Each week during the season, we look at the big events and big games around Division I men’s college hockey in Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
Paula: Ed, I hardly know where to begin this week after what feels like a dramatic weekend for the top 10 teams in the USCHO poll, resulting in St. Cloud climbing to No. 1 after spending most of the season polling at third or fourth place.
The Huskies swept Denver decisively with 7-3 and 2-0 wins, trailing for just over four minutes in the entirety of the two-game set – early in the second period Friday when Denver’s Jack Devine briefly gave the Pioneers a 2-1 lead. St. Cloud’s Jami Krannila had the equalizer in that game minutes later in a period in which the teams combined for six goals. Four of those went to St. Cloud, including another by Krannila.
The Pioneers and Huskies are tied with 29 points on top of the NCHC standings, and St. Cloud owns this season series now after the teams split an earlier pair of games. After Denver’s dominance over Miami a week ago, watching the Pioneers manage two goals in a weekend against any opponent is a surprise.
Also surprising was Quinnipiac’s first two conference losses of the season, the 4-0 shutout to Cornell and the 3-2 loss to Colgate. We knew that the Bobcats would have to lose in conference at some point. Two losses to two different opponents in a single weekend is something I hadn’t anticipated.
Boston University and Western Michigan were the two other top 10 teams who made pretty impressive statements in their sweeps on the weekend. Six of the seven Big Ten teams played – including all four B1G teams among the top 10 – and every series resulted in a split. And Harvard picked up a win and loss to two ECAC opponents, dropping the Crimson from No. 9 to No. 10.
All of this feels pretty volatile and seems to signal that absolutely nothing is decided pretty much anywhere at this point in the season. What did that weekend say to you?
Ed: Paula, you’re exactly right about absolutely nothing being decided. And I think that’s great for the sport.
I think people have been sleeping on St. Cloud State a bit, but their ascendance to No. 1 in the poll and second in the PairWise shouldn’t be a surprise.
Another team not to be overlooked is Boston University. At 17-6-0, Jay Pandolfo’s Terriers are off to their best start since the 2008-09 season. That campaign ended with a national championship trophy.
In Quinnipiac’s case, maybe a little adversity now will help the Bobcats down the stretch.
Overall, it seems like things are going to solidify a little later in the season than in previous years. We typically have seen the top eight or so teams in the PairWise come mid-January make the NCAA tournament. Nobody has clinched it, but only the top four – Minnesota, St. Cloud, Penn State, and Quinnipiac – are virtually a lock.
The name that stands out for me in that group of four is Penn State. The Nittany Lions have been criticized for putting together a weak non-conference schedule, but they won every game outside the Big Ten. With two-thirds of the conference schedule complete, Penn State is 10 points back of Minnesota in the standings, but thanks to Big Ten play, also has the fourth best strength-of-schedule.
Conference coaches had them sixth in the preseason poll, and I know you had much lower expectations for them, too. Is Penn State the biggest surprise this season?
Paula: Penn State is a huge surprise this season – perhaps not to Guy Gadowsky, but to many of us who follow Big Ten hockey.
I talked to Gadowsky earlier in the season about the start Penn State was having and the progress the Nittany Lions had made since 2020-2021, when they followed up their regular-season 2020 title with a fifth-place finish. Gadowsky was frank about how the restrictions of that COVID year had impeded his and his staff’s ability to do their best work – I’m paraphrasing here – and how they’d been working ever since to get back to what they think of as Penn State hockey, that high-scoring, up-and-down game they’re playing now.
Gadowsky said that he saw a return to what they wanted to do toward the end of the 2021-2022 season, even when the wins and losses didn’t reflect that. They did knock Ohio State in the Big Ten tournament before a close semifinal loss to Minnesota. What Gadowsky saw last year was strong play from goaltender Liam Souliere, who has emerged as one of the league’s top goaltenders and who has given confidence to Penn State’s defense – which, in turn, fuels the Nittany Lions’ high-powered offense. You can only run up and down the ice like that when you know there’s someone solid in net to catch your mistakes.
That early nonconference schedule definitely put the Nittany Lions in a good position, but the entire Big Ten is strong this year and that elevates Penn State in the PWR as well. Four of the top 10 teams in the PWR are B1G teams. One of those teams, the Wolverines, has a losing record in conference play and is next-to-last in the league standings. It’s pretty wild.
I think you’re right about how down-to-the-wire it’s going to come (and how exciting it is for the sport). I don’t see anyone catching Minnesota in the Big Ten precisely because the conference is so good and sweeps will be very difficult to earn in the coming weeks.
Outside of the conference I cover, I’m most intrigued by Hockey East and that only nine points separate first-place Northeastern from sixth-place UMass-Lowell, and yet only Boston University is the only HEA team that looks like a solid to make the NCAA tournament.
What else are you watching in the national picture?
Ed: A few weeks ago, we were talking about five or six teams from Hockey East in the NCAAs. But now Connecticut is at No. 16 in the PairWise, putting the Huskies right on the edge. Merrimack was getting a lot of notice, but the Warriors have gone 1-4-1 in 2023 and have dropped outside the PairWise bubble. Providence is right behind them, and UMass Lowell is digging itself out of a PairWise hole after the sweep at home at the hands of Alaska Anchorage. I still like Northeastern’s chances, even sitting at No. 23 in the PairWise. The Huskies have been a bit of an afterthought for a lot of college hockey fans, mainly because they had to deal with injuries earlier in the season.
Nevertheless, they are all within striking distance of an at-large bid, and the Hockey East tournament seems nearly unpredictable at this point. But I’d expect at least two of those five to be in the NCAA mix at the end of the season.
In the CCHA, the program that everyone should pay attention to is Michigan Tech. The Huskies – have we left any Huskies out this week? – are in a great spot in 12th in the PairWise and one weekend away from first place in conference. Coaches around D-I tell me they think Michigan Tech is a very good team. Minnesota State appears to have gotten over a couple of bumps stringing together six wins in a row and back in the PairWise bubble at No. 14.
ECAC still has a good opportunity to get three or four teams into the NCAAs, with Quinnipiac almost a lock and Harvard and Cornell at 10 and 11 in the PairWise.
I’m also watching Atlantic Hockey, since I broadcast for RIT in that conference. This may be the best Tiger team since their 2010 Frozen Four appearance. Yet even at 17-6-1 – and 4-4 out of conference including a weekend sweep of Arizona State – RIT is hurt by the poor overall non-conference record of the AHA. That makes we wonder about RIT’s at-large chances, since the NCAA has left out a team with 24 wins in recent years, Robert Morris. Should the Tigers keep on their current pace, they would likely enter the conference’s final game with more than 24 in the win column.
What about the NCHC? That conference feels a bit upside down right now, and just three teams are currently in position for an at-large bid.
Paula: Five NCHC teams competed in last year’s NCAA tournament, which culminated with Denver’s national championship – which was the fifth national title captured by an NCHC team in the previous seven seasons. In 2021, Massachusetts brought the title home to Hockey East, and the tournament was canceled in 2020 because of COVID.
When we include Providence in 2015, no team from any conference other than the NCHC or Hockey East has won the NCAA championship since 2014. That we’re talking about possibly two HEA teams and three NCHC teams in the field of 16 in March is a bit of a paradigm shift.
And within the NCHC, as you said, there’s a bit of disconnect. Duluth 13 points out of first place, North Dakota 14 points down – these are not programs that anyone expects to see near the bottom of the NCHC standings.
Denver is 3-3-0 to start the second half, St. Cloud is 4-2-0 and Western Michigan is riding a six-game win streak that dates back to the Great Lakes Invitational tournament. For that Broncos, that unbeaten streak includes an 8-1 over Michigan Tech at the GLI but more important to NCHC conference standings, four straight wins over two teams – North Dakota and Colorado College – beneath them in the NCHC standings.
Until last weekend, any conference loss for Denver would by default have been to someone beneath the Pioneers in the standings, and one of St. Cloud’s two losses since the start of the calendar year was to CC.
The Big Ten (.721), the NCHC (.618) and Hockey East (.594) are the three leagues with win percentages above .500 in nonconference play. It is intriguing to me, though, to see how each of these conferences stacks up against the others. B1G has a winning record against every conference other than HEA (.438) and the ECAC, with whom they’re tied. The NCHC has losing records against B1G (.400) and the ECAC (.450). Hockey East has a losing record (.375) only to the NCHC.
So maybe it’s the emergence of the Big Ten as a strong league this season that’s the variable in this national equation. Maybe the NCHC – which does seem a little off within the conference – and Hockey East appear less dominant because of B1G play.
Ed: I think you’ve made a B1G point there, Paula!
I’m going to close out our discussion picking up on something I discussed last week with our colleague Jim Connelly: new and renovated buildings, and whether there might be an “arms race” of facility upgrades.
Just a few hours after last week’s installment of this column was published, St. Thomas announced a $75 million gift to build the Lee and Penny Anderson Arena as the new home for Tommies hockey and basketball. That’s going to be key to that program’s continued growth in competitiveness in the CCHA and the national scene, as well as for growing a fan base in St. Paul and beyond.
I was also fortunate to visit Arizona State’s beautiful Mullett Arena over the weekend. Everything from the overall design to the small details to the fan experience is outstanding, and it’s exactly what the Sun Devils program Greg Powers has built deserves. I even talked to some Washington Capitals fans at the hotel who had such a great time at the Coyotes game Thursday that they bought tickets on Friday.
A new or updated building is seeming like a necessity. I just hope that it doesn’t price programs without access to big donors out of existence.
