{"id":139866,"date":"2023-03-15T14:00:52","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T19:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=139866"},"modified":"2023-03-14T21:23:53","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T02:23:53","slug":"this-week-in-nchc-hockey-after-eliminating-western-michigan-from-conference-tournament-colorado-college-oozing-with-confidence-heading-to-nchc-frozen-faceoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2023\/03\/15\/this-week-in-nchc-hockey-after-eliminating-western-michigan-from-conference-tournament-colorado-college-oozing-with-confidence-heading-to-nchc-frozen-faceoff\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in NCHC Hockey: After eliminating Western Michigan from conference tournament, Colorado College oozing with confidence heading to NCHC Frozen Faceoff"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Matthew Gleason celebrates after scoring the OT winner last Saturday to complete CC’s sweep over Western Michigan on the road (photo: Ashley Huss).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Late in his second season at Colorado College, Tigers coach Kris Mayotte just saw his team make a good kind of program history out of what had been a potentially bad situation.<\/p>\n

Seventh-seeded CC\u2019s wins Friday and Saturday in the first round of the NCHC playoffs at No. 2 Western Michigan marked the first time that the Tigers had ever swept a road postseason series. CC had a lot on its plate going in, and opening goals both nights from WMU\u2019s Ryan McAllister steepened the visitor\u2019s hill to climb, but the Tigers were up for the challenge against a team that CC had gone 0-4 against in the regular season.<\/p>\n

Three goals in 59 seconds during Friday\u2019s third period saw CC take Game 1 by a 3-1 count. The following night, Matthew Gleason scored 3:08 into overtime for a 3-2 Tigers win, setting off celebrations that left Mayotte still feeling hoarse Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re like that after every weekend, but this one was a little different,\u201d Mayotte said. \u201cI think it was a combination of a little more yelling because of the celebration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really happy for our guys, and especially for our seniors. We had a first half of the season that built a lot of enthusiasm and potential, and our second half just didn\u2019t go our way, but I give this group a ton of credit. We felt like we were playing good enough hockey to keep winning but just weren\u2019t finding ways to get it done, but the guys continued to believe.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t go into Western and beat them there if you don\u2019t have confidence,\u201d Mayotte continued. \u201cThey scored first in both games, and on Saturday they came out rejuvenated, but to answer like we did takes toughness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becoming the first seventh seed to reach the NCHC Frozen Faceoff felt like it might\u2019ve been a tall order for a CC team that was 0-5-1 in its last six regular-season games. Three were one-goal games, though, and another was a scoreless tie Feb. 25 against North Dakota.<\/p>\n

But more to the point, CC had struggled in recent times against Western Michigan. The first three times that those teams met this season, WMU won 4-1 before the Broncos took a 2-1 home win Feb. 18.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, it was a tough matchup for us where they came into our building and won the first game 8-2, then scored five more on us,\u201d Mayotte said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think the 4-1 games at home this season were necessarily 4-1 games, but we know how quickly Western can score and how quickly they can turn turnovers into offense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey proved that when we played them at home, and when we went to their place, it\u2019s a 1-1 game midway through the third period. In that game, we proved to ourselves that we can play with them and keep up, and the next night, the first two periods might\u2019ve been the best we had played all year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe learned a lot from those games about how to lock it down, and how to understand that a team is going to push when they\u2019re down in the third,\u201d Mayotte continued. \u201cThat was a big mental step for us, knowing we could play well enough to win hockey games there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tigers\u2019 reward following their big weekend is a NCHC semifinal meeting with in-state foe Denver, but Mayotte said his team\u2019s focus shouldn\u2019t be on who they\u2019ll be playing against in St. Paul, Minn.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve worked for this, prepared for this,\u201d Mayotte said. \u201cOur job in the regular season is to keep getting better, and as long as we kept improving, we\u2019d give ourselves a good chance in the playoffs, and we did that this year. We continued to get better, and our lack of scoring in the second half made us a really good defensive team, and a hard team to play against, out of necessity.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, it\u2019s not best-of-three but one game. You focus on what you bring to the team, and you can\u2019t think of this as a semifinal that gets you into the finals, or that it\u2019s a game against your rival. It\u2019s simply that we know what we do when we play well, and so the focus is executing that right from the drop of the puck.\u201d<\/p>\n

See you later<\/h4>\n

This is my last conference column of my 16th season at USCHO.com. A decade and a half later, impostor syndrome can still be a thing.<\/p>\n

Thank you to all of my colleagues at USCHO for continuing your outstanding, inspiring work this season. Additionally, I\u2019d like to shout out all of the NCHC coaches, sports information directors and players I\u2019ve spoken with this season, all of whom have been incredibly gracious with their time.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t be in St. Paul for the Frozen Faceoff, but I\u2019ll still have a few more USCHO bylines this season. I have a Hockey Humanitarian Award finalist feature story coming up, and NCHC teams\u2019 exploits in the NCAA tournament will likely keep me busy here for a few more weeks.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading, everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Late in his second season at Colorado College, Tigers coach Kris Mayotte just saw his team make a good kind of program history out of what had been a potentially bad situation. Seventh-seeded CC\u2019s wins Friday and Saturday in the first round of the NCHC playoffs at No. 2 Western Michigan marked the first time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":139867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[810],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThis Week in NCHC Hockey: After eliminating Western Michigan from conference tournament, Colorado College oozing with confidence heading to NCHC Frozen Faceoff - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Late in his second season at Colorado College, Tigers coach Kris Mayotte just saw his team make a good kind of program history out of what had been a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139866\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This Week in NCHC Hockey: After eliminating Western Michigan from conference tournament, Colorado College oozing with confidence heading to NCHC Frozen Faceoff - 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