to Notre Dame on Monday to watch the conclusion of the tournament.
“I watched a lot of games,” Warren said. “They’re talented, they play fast and physical. I was pleased with the way our Big Ten teams played this year, the way the coaches coached and the way the officials officiated. It was a really great season.”
As commissioner, Warren oversees the 14 Big Ten schools and two affiliate members. The conference sponsors 14 men’s and 14 women’s sports, so hockey is just a piece of the pie, but Warren said the sport holds a special place in his heart. His son, Powers, played youth hockey growing up in Minnesota before choosing to focus on football.
“My wife and my daughter and my son, we have some really fond memories of a lot of days and nights and a lot of early mornings in hockey rinks,” he said. “Driving around Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin for my son to play in hockey tournaments, it was really special. The hockey community is really strong in our Big Ten footprint and I absolutely love the sport.”
Warren, who grew up in Tempe, Ariz., said that he has joked with Red Berenson that had hockey been more prevalent in the state at the time he probably would have played it. Berenson, the legendary former Michigan coach, was brought onboard as an advisor to the commissioner last May. Warren brought him up multiple times during the call and said that he leans in him heavily.
“Coach Berenson, there are many things that I deeply respect about him, but he never had a personal agenda,” Warren said. “We meet every Friday and we don’t have to fool around a lot. We get right to it. What he says, I listen to, because I know at the end of the day he has the best interests of our student-athletes, the coaches, hockey, and the Big Ten at the top of the list.”
In the college hockey landscape, the Big Ten stands out at the only non-hockey-specific conference. Even in its eighth season, it still manages to draw the ire of some fans who yearn for the way things used to be. With one year under his belt, what’s the new commissioner’s sales pitch to those people?
“We have some iconic brands, not only great teams but the arenas across the Big Ten,” Warren said. “It’s all good, the talent of our play this year has been great. We have schools who are focused on playing good hockey and I think that’s the biggest thing. It’s just so easy to be critical, but this is a focus in the Big Ten, hockey is a focus. We’re trying to build great brands that play good, hard, fast and clean hockey. I think it’s good for everyone involved with it.”
Before the pandemic, lagging attendance at some schools was a talking point around the conference. Limited attendance put that on the back burner for the short term, but with larger crowds hopefully being allowed in the future, Warren was asked about how important it was to capture an audience that should be starved for live sports and turn them into returning fans.
“I’m looking forward to the day, whenever that happens,” he said. “We have very passionate hockey fans, as you know, that respect the game. I’m looking forward to continually creating an environment where they get a chance to watch a lot of good Big Ten hockey.”
He then added that he was trying to not look too far into the future, something that was solidified as a fool’s errand last year.
“Our focus now is just finishing strong, finishing this season strong and finishing this academic semester strong from an athletic standpoint,” Warren said. “Then we’re going to take some serious time this summer to evaluate, not only hockey, but all our sports. What can we do better? What can we do to improve the games?
“I look forward to those discussions and being able to really evaluate what we can do better, but right now I’m happy for our student athletes and our coaches and our administrators and our entire Big Ten hockey community, because we’ve had a great season.”
Angus Crookshank collected nine goals and 18 points in 20 games during the 2020-21 season for New Hampshire (photo: Rich Gagnon).
New Hampshire junior forward Angus Crookshank has signed a three-year, entry-level contract with the NHL’s Ottawa Senators, giving up his senior season with the Wildcats.
For the duration of 2020-21, Crookshank has signed an amateur tryout agreement and will report to the AHL’s Belleville Senators following a required quarantine period.
Crookshank was selected by Ottawa in the fifth round (126th overall) in the 2018 NHL Draft.
“On behalf of UNH hockey, I want to congratulate Angus,” said New Hampshire coach Mike Souza in a statement. “The Senators are getting a player that has an unrivaled desire to be an NHL player. Angus has been a tremendous ambassador both on and off the ice here at UNH and we are excited to have played a part in his development.”
Crookshank posted 35 goals and 28 assists for 63 points over 90 career games at UNH, including nine goals and 18 points in 20 games during the 2020-21 season.
Matt Brown celebrates his double-overtime winner for UMass Lowell Wednesday night as the River Hawks downed Boston College 6-5 to advance to the Hockey East title game Saturday night (photo: Rich Gagnon).
One Hockey East tournament semifinal Wednesday night could be compared to a roller coaster of epic proportions.
The other one was simply 60 minutes of hockey.
When the dust settled, UMass toppled Boston College in double overtime and UMass defeated Providence.
The two Massachusetts teams will now meet for the Hockey East championship for the first time ever Saturday night with the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament on the line.
If Lowell wins, it will be the first time a No. 7 seed has won the title. If UMass wins, it will be the first-ever conference championship for the Minutemen.
The Hockey East championship game gets underway at 7 p.m. Saturday night from the Mullins Center in Amherst, Mass.
UMass Lowell 6, Boston College 5 (2OT)
After a potential Boston College goal was overturned in the first overtime due to an offside call, Matt Brown won it for the River Hawks 12 minutes into the second extra session.
“Our team did a great job working the puck around the zone,” Brown said. “Seth Barton put it out in front, (BC goalie) Spencer (Knight) tipped it up, and I was able to bat it in.”
“We’re obviously very pleased to be moving on,” added Lowell coach Norm Bazin. “This is game three of the playoffs for us. It’s exciting to be able to play for a championship this year. These guys are resilient, and it wasn’t a perfect game for us, but we got through it.”
The third period saw BC enter the final 20 minutes up 4-1, only to see Lowell score four late sandwiched around an Eagles goal to send the game to OT tied 5-all.
BC appeared to win at 13:11 of the first overtime as Patrick Giles tipped Jack St. Ivany’s shot past UML goalie Henry Welsch, but BC was ruled offside earlier in the play after video review.
“It is not a season-ending loss for us,” said BC coach Jerry York. “We have a chance now to go to the national tournament so that is going to be our catalyst now and we are certainly not going to dwell on this game for long.”
Anthony Baxter scored twice for UMass Lowell, while Andre Lee and Brown each had a goal and an assist and Reid Stefanson and Lucas Condotta each posted goals.
Chase Blackmun had two assists and Welsch finished with 34 saves.
For the Eagles, Alex Newhook went for two goals and three assists, Matt Boldy added four assists, Mike Hardman tacked on a goal and an assist, and Marshall Warren and Marc McLaughlin each scored.
Knight made 43 saves in suffering the loss.
UMass 5, Providence 2
After a four-goal first period that had the game tied 2-2, the Minutemen scored the next three to knock off the Friars.
Bobby Trivigno collected a goal and two assists for UMass, while Marc Del Gaizo and Zac Jones each had a goal and an assist. George Mika and Josh Lopina scored one each to go along with two assists from Matthew Kessel and 20 saves from goalie Filip Lindberg.
“It’s been a crazy year,” said UMass coach Greg Carvel. “I’m so proud of our kids. Tonight, they played a great playoff game. We scored early, and to me that’s not always a great thing, and Providence had a real good push back. I thought we responded well, but I thought the last two periods we were dominant. I don’t know what the final shots were, but I know we didn’t give up much. The kids played hard, they played right, they played good playoff hockey and deserved to win.”
Trivigno’s goal at 1:22 of the second period stood as the winner.
“It gave them a lot of energy and it took energy away from us,” Providence coach Nate Leaman said. “From that point on, we struggled managing pucks.”
Brett Berard and Parker Ford scored for Providence and Jaxson Satuber turned aside 22 saves between the pipes.
This marks only the second time UMass has reached the Hockey East championship game, with its only other time coming 17 years ago when the Minutemen lost to Maine in 2004.
“Now we’ve got a chance to win the whole thing on home ice,” Carvel said. “It’s a very exciting time for our program. I’m just really proud of our kids. They’re playing their hearts out and getting rewarded for it.”
It’s the last week of Hockey East action, and tonight are the semi finals. It’s already been a wild time with UMass Lowell pulling off an upset and taking Boston University out of the running.
This week is extra fun because Jim and I have totally different picks, too!
Wednesday, March 17
UMass Lowell at Boston College (Wed. at BC)
UMass Lowell had its annual Boston University upset earlier this week. The Eagles, though, have some strengths the Terriers just didn’t. Start with Spencer Knight in net, recently named the Hockey East player of the year. The River Hawks always cause some trouble though so an upset wouldn’t be out of left field or anything.
Jim’s pick: UML 3, BC 2 Marisa: BC 3, UML 2
Providence at UMass (Wed. at UMass)
UMass handled things with Northeastern and now they face an intriguing Friars club. They have a ton of talent, a solid goalie, and one of the best head coaches in the business. UMass, though, behind Filip Lindberg in net just has so much talent. This one feels like it could go either way, but being at Amherst makes a huge difference.ockey
Jim’s pick: PC 2, UMass 1 Marisa’s pick: UMass 4, PC 1
Lake Superior State senior Yuki Miura has recorded 11 points this season while playing in all 26 games for the Lakers (photo: LSSU Athletics).
Shortly after dropping his son off for hockey practice, Lake Superior State coach Damon Whitten looks out from his office window at the Taffy Abel Arena.
A collection of banners stares back at him. This is his office view every day, a reminder of the proud tradition of Lakers hockey that includes an era that stretches from 1987-96. They made the NCAA tournament eight straight times during that run, winning three national titles and finishing runner-up once.
Since the 1995-96 season, the Lakers have topped the 20-win plateau just twice, most recently in 2018-19.
It is something that weighs on Whitten, especially given the position of the banners in respect to his office.
“This is a program with multiple national championships and many league championships,” Whitten said. “My office overlooks the rink, and I look out at many banners. That’s the expectation. It’s been a long time, but we still have fans and alumni who know those championship days very well, and want to get back to that level. We share that goal. We’ve made good progress over several years, but there’s a long way to go still. That’s kind of our focus is finishing some of those steps.”
When Whitten took over the reins of the Lakers, he was replacing Jim Roque, who reached 21 wins in his second season, but never could coax more than 18 wins out of any other Lakers squad.
Whitten was fresh off of the transition at Michigan Tech from Jamie Russell to Mel Pearson. Having served the Huskies under both as an assistant coach, he felt he learned much from the two that he could take into his new job with the Lakers.
“I learned a lot from Jamie Russell,” Whitten said. “Obviously, it was a tough ending with that. We quickly built that program and did a really good job with a really connected staff, and a big focus on recruiting.”
Whitten could not help but carry some of the swagger he had leaving the Huskies into his first season with the Lakers. He, like his team, which had won 16 games the season before, learned quickly that they were going to have to work that much harder to produce victories. His group won only eight games in that first season.
“I was a young head coach, so I had a lot to learn,” he said. “I think we all think we’re ready, but there’s a lot to learn.
“That transition is one of those things. Finding the way to connect with my team more and build relationships. When you go from assistant coach to head coach, the way you have to build relationships, and the work it takes, changes significantly.”
Looking back, Whitten hoped success would come quicker than it did, but once it did, it came in droves in 2018-19 as the Lakers won 23 games.
It helped that he had three seniors who racked up at least 25 points. One of which, Diego Cuglietta, popped 25 goals and his 41 points were good for 21st in the country.
“Diego ended up leading the country in goals that year,” Whitten said. “I think that was big for us to show that you can come to Lake State and lead the country in goals. We’re not going to just kind of sit back and hope we win close games. We wanted to impose our will upon the game and recruit players like that and have a team built with skill, talent and the ability to score goals.”
The Lakers opened with seven straight wins that season. They racked up an eight-game winning streak in the middle of the season. They swept the Bemidji State Beavers, at home, to earn a trip to the WCHA semifinals, where they lost to the Minnesota State Mavericks in two games, scoring just once over the course of the series.
They followed that impressive season with a pair of wins to open 2019-20 against Mercyhurst. They then dropped six straight and 13 of their next 19. To be fair, they faced some high-ranking competition in teams like Michigan, Denver and Notre Dame on consecutive weekends.
Whitten felt that his team, which had lost a number of key seniors to graduation, to a point, took the season for granted.
“I think as much as we tried to guard against that,” he said. “There was a little bit of complacency that people in our organization, players and staff, thought, ‘Hey, we’ve arrived,’ a little bit. ‘We’ve had this great season, and we’re there.’ That’s not the way it works.”
Learning on the fly is not easy, but Whitten felt his team did a good job coming down the stretch, which led to a playoff berth at Bemidji State. The Lakers were able to force a third and deciding game before their season ended with a 3-1 loss at the Sanford Center.
With the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on the 2020-21 season, the Lakers learned another lesson in not taking hockey for granted. For them, just like for most teams, just getting the chance to open the season Saturday, Nov. 21, meant so much to the players and coaches alike, even if it meant hosting the Huskies without any fans in the building.
“To me, I think a defining moment this year was our first game,” Whitten said. “To finally make it through all the protocols and the delays and the startups, the uncertainty. Then, all of a sudden, you’re standing there, with the national anthem playing, empty arena, finally, another team across the ice from you, and you’re like, ‘Oh, man, now I’ve got to coach. Now there’s pressure to win, and perform, and have your team ready to go.”
Even though the game ended in a 0-0 tie that needed a shootout to decide, Whitten felt like the game was a “win” just because they got to play it.
“I can tell you post-game, it was amazing to be back on the bench. Our players felt it that normalcy, that compete. Our players are just wired to play this game, and compete, and so it gave some normalcy back to all of our lives and we’re very thankful.”
They followed that game up with a 4-1 win on Sunday over Huskies. They started the season 4-0-2 before taking their first loss of the season at home against the Beavers on Saturday, Jan. 2. The next bump in their schedule came two weeks later in a pair of losses to the Mavericks.
From that weekend on, the Lakers have lost just three times during a stretch that also saw them play nine games in 20 nights. While it was a novelty this season, Whitten feels that his players would not want to repeat it exactly next season, but, perhaps, some of the split-series scheduling might work for both teams during the middle of the season.
“I would never want to repeat what we did and play nine games in 22 nights,” said Whitten. “However, I did like the Tuesday night or Tuesday afternoons, in some cases, games, which you know, hopefully not a thing in the future with fans. But, I would be very interested to work with Ferris (State), Northern (Michigan), or possibly Michigan Tech. Maybe splitting a series somewhere and playing that, because I can tell you, when you get to late January, February, your players aren’t in love with practicing five days a week.”
They closed out the regular season with a split with the Beavers and a win over the Ferris State Bulldogs to finish in a tie for second with the Bowling Green Falcons. The Lakers had one more regulation win than the Falcons and also swept the Falcons during the season, giving the Lakers the second seed in the WCHA playoffs.
Despite not having fans in the arena, the Lakers made the best they could of the situation, sweeping the Alabama Huntsville Chargers. With the series win, the Lakers now advance to face the Beavers again in the semifinals in Mankato, Minnesota.
Beavers sweep Huskies
Despite Michigan Tech scoring first both nights, Bemidji State won both Friday and Saturday night to earn a spot in the WCHA semifinals.
Brian Halonen got the Huskies on the board just 2:33 into Friday’s contest. The Beavers answered 5:27 later with a goal from Aaron Miller.
Alex Ierullo gave the Beavers the lead 6:22 later. Lukas Sillinger, who had assisted on Ierullo’s tally, got one of his own 11:42 into the second to seal the win.
Saturday, the Huskies’ Tommy Parrottino scored 12:09 into the first. The Beavers struck back with two goals in 51 seconds from Brad Johnson and Ethan Somoza in the second to take a 2-1 lead into the third.
Alex Adams and Ross Armour both potted empty-netters in the third to seal the series victory.
The Hobey Baker Memorial Award Committee announced Wednesday the top 10 candidates for the 2021 award honoring college hockey’s top player.
Matt Boldy, So., F, Boston College
Cole Caufield, So., F, Wisconsin
David Farrance, Sr., D, Boston University
Dylan Holloway, So., F, Wisconsin
Spencer Knight, So., G, Boston College
Jack LaFontaine, Sr., G, Minnesota
Dryden McKay, Jr., G, Minnesota State
Keith Petruzzelli, Sr., G, Quinnipiac
Shane Pinto, So., F, North Dakota
Odeen Tufto, Sr., F, Quinnipiac
The 10 finalists were selected by voting from all 61 Division I college hockey head coaches plus online fan balloting.
Next, the 30-member selection committee and an additional round of fan balloting through the Hobey website March 18-28 will determine this year’s Hobey Baker winner.
Criteria for the award include: displaying outstanding skills in all phases of the game, strength of character on and off the ice, sportsmanship and scholastic achievements.
The Hobey Hat Trick (three finalists) will be announced on April 1, 2021 and the Hobey Baker Award winner will be announced on Friday, April 9, 2021. The announcement will be televised live on the NHL Network and streamed on the Hobey Baker website at 6 p.m. EST.
Hosts Jim Connelly and Ed Trefzger wrap up the exciting semifinal and championship rounds of the Big Ten and NCHC in this special midweek edition of Weekend Review.
They also look at a projected NCAA field with 12 or 13 teams that are locks – or nearly so – for the tournament and consider which teams on the bubble might get in depending on this weekend’s four playoffs. Plus, who will be the top four seeds and where might they go?
Colgate freshman goalie Carter Gylander has been the winning goaltender for all six of the Raiders’ wins this season (photo: Justin Wolford).
For the most part, the four ECAC Hockey teams playing this year made it through the season unscathed.
But news that Clarkson was cancelling its season last week after some team members violated the school’s COVID-19 policies brought back flashbacks to last March, when teams started to drop out of the league tournament before the entire hockey season was eventually canceled.
However, that wasn’t the case this season, as the three remaining teams are set to compete in the abbreviated ECAC Hockey playoffs starting Thursday, when fourth-seeded Colgate travels to No. 3 St. Lawrence at 5 p.m. The winner of that game will face top-seeded Quinnipiac at 4 p.m. Saturday, concluding what’s been an unusual ECAC Hockey season.
Teams have had to get creative this year in order to keep playing safely.
Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold said that his team dresses in four different locker rooms, while goalie Keith Petruzzelli often changes in an official’s room.
Despite all the changes, the coaches are quick to recognize all the work that has gone into playing this season.
“I think Colgate and all the other schools still playing deserve a lot of credit for the time and money they’ve put in to get us to this place,” Raiders coach Don Vaughan said. “That doesn’t go unnoticed by our guys. Our guys are grateful that the school have stepped up. I think they’ve done a great job to continue to make that commitment to community healthy. Everybody is doing their part and we’re just thrilled to be playing.”
Here’s a preview of the three teams set to compete for the league championship later this week:
No. 4 Colgate at No. 3 St. Lawrence
Season series: Colgate 3-2-1 Top scorers: Colgate – Alex Young (6-7-13); St. Lawrence: Cameron Buhl (3-10-13)
Colgate ended the regular season with arguably its best win of the year, beating Quinnipiac 4-3 on March 6, while St. Lawrence resumed practicing on Sunday after a pause in team activities due to COVID-19 precautions.
“We’ve got to get our legs back,” said Saints coach Brent Brekke, whose team hasn’t played a game since Feb. 27. “We’re not going to get into optimal condition. That’s just the reality of that. It’s a balancing act of where you can’t tax the legs too much, but you have to try and gain your legs back.”
It helps that St. Lawrence has Emil Zetterquist in goal. The junior has been the Saints best player this season, and enters the playoffs with .928 save percentage.
But even with Zetterquist in net, Brekke knows that the Saints can’t afford to play passively.
“We talked to our guys; it would be easy to come off a ten-day pause where you haven’t skated for a week and a half just say that we’re going just going to sit back and not overextend ourselves. That’s not the way we’re built, but doing that, you have to manage the puck because you don’t want to get into a track meet where you’re going up and down the ice because you can get extended quickly.”
As for the Raiders, Colgate has been mired in a six-game winless streak before beating Quinnipiac to end the regular season.
“We’ve played two of the top 15 teams in the country a combined 14 times in Clarkson and Quinnipiac,” Vaughan said. “For our young team, that is a baptism by fire. We’ve learn a ton and we’ve grown as a group. From that standpoint, its’ been a great development piece.”
Colgate has gotten several important contributions from its freshman class this season. Goalie Carter Gylander has played the most minutes in net for the Raiders, while defenseman Pierson Brandon was named the league’s best defensive defenseman and forward Alex Young lead the team in scoring.
While the Raiders have played Clarkson and Quinnipiac plenty of times, Vaughan said it was probably the Saints who bottled the Raiders up in their own end the most of the three league teams.
“They were physical, every inch of ice was contested,” Vaughan said. “You’ve got two teams that are pretty similar in a lot of ways…for our young team, it’s going to be a great experience with a lot on the line and a chance to compete for a championship.”
No. 1 Quinnipiac
Top scorer: Odeen Tufto (6-38-44) Season series vs. Colgate: 4-1-1 Season series vs. St. Lawrence: 4-1-1
In a way, Saturday’s championship is a microcosm of how the season has gone this year, as Quinnipiac won’t know their opponent until less than 48 hours before game time.
“In this year, you’ve got to deal with what’s in front of you,” Pecknold said. “We’ll be fine. Our guys will be fired up and we’ll be ready to play.”
Regardless of the opponent, Pecknold hopes his team isn’t too fired up, as penalties have hurt the Bobcats at times this season.
“The big thing is staying away from the penalties,” he said. “We’ve taken a lot of penalties this year and we can’t do that on Saturday.”
Despite that, Quinnipiac’s penalty kill has been clicking this year, especially in league play. A big part of that has been Petruzzelli, who has a .929 save percentage and is tied for third in the country in shutouts.
Offensively, Quinnipiac has been led by senior Odeen Tufto, who leads the nation in assists and faceoff winning percentage.
“He’s been as a good as any player offensively in a season that I’ve ever had,” Pecknold said. “He’s been absolutely dominant. He’s a weapon for us in all three zones. When I put him on the ice, we have the puck.”
It could be little details like that which give Quinnipiac the edge Saturday in what Pecknold expects Saturday to be a close game.
“We have to make sure that we compete and battle,” he said. “With the type of goaltending that either team is going to put in the net, it’s going to be a hard game.”
Around the league
* With Clarkson’s season over, junior forward Josh Dunne signed a two-year entry level deal with Columbus on Sunday. Dunne was one of the best two-way players in the league during his first two seasons, but got a late start this year due to an injury and finished with only five points in 14 games.
* The league has started announcing its end-of-year awards.
Here’s who has been honored so far:
Coach of the year: Rand Pecknold, Quinnipiac Rookie of the year: Ethan Haider, Clarkson Best defensive forward: Zach Tsekos, Clarkson Best defensive defenseman: Pierson Brandon, Colgate
Providence’s Tyce Thompson and UMass’ Bobby Trivigno have their teams in the Hockey East tournament semifinals (photos: Stew Milne/Thompson, UMass Athletics/Trivigno).
When Providence and Massachusetts square off this evening for a spot in the Hockey East title game, there will be two players on opposite sides who have evolved significantly this season to become offensive leaders of the respective clubs.
UMass’ Bobby Trivigno and Providence’s Tyce Thomspon each lead their respective clubs in scoring, but both played have evolved throughout this season to each be playing their best hockey down the stretch.
For Trivingo, he was challenged by his head coach. As a rookie in 2018-19, the 5-foot-8 winger was explosive offensively popping 13 goals and 15 assists.
But a season ago, that production fell off with just nine goals and 11 assists in 34 games.
UMass coach Greg Carvel know he had to do something.
“We knew what kind of kid he is,” said Carvel of Trivigno. “He’s a scrapper and he’s always found a way to rise above expectations. His freshman year, we had all those players like Cale Makar, but he was a really important part of that team.
“He came back as a sophomore and he was one of those kids who, their freshman year they’re too good and you have a sophomore year you’re not happy with. So I challenged him and he came back this year and he’s been outstanding.”
Carvel calls Trivingo the best conditioned player and hardest working play on this year’s team and it shows on the stat sheet. In 23 games, Trivigno has posted 27 points including nine goals. Playing along side Hockey East co-rookie of the year Josh Lopina and Garrett Wait, a junior transfer from Minnesota.
He also, according to Carvel is an “honest leader.”
“He’s a vocal leader and he leads by the way he plays,” Carvel said. “He was a finalist for [Hockey East] Player of the Year and I never would’ve imagined that from a kid who’s 5-foot-8, undrafted. He’s been the heartbeat of our team.”
Tonight, Trivigno will likely be on the ice against Providence’s top player, Thompson, who is a polar-opposite on the wing for the Friars.
The 6-foot-1, 185 pound draft pick of the New Jersey Devils didn’t start the season strong, though coach Nate Leaman admits that could be a product of beginning the year at center as opposed to wing.
While playing in the middle, Thompson scored just once at 5-on-5. Returning to wing in early January, he’s exploded offensively.
Of late, he’s netted five goals in his last six games. And it’s not all goals. In a 5-1 win over Merrimack, Thompson set up all five Providence goals.
“He’s starting to score regularly,” said Leaman of Thompson. “The thing that hurt his is we played his too much in the middle. He’s much better on the wing. We needed some time to develop a couple of kids in the middle. So that forced Tyce in the middle.
Back on the wing allows Thompson to be more active in the offense. On Sunday, in a quarterfinal win over Connecticut, the junior had a back-breaking goal early in the third to expand the Providence lead after the higher-seeded Huskies team had climbed back into the game late in the second.
“We’ve had him on the wing the past month and he’s Tyce Thompson,” Leaman said. “He’s scoring more, making more plays. He’s playing good hockey right now.”
Tall task ahead for River Hawks
Of the four teams remaining in tonight’s Hockey East semifinal, three probably feel pretty good about their NCAA tournament chances as Boston College, UMass and Providence all seem like NCAA locks (as does Boston University).
The one outlier is UMass Lowell, who will take on top-seed and national No. 1 Boston College in the early semifinal.
They have had the longest road in the tournament needing wins over Vermont (5-3) and Boston University (2-1) to reach the semifinals.
And while no current member of the Lowell roster has played in a Hockey East semifinal game, it is a very familiar place for their coach Norm Bazin. The River Hawks reached five straight title games between 2013 and 2017, winning three times.
And while this River Hawks teams have had bumps in the road, particularly multiple COVID-related pauses, they seem to be hitting their stride at the right time.
On Sunday, Lowell fell behind 1-0 early on before rallying for the win. They held a potent Terrier team to just 16 total shots on goal including just two in the game’s final period when the outcome was in the balance.
“We’re excited about the win,” said Bazin. “I thought our third period was our best period. This is a great time of year to be playing. We get to live to fight another day.”
A season unlike any other
This will be the final weekly column for Hockey East this season. So I want to take a moment and recognize the efforts that have been made to get us very close to the finish line.
I’ll begin with the schools. For the student-athletes and their coaches and support staff, this season probably felt like a horrible edition of Groundhog’s Day. Practice, games, online school and a whole lot of isolation. I can’t imagine what each of these individuals had to go through to give us – the fans and the media – some entertainment throughout the season.
Thanks, too, to those who serve in the role of sports information director. Especially in this year where SIDs have facilitated access to coaches and players through Zoom (I will admit that a year ago, I didn’t even know what Zoom was), your work made our lives as writers so much easier.
To the league office, in particularly to first-year commissioner Steve Metcalf, your efforts were incredible to help things remain nimble. The ability to adjust on the fly, working extra hours every week to try to figure out which teams were going to play one another on a TBD schedule had to be difficult. But that ability to remain flexible helped get more games played in Hockey East this season.
Let’s hope that by next October, the college hockey season looks more like what we’ve grown accustomed to, not this year’s aberration.
Here’s to a great league championship and success for Hockey East in the NCAA tournament.
North Dakota overcame deficits of 1-0 and 2-1, using a wild third period to capture the school’s first NCHC postseason title (photo: Russell Hons).
For the first time in the tournament’s history, North Dakota is the champion of the NCHC Frozen Faceoff, rallying from a 2-1 deficit with three goals in a span of 2:22 early in the third to break open the game en route to a 5-3 win over St. Cloud State Tuesday night.
It also marks the first time in the league’s history that the NCHC regular season Penrose Cup champion and No. 1 seed in the playoffs has also won the Frozen Faceoff.
North Dakota, despite three Penrose Cups, has struggled in the Frozen Faceoff, only advancing to the championship once, a 4-3 loss to Minnesota Duluth in 2017.
“It’s such a grind in the NCHC, a 24-game schedule against excellent teams,” said North Dakota coach Brad Berry. “Trying to win the Penrose is tough enough, but then when you have to condense it and come into an environment where you do have to play three games in five days against top competition, it’s a feat that we’ll never forget.
“It’s one of those things, too, I think it melds you a little bit tighter as a team as far as you grow to the point where you have momentum going into the NCAA regionals here, especially the way we did it. The last two games, we were behind a goal in the first period and finding a way to claw back and try to win games, that’s a big deal and it boosts your confidence going into regionals.”
St. Cloud came out strong to start the game, opening the scoring at 2:06 of the first with a goal by Zach Okabe, who capitalized on a great feed by Ondrej Trejbal. Okabe had an open net to poke it into off the feed through the crease.
“I just went to the net and Ondrej made a great play, and luckily it went in,” said Okabe. “We came out pretty well.”
The lead didn’t last long, as Riese Gaber tied it at 12:40 off a snap shot at the hashmarks of the right circle as he drove the crease after getting a great pass from Jordan Kawaguchi.
St. Cloud retook the lead just over four minutes after that when Seamus Donohue beat Adam Scheel with a rocket from the top of the left circle. It was Donohue’s first goal of the season.
St. Cloud was unable to build on that lead in the second period, despite outshooting North Dakota 16-7. That set up the third period push for North Dakota. Gavin Hein tied it at 3:20 on a power play with a quick release from the bottom of the left circle off a feed by Judd Caufield.
It didn’t stay tied for long, as North Dakota capitalized on a defensive breakdown. Off a faceoff, Gaber picked up the puck along the left boards near the hashmarks and then spun back toward the point. He was able to skate all the way to the blueline and then drive down the slot. Just outside the slot, the puck popped off his stick and Kawaguchi picked it up and beat St. Cloud netminder Dávid Hrenák five-hole at 4:54.
“I think the guys look inwardly a little bit,” said Berry. “You know, Jordan Kawaguchi and the rest of the senior group knew that this was their last game at the Ralph Engelstad Arena. Just kind of watching from the bench, you see a lot from the bench what goes on on the ice. You know, we played three games in five days.
“Some players have played some heavy minutes, one of them being Jordan Kawaguchi, and tonight I thought he looked like he got shot out of a cannon, and I think that goes to the leadership side of it as far as him being a captain and showing the way and what we need to do here. Even though he’s probably fatigued a little bit from a long game last night, it didn’t inhibit him at all in his playing, and I think our guys took the lead on that.”
North Dakota then went right on a power play and almost immediately scored, as Gaber got the puck in the slot and beat Hrenák with a quick snap shot from the hashmarks at the right side of the slot.
“I think I just stuck with my game and really battled and worked hard, and I think when you do that, good things just come,” said Gaber. “I was lucky to get some bounces and some opportunities and I cashed in on them, so it was good to get those.”
St. Cloud demonstrated the resilience it has shown this season when it pulled within one at 7:10 as Sam Hentges beat Scheel with sharp-angled shot from low on the right side boards. The Huskies kept the pressure on but were unable to get the equalizer, and Kawaguchi sealed it with an empty-netter at 19:52.
“We made a great push, had some chances at the end, really proud of our response,” said St. Cloud coach Brett Larson. “There was one right in front of the net that I thought maybe a call could have been made where I thought we would have had an empty net goal, potentially a holding the stick. More than anything, I’m just really proud of our group.”
The Frozen Faceoff All-Tournament Team was comprised of Gaber, Hain, and Scheel, North Dakota forward Collin Adams, North Dakota defenseman Jake Sanderson, and St. Cloud defenseman Nick Perbix. Gaber was picked as most outstanding player of the tournament.
