The four Big Ten teams in the 2023 NCAA men’s hockey tournament started with unprecedented scoring outputs.<\/p>\n
Minnesota, Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan all scored at least eight goals in their first-round games, part of a largely uncompetitive first two days of the tournament.<\/p>\n
It was the first time since 1992 that there wasn’t a game decided by one goal in the first round. And in 1992, there were only four first-round games.<\/p>\n
Only eight of 285 NCAA tournament games from 2003 to 2022 had a team score eight goals or more. The Big Ten quartet did it four times in the first eight games of the 2023 event.<\/p>\n
The four games involving the Big Ten teams had them outscoring their opponents 36-4.<\/p>\n
Minnesota scored eight unanswered goals Thursday in a 9-2 victory against Canisius that tied the record for largest margin of victory in a regional game.<\/p>\n
Ohio State equaled that record in an 8-1 victory against Harvard in the first game on Friday. Penn State did one better than the Buckeyes later in the day, becoming the first team to win a regional game by eight goals with an 8-0 triumph against Michigan Tech.<\/p>\n
Michigan scored seven times in the second period en route to an 11-1 victory against Colgate to finish the first round on Friday night. The Wolverines were only the fourth team to score at least seven times in a period of an NCAA men’s hockey tournament game. They joined:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Colorado College, 10 goals in the third period of the 1950 championship game against Boston University.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Michigan Tech, eight goals in the second period of the 1960 semifinals against St. Lawrence.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Colorado College, seven goals in the third period of the 1957 title game against Michigan.<\/p>\n
Michigan’s 11 goals was the most in the tournament since Denver defeated St. Lawrence 12-2 in the 1961 championship game. The 11-1 result tied for the third-largest margin of victory in an NCAA men’s tournament game.<\/p>\n
The record for games in one tournament with a team scoring at least eight games is seven in 1991, when the field was 12 teams but the first two rounds were best-of-three series. There were 22 games in that tournament, which culminated with Northern Michigan’s 8-7 victory against Boston University in three overtimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The four Big Ten teams in the 2023 NCAA men’s hockey tournament started with unprecedented scoring outputs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":140447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[807],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n