{"id":31025,"date":"2010-02-11T12:51:14","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T18:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2010\/02\/11\/this-week-in-the-wcha-feb-11-2010\/"},"modified":"2010-08-17T19:57:52","modified_gmt":"2010-08-18T00:57:52","slug":"this-week-in-the-wcha-feb-11-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2010\/02\/11\/this-week-in-the-wcha-feb-11-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in the WCHA: Feb. 11, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"
Thanks to some late-season bye weeks and non-conference match-ups, we saw a bit of a shake-up in the league standings last weekend. The gap has grown significantly between first and last (21 points) and even between first and sixth (10 points).<\/p>\n
Still, things remain close in some ways. Minnesota-Duluth and St. Cloud State now share the league lead (29 points), with Denver trailing just one point behind. Wisconsin and Colorado College round out the rest of the teams currently sitting pretty for home ice, with 25 points — four behind the top of the league.<\/p>\n
Teams six through eight are a point apart (North Dakota, sixth with 19 points and Minnesota and Alaska-Anchorage each with 18), with the gap between eighth and ninth continuing to grow (now five points).<\/p>\n
With four teams having byes this week, it’ll be interesting to see what the league picture will be on Monday.<\/p>\n
Red Baron WCHA Co-Offensive Players of the Week:<\/i> Eric Kattelus, MTU; Ryan Lasch, SCSU.
\nWhy:<\/i> Kattelus scored four points (one goal, three assist) and was the Winter Carnival MVP in helping his Huskies split with Minnesota-Duluth. Lasch had three goals and three assists to help his Huskies earn three points from Alaska-Anchorage.
\nAlso Nominated:<\/i> Mike Testwuide, CC; Anthony Maiani, DU; Brendan Smith, UW.<\/p>\n
Red Baron WCHA Defensive Player of the Week:<\/i> Mike Lee, SCSU.
\nWhy:<\/i> Made 33 saves en route to his and his team’s first shutout of the season in a 6-0 blanking of Alaska-Anchorage on Saturday.
\nAlso Nominated:<\/i> Joe Howe, CC; Marc Cheverie, DU.<\/p>\n
Red Baron WCHA Rookie of the Week:<\/i> Rylan Schwartz, CC.
\nWhy:<\/i> Had three assists, including ones on both game-winning goals, in the Tigers’ two non-conference wins over Air Force and Mercyhurst.
\nAlso Nominated:<\/i> Adam Murray, DU.<\/p>\nClimbing a Mountain<\/h4>\n
For most of the season, we talked about the Gophers’ woes and how much they were struggling.<\/p>\n
Then, around early December, whatever Don Lucia was trying to do to help fix his team started to work. After going 5-8-1 through November, the team has reversed those numbers, going 8-5-1 through the end of January.<\/p>\n
One could argue that a few things happened for this turnaround. First off, the Gophers started off the season with a rough schedule and things started to get easier in December, with the first two series of that month coming against Minnesota State and Michigan Tech, the current league bottom-dwellers.<\/p>\n
Secondly, the Gophers were able to activate Bowling Green transfer Jacob Cepis, who has performed well for the U, scoring 11 points in the 10 games he has played so far.<\/p>\n
While the team has hit another rough patch, going 1-3 in its last four (and facing arguably better competition again), the mood around the team is more confident than it has been all year, as evidenced by Lucia’s comments on his weekly radio show.<\/p>\n
“We still have that opportunity [to make home ice],” he said. “Obviously, we are going to have to get some points this weekend against Denver. If we get a couple points, then all of a sudden you are only five back of [home ice and CC] and you have them in your own building for two games.”<\/p>\n
Lucia is confident that his team can at least overtake North Dakota, only a point ahead and start a gap between the Gophers and the Seawolves, with whom they are currently tied. He also mentions CC and not Wisconsin because not only are the Tigers coming to Mariucci next weekend (like he said), but they’re idle this weekend and will be in the same position in league come Monday. Depending on how the Gophers do that weekend, well, the league race suddenly gets more interesting and Lucia intends on making sure that happens.<\/p>\n
“You still want to continue to play well and to finish as strong as you possibly can,” he said. “And then whether you are home or on the road, you are going to have to win that first round matchup no matter where you are. The fortunate thing for us is, we have played pretty well on the road all year long (6-5-1, as compared to 7-8-1 at home).<\/p>\n
“I still think with eight games left, we can still do some damage, and that’s our goal,” he said.<\/p>\n
With still about a third of the team’s league schedule remaining, it certainly is possible, though it won’t be easy. The Gophers finish out the season against four of the league’s current top-five teams: Denver, CC, Minnesota-Duluth and Wisconsin, and many of those teams are playing very well right now.<\/p>\n