Each week, USCHO.com will pick the top 10 moments from the past weekend in our Monday 10 feature.
1) Bobcats over Crimson in key ECAC battle
In one of the most anticipated games of the weekend, second-ranked Quinnipiac shut out No. 8 Harvard, 3-0 on Friday at Bright-Landry Hockey Center.
The Bobcats were led by goaltender Yaniv Perets, who made 25 saves for his sixth shutout of the season and 17th of his career.
Skyler Brind’Amour, Cristophe Tellier, and TJ Friedmann scored for Quinnipiac, which swept the season series from the Crimson.
Quinnipiac followed that up with a come-from-behind, 4-2 win at Dartmouth on Saturday, allowing the Bobcats to maintain their five-point lead in the ECAC Standings over second-place Cornell.
Perets currently leads men’s Division I in goals against with a 1.72 GAA. His save percentage of .921 is tied for 12th nationally.
2) Logjam in Big 10
Michigan’s sweep of Wisconsin, coupled with Ohio State’s split with Penn State and Michigan State’s sweep of Notre Dame has set up a four-way tie for second in the Big Ten standings.
The sixth-ranked Wolverines and No. 7 Ohio State have two games in hand on No. 9 Penn State and No. 17 Michigan State.
Rookie sensation Adam Fantilli had a goal and four assists for Michigan on the weekend, extending his scoring streak to eight games. He leads the nation with 45 points. Michigan has now won five games in a row.
Top-ranked Minnesota was idle last weekend and holds a 13-point lead on the four teams tied for second.
Wisconsin dropped its fifth game in a row. The Badgers have not won a conference game on the road since Oct. 29, 2021, a span of 20 games.
3) Golden weekend for Denver
No. 4 Denver played just one game last weekend, but it was a big one. The Pioneers defeated state rival Colorado College, 4-1 in Colorado Springs.
A third-period penalty shot by CC’s Hunter McKown on DU goaltender Magnus Chrona snapped a shutout streak by Chrona against Colorado College of 350 minutes and 11 seconds that included five consecutive shutouts.
McKown’s goal was a beauty:
McKown with the moves 🕺
The junior converts the penalty shot to cut the @CCTigerHKY deficit in half
📺: @ATTSportsNetRM // https://t.co/ZyUdpPaF0J#NCHChockey // #CCTigers pic.twitter.com/YbnftfLEuQ
— The NCHC (@TheNCHC) February 5, 2023
With the victory, the Pioneers clinched possession of the Gold Pan for the fourth consecutive season. The Pan is awarded to the winners of the season series between the two schools. Denver now leads so far this season, 2-0. Since the Pioneers currently hold the trophy, they only needed to split the four-game series to retain it.
The teams play their remaining pair of games against each other on March 3-4.
4) Cornell’s power play was powerful
Cornell defeated Union 10-1 at Lynah Rink on Saturday to cap off a six-point weekend for the No. 11 Big Red.
The double-digit total included six power-play goals by Cornell, its most since 1977. Four came on a major power play midway through the first period, with four goals scored in a span of just 54 seconds including one just after the penalty expired.
In all, Cornell was six for seven with the man advantage. The Big Red power play now leads all Division I men’s teams at 32.47%
With the weekend sweep of Rensselaer and Union, the Big Red moved into sole possession of second place in the ECAC standings.
5) Here come the Huskies
Michigan Tech picked up a road sweep of Bemidji State, 2-0 and 3-2. The No. 12 Huskies have won four in a row and are undefeated in their last six, now a single point behind first-place Minnesota State in the CCHA standings.
“To come in here and win two games is huge. They’re a good team, and they play well on their home ice,” said MTU coach Joe Shawhan. “It was a great game, and I thought we played and competed well. (Goaltender) Blake (Pietila) played tremendous for us like he always does, and that’s a huge win for us for a lot of reasons.”
Pietila, who posted a shutout on Friday, stopped 62 of 64 shots in the series.
Bemidji continues to struggle, now 2-7-1 since Jan 1.
6) WMU stays hot
Western Michigan took five points from host Minnesota Duluth to move into second place in the NCHC, tied with St. Cloud State and two points behind first-place Denver.
On Friday, Duluth’s Quinn Olson scored an extra-attacker goal with a minute remaining in regulation to force overtime, but WMU’s Max Sasson won it 2:43 into the extra period.
Saturday’s game didn’t need overtime, as the Broncos never trailed in a 4-1 win. Junior Chad Hillebrand scored the opening and closing goals for the 10th-ranked Broncos.
WMU’s Cameron Rowe made 57 saves in the series.
The Broncos have won nine of their last 10 games, allowing more than two goals only once in that span.
7) Beanpot prep
With the 70th Beanpot tournament about to kick off, the four combatants each played a single game this weekend.
Besides the previously mentioned Harvard loss to Quinnipiac, No. 3 Boston University defeated Maine, 5-3 in Orono on Friday for its seventh straight victory.
Also on Friday, Boston College tied UMass Lowell 2-2 with the River Hawks prevailing in the shootout for the extra league point. BC is now winless in its last six games.
And finally, Northeastern fell in overtime to Connecticut on home ice on Friday, 4-3. Hudson Schandor’s winning goal came with 16 seconds left in OT.
Matchups for the first round of the Beanpot are Northeastern-Boston University and Boston College-Harvard, which leaves the door open for something that has remarkably never happened in the 70-year history of the tournament: a Harvard-Northeastern championship game.
8) Sweeps are hard to come by in Atlantic Hockey
No. 18 Rochester Institute of Technology extended its lead in the Atlantic Hockey standings by a point with a win and overtime loss to Canisius.
RIT is up by nine points over second-place Sacred Heart, which split the weekend with third-place American International. It’s the second-largest lead in the six Division I conferences (Minnesota leads by 13 points in the Big Ten). The Tigers, who have not lost a conference game in regulation since Oct. 20, can finish no lower than third.
All ten AHA teams took at least one point last weekend, which has been the norm with six-point sweeps hard to come by. Of the 19 league series played since January 1, it’s been done just three times.
With all that parity, you’d expect many games to be close, and that was the case last weekend. Of the nine Atlantic Hockey conference games played, five needed overtime, one was decided with 8 seconds to play, and another was tied until the final five minutes.
9) History repeats
That Canisius win over RIT was the second time the Golden Griffins had beaten the Tigers in the extra frame this season, both times coming at RIT’s Gene Polisseni Center, with both goals scored by Canisius senior captain Ryan Miotto. Miotto did it previously back on Dec. 2.
Miotto’s overtime goal was his third game-winning goal of the season. He’s tied for the team lead in goals (nine) and points (19).
10) You don’t see that every day
With 2.8 seconds remaining in the second period of Friday’s contest between Union and Colgate, the Raiders decided to pull goaltender Carter Gylander for an extra attacker with a faceoff coming in the Union zone.
That strategy rarely works, but what resulted was even more bizarre.
Union’s Owen Farris cleanly won the draw back to defenseman Nick Young, who one-timed it down the length of the ice into the empty Colgate net with .5 seconds on the clock.
Farris on the draw and Young with a shot from the opposite end of the ice to make it 2-0! #retUrn pic.twitter.com/rZzwq44cly
— Union Hockey (@Unionmhockey) February 4, 2023
Union got another empty netter, this one of the more conventional kind and defeated Colgate 3-1.
