{"id":28156,"date":"2006-03-09T14:20:26","date_gmt":"2006-03-09T20:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2006\/03\/09\/this-week-in-the-ccha-march-9-2006\/"},"modified":"2010-08-17T19:56:32","modified_gmt":"2010-08-18T00:56:32","slug":"this-week-in-the-ccha-march-9-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2006\/03\/09\/this-week-in-the-ccha-march-9-2006\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in the CCHA: March 9, 2006"},"content":{"rendered":"
Who knew that we’d all have last Sunday night off? Apparently, the Bulldogs, Broncos, Nanooks, and Mavericks knew.<\/p>\n
There were two official upsets in the first round of the CCHA playoffs, but only one of them was a genuine surprise.<\/p>\n
The Western Michigan Broncos beat the Lake Superior State Lakers in Sault Ste. Marie, 3-2 and 1-0, on the tremendous play of the upperclassmen and the suddenly superb goaltending of sophomore Daniel Bellissimo. Bellissimo stopped 61 of 63 shots in the two games for a save percentage of .968, and the shutout Saturday night was the first shutout win of his career.<\/p>\n
With the wins, the Broncos tallied their first postseason victories ever over the Lakers, previously going 0-5-0 in the playoffs against LSSU. The Broncos also registered their first road playoff wins since 1987 — when the oldest member of the Bronco squad, goalie Scott Foster, was five years old and current head coach, Jim Culhane, was a senior — when WMU beat Illinois-Chicago in Chicago.<\/p>\n
Last weekend was also WMU’s first CCHA playoff series win in 12 years.<\/p>\n
Less startling was Alaska-Fairbanks’ sweep of Notre Dame. The Nanooks 4-1-0 last year on the road in CCHA playoff action, sweeping Bowling Green and winning twice at Joe Louis Arena, and the Nanooks and Irish were deadlocked in league play at the end of the season. The Nanooks had also spent two weeks in South Bend, having finished the regular season with a split against the Irish in the Joyce Center.<\/p>\n
In front of freshman goaltender Mitch O’Keefe’s fine performance, Ferris State swept Ohio State in Big Rapids to advance, and in Omaha, the Mavericks handled Bowling Green to play another day.<\/p>\n
There were, of course, four teams with a first-round bye, a new development in the ever-evolving CCHA playoff format. The bye — in theory — protects the PairWise Rankings upper-tier CCHA teams and rewards the top four for their placement in the final standings. How this will all play out remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
“Obviously this will be a hot topic a week from now more than right now,” said Red Berenson, head coach of No. 3 Michigan. “Right now we’re all speculating. I hope it gives our team a little more energy and rest, a combination of the mental and the physical part.”<\/p>\n
A bye can go either way for the team that sat out a week. It can provide much-needed rest, or it can take the wind out of a team’s collective sails. “I’m also leery of playing a team that played last week,” said Berenson. “They’re on a roll.<\/p>\n
“On the other hand, they’ve used this system in the ECAC for years and a bye team has never lost. For us, it came at a good time. We can regroup and refocus.”<\/p>\n
The hottest team entering the weekend is without question Western Michigan. Okay, so “hot” is relative, but look at it this way: the Broncos have put together a four-game unbeaten streak, including their first three-game win streak of the season; WMU is 3-1-2 in their last six, all against CCHA opponents; Daniel Bellissimo is inspired; Jim Culhane is probably fighting for his job; Brent Walton is playing the last games of his collegiate career; the Broncos played last weekend, so they can still feel the heat.<\/p>\n
They face No. 1 Miami, a team that is ranked second in the nation and third in the PWR. The RedHawks are suddenly getting media attention (way to go, Cincinnati!), are playing their last games in The Goggin, and have recently been crowned regular-season CCHA champions.<\/p>\n
Head coach Enrico Blasi said, however, that the RedHawks took the bye in stride and are focused going into the weekend.<\/p>\n
“For us for whatever reason, the schedule has worked out so that we had multiple weeks off this year, so we had a good system and we kind of stuck with it,” said Blasi, who added that in years past, “weeks off were difficult.”<\/p>\n
And don’t think that the RedHawks are overconfident because they’re league champs. “It was far enough ago that we’ve gotten it all out of our system,” said Blasi. Following up the Tuesday night regular-season title win with two losses in East Lansing was sobering, too.<\/p>\n
“In a way, that was good for us,” said Blasi. Miami finished the regular season with a Thursday-Saturday, home-and-home series against Bowling Green. “We had to come home and find a way to win on Saturday when there was a lot of things going on — senior night, Tom [Anastos] brought the trophy.”<\/p>\n
Blasi called the CCHA playoffs “a new year and a new championship,” something that every coach, player, trainer, equipment man, mom, dad, great aunt, and booster believes.<\/p>\n
Hallelujah and drop the puck. May the best teams win.<\/p>\n
Here’s a glance at each of the series, head-to-head. Each is a best-of-three series, with the third game played Sunday night, if necessary.<\/p>\n
No. 11 Western Michigan (10-22-6, 7-16-5 CCHA) at No. 1 Miami (23-7-4, 20-6-2 CCHA)<\/b><\/p>\n
A week ago, like many people, I wrote off the Western Michigan Broncos, convinced that their four regular-season losses to Lake Superior State were an effective predictor for the eventual outcome of the first round of play.<\/p>\n
Like everyone else besides the Bronco faithful, I was wrong.<\/p>\n
It was senior Brent Walton who found a way to score at 11:46 in overtime Friday to give the Broncos the first win; fellow senior Mike Erickson had the only goal, at 14:00 in the third period of Saturday’s 1-0 win.<\/p>\n
“Our senior leadership was tremendous this weekend, and it was just a total team effort,” said head coach Jim Culhane. “I’m proud of how our guys have persevered and fought through adversity. It’s great to see them rewarded for their hard work.<\/p>\n
“We’re peaking at the right time and playing our best hockey of the year.”<\/p>\n
Nothing less than WMU’s best effort will beat a Miami team that captured the earliest regular-season CCHA championship since 2000-01. The Bronco senior class is a good match for Miami’s seniors; this series pits Walton against a defense as solid as any in the nation, led by senior Andy Greene.<\/p>\n
“Our league over the years has produced very tight races and a lot of parity,” said Miami head coach Enrico Blasi, who added that his RedHawks are “looking forward” to the series. “Western is playing with a lot of confidence, they work hard, they’re getting goaltending, Walton’s as dangerous as any forward in the country.”<\/p>\n
Over the course of his career, Brent Walton has amassed 70 goals, with 45 of them coming last season and this. He isn’t WMU’s only forward, of course, but he’s one of college hockey’s few pure goal scorers who remain in these days of diminished offense.<\/p>\n
The Miami offense is deeper and more artful, but the Broncos crash the net like no others in the league. If WMU is to advance this weekend, the Broncos will stay out of the box, Daniel Bellissimo will continue his inspired play, and WMU as a whole will somehow find a way to beat the top goaltender in the nation and another one that is close on his heels.<\/p>\n
Here’s a look at the teams by the overall numbers. The stats following the slash are ranking within the league in overall play.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Goals per game: WMU 2.42\/11th; Miami 3.15\/4th
\n\u2022 Goals allowed per game: WMU 3.97\/12th; Miami 1.91\/1st
\n\u2022 Power play: WMU .160\/9th; Miami .150\/11th
\n\u2022 Penalty kill: WMU .797\/12th; Miami .881\/2nd
\n\u2022 Top scorer: WMU Brent Walton (24-16–40); Miami Nathan Davis (18-81–36)
\n\u2022 Top goal scorer: WMU Walton; Miami Ryan Jones (19)
\n\u2022 Top goaltender: WMU Daniel Bellissimo (3.64 GAA, .892 SV%); Miami Charlie Effinger (1.79 GAA, .974 SV%) and Jeff Zatkoff (1.94 GAA, .931 SV%)<\/p>\n
Blasi said that the key to his team’s success is the way in which the RedHawks approached one game at a time. “Our team has played some close games all year long. We’ve been in situations where we’ve had to buckle down and play some desperate hockey. That’s what playoffs is all about — play together, play as a team.”<\/p>\n
Desperate hockey? The RedHawks? Maybe that’s why they finished on top.<\/p>\n
No. 9 Alaska-Fairbanks (17-14-5, 11-13-4 CCHA) at No. 2 Michigan State (20-10-8, 14-7-7 CCHA)<\/b><\/p>\n
I suspected that the Nanooks would prevail last weekend, but I thought that it would take three games. It was, however, exactly what UAF head coach Tavis MacMillan suspected when he correctly predicted, “One thing’s for certain: these will be a couple of low-scoring games.”<\/p>\n
UAF beat Notre 3-1 and 1-0, with upperclassmen leading the way in scoring, and sophomore Wylie Rogers solid in net. After Rogers’ shutout win Saturday, MacMillan said that the Irish “took the play to us at certain times” but that “Wylie Rogers was the difference.”<\/p>\n
Rogers made 39 saves in the win and 61 on the weekend.<\/p>\n
The four goals in two games was almost an outburst for the streaky UAF offense which boasts just one goal scorer in double-digit territory. For a team that plays its home games on Olympic ice, the Nanooks seem more at home this season on a regulation sheet; they are a big, physical team that plays a brisk game.<\/p>\n