Each week, USCHO.com will pick the top 10 moments from the past weekend in our Monday 10 feature.
1. ‘Cats top ‘Dogs
Northern Michigan’s recent record against Upper Peninsula archrivals Michigan Tech has not been great – especially in the playoffs.
Since conference realignment, Tech is 3-0 against the Wildcats in both of their postseason meetings (once in the conference finals and once in a quarterfinal series). But on Saturday, the Wildcats finally broke that curse. A strong opening 10 minutes in front of a hostile road crowd in Houghton, combined with another solid performance from freshman goaltender Beni Halasz, gave NMU a 4-0 win and a berth in Saturday’s CCHA Mason Cup title game in Mankato, Minn.
2. Mavericks muscle to Mason final
In the other CCHA semifinal, top-seeded Minnesota State fell behind Ferris State 1-0 early, but it turns out having home ice advantage in college hockey sometimes has its perks. The Mavericks scored four unanswered goals en route to a 7-2 victory and a spot in next week’s CCHA final. MSU is currently a bubble team at No. 13 so winning the Mason Cup is their only sure-fire way to return to the Frozen Four for the third-straight season.
3. All that glitters
We officially will have a Gold Pan rivalry game in next weekend’s NCHC Frozen Faceoff.
Top-seeded league champion Denver’s sweep of Miami wasn’t a surprise, but I don’t think many people would have had Colorado College upsetting Western Michigan on the road on their bingo cards.
The Tigers swept a first-round playoff series for the first time since 2008 in surprising fashion. In Friday’s game, they scored three third period goals in under a minute to win 3-1. On Saturday, Matthew Gleason’s overtime game-winner sent the Tigers to St. Paul, where they will play rivals Denver in the first round.
4. Three-game thrillers
The other two NCHC Frozen Faceoff participants needed three games to get to St. Paul.
St. Cloud State had gone 1-3 against Minnesota Duluth in the regular season but finally figured out how to dispatch the Bulldogs in the postseason. The Huskies took game one 3-1 thanks to a pair of goals from Micah Miller, but UMD hit them back on Saturday with a big 5-1 victory. Saturday was all Huskies, as SCSU won 3-1.
The other NCHC series that went the distance featured North Dakota and Omaha, and the Fighting Hawks dropped game one 2-1 before winning Saturday and Sunday to book their place in St. Paul against the Huskies. UND needs to win the Frozen Faceoff to return to the NCAA tournament.
5. Atlantic drama
Atlantic Hockey is only going to get one team in this year’s tournament, but nobody can say that the participant wouldn’t have earned it.
Both AHA semifinal series went three games this series, and in the end Holy Cross and Canisius will battle it out for the league title this weekend. The seventh-seeded Crusaders had one of the bigger upsets on the weekend, beating top-seeded RIT in three games. The first two went to overtime, with Holy Cross winning Friday’s game 1-0 and RIT victorious on Saturday 4-3. But Game 3 was decisive in more ways than one, as the Crusaders dominated the Tigers 5-1 to advance to the Atlantic Hockey championship game for the first time since 2005-06.
Meanwhile, rivals Canisius and Niagara also went three. The Purple Eagles won the opener 2-1 but the Golden Griffins won on Saturday and Sunday to advance to the final. Canisius will host the title game on Saturday in Buffalo, N.Y. The Griffins last made it to this far in 2020-21 when they lost to AIC; they last won the thing in 2012-13.
6. Perets powers Bobcats
Quinnipiac rolled to a dominant two-game sweep of rivals Yale thanks in part to a Friday night defensive masterclass.
The Bobcats allowed just five shots on goal in Friday’s 3-0 victory, earning Perets his 20th career shutout in just his 68th career game. He’s now alone atop the ECAC all-time shutouts leaderboard; he has nine shutouts this season.
In Saturday’s game, the Bobcats showcased their offense to return to Lake Placid, winning 6-2 behind goals by six different players.
7. Colgate upsets St. Lawrence
The lone ECAC Hockey upset saw Colgate win a pair of one-goal games to win a quarterfinal series for the second straight season.
The Raiders had to rally from a 3-0 deficit on Friday night at St. Lawrence, but ultimately beat the Saints 4-3 in overtime thanks to Colton Young’s game-winner. In Saturday’s game it was the Raiders who went up 3-0 early and nearly allowed the Saints to rally from a similar deficit, but Carter Gylander stopped 31 shots to get the Raiders into the next round, where they will once again play Quinnipiac for the second straight season.
8. B1G time matchup
The top two teams will meet again in the Big Ten title game.
Both top-seeded Minnesota and second-seeded Michigan scored huge victories in their semifinals for a Big Ten championship game rematch in Minneapolis. The Wolverines beat the Golden Gophers 4-3 in the championship game last season.
This season, Minnesota scored a big 5-1 victory over Michigan State behind a pair of goals from Logan Cooley and one each from Jaxon Nelson, John Mittelstadt and Aaron Huglen. Michigan also scored a huge win with a 7-3 dismantling of Ohio State.
9. BU takes care of business
Hockey East’s new format – one featuring all-single-elimination the entire way to the Garden, featured a few upsets, but the top seed took care of business in a big way.
Boston University defeated upstart Vermont 7-3 behind a Nick Zabaneh hat trick as well as two more from Walter Skoog. The Terriers are sitting at No. 5 on the PairWise rankings and are a lock for the tournament.
10. Hockey East upsets
The rest of Hockey East is a little chaotic, as only one other higher seed survived.
Merrimack and Boston College skated in three scoreless regulation periods plus another overtime session before Mark Messner ended the game 8:20 into the second overtime.
The other two Hockey East games were upsets. UConn outshot UMass Lowell 41-17, but Blake Wells and Owen Cole scored a pair of first-period goals and Gustavs Davis Grigals made 40 saves to give UML the 2-1 win. The other quarterfinal saw Providence take down Northeastern 2-1 in overtime as freshman forward Brady Berard scored his first goal of the season to get the Friars into TD Garden.
