Three things, March 6

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1. MacNaughton going home

Michigan Tech clinched a share of the MacNaughton Cup as the WCHA’s regular-season champion on Saturday night after beating Northern Michigan 5-1 and after co-champion Minnesota State lost 1-0 to Bemidji State. While the Mavericks picked up their second-straight title, the Huskies are getting the cup for the first time in 40 years. Michigan Tech is the 103-year-old trophy’s trustee, so getting it back in Houghton, even for part of the next year, is undoubtedly special for the program. “I’m really proud of our players,” Tech coach Mel Pearson said. “We’ve had a great regular season, and I’m really, really proud of how we finished things off.” The Huskies, who have the No. 1 seed for the WCHA tournament, thanks to the tiebreaker over Minnesota State, have won five games in a row and have just one loss in 2016, a span of 14 games. They will host Alaska in next week’s best-of-three series. Minnesota State, the second seed, will host Lake Superior State.

2. Home ice for Ferris

Ferris State leapfrogged over Northern Michigan on Friday night with a win over Lake Superior State and held on to that fourth and final home-ice playoff spot on Saturday despite dropping the second game against the Lakers. Northern Michigan dropped both games to Michigan Tech to finish fifth. The Bulldogs will host the Wildcats for a chance to get back to the Final Five, which will be played in their backyard of Grand Rapids, Mich. In a cool moment on Friday, Ferris State honored retiring equipment manager Ben Mumah before the game. He had been on the bench with the Bulldogs for 33 years. The other team with home-ice advantage next weekend is Bowling Green, which will host Bemidji State. The third-place Falcons split their series at Alabama Huntsville, with Friday’s stunning 7-5 loss to the 10th-place chargers taking them out of contention for a regular-season championship.

3. Playoff in Alaska

The biggest series of the weekend took place in Fairbanks, Alaska, where the Alaska Nanooks not only won the Governor’s Cup over rival Alaska Anchorage but also jumped over the Seawolves to claim the WCHA’s final playoff spot. A four-point weekend from senior Tyler Morely, who had missed the team’s previous six games, had to help the Nanooks get out of the basement. He was one of the WCHA’s leading scorers before getting injured. Now he makes them a potentially dangerous team heading into the playoffs. “Extremely proud of this group,” Alaska coach Dallas Ferguson said. “We talked about it for the last few weeks here, just about pushing and pushing and sticking together and finding ways. Extremely proud of our team an dhow they kept it together and stayed on it.” Anchorage, meanwhile, will sit out the league playoffs for the second year in a row. It lost seven of its last eight games. Alabama Huntsville is the other odd team out, finishing last despite getting points in all but one of its final seven series.

 

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Three things, March 6

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1. MacNaughton going home

Michigan Tech clinched a share of the MacNaughton Cup as the WCHA’s regular-season champion on Saturday night after beating Northern Michigan 5-1 and after co-champion Minnesota State lost 1-0 to Bemidji State. While the Mavericks picked up their second-straight title, the Huskies are getting the cup for the first time in 40 years. Michigan Tech is the 103-year-old trophy’s trustee, so getting it back in Houghton, even for part of the next year, is undoubtedly special for the program. “I’m really proud of our players,” Tech coach Mel Pearson said. “We’ve had a great regular season, and I’m really, really proud of how we finished things off.” The Huskies, who have the No. 1 seed for the WCHA tournament, thanks to the tiebreaker over Minnesota State, have won five games in a row and have just one loss in 2016, a span of 14 games. They will host Alaska in next week’s best-of-three series. Minnesota State, the second seed, will host Lake Superior State.

2. Home ice for Ferris

Ferris State leapfrogged over Northern Michigan on Friday night with a win over Lake Superior State and held on to that fourth and final home-ice playoff spot on Saturday despite dropping the second game against the Lakers. Northern Michigan dropped both games to Michigan Tech to finish fifth. The Bulldogs will host the Wildcats for a chance to get back to the Final Five, which will be played in their backyard of Grand Rapids, Mich. In a cool moment on Friday, Ferris State honored retiring equipment manager Ben Mumah before the game. He had been on the bench with the Bulldogs for 33 years. The other team with home-ice advantage next weekend is Bowling Green, which will host Bemidji State. The third-place Falcons split their series at Alabama Huntsville, with Friday’s stunning 7-5 loss to the 10th-place chargers taking them out of contention for a regular-season championship.

3. Playoff in Alaska

The biggest series of the weekend took place in Fairbanks, Alaska, where the Alaska Nanooks not only won the Governor’s Cup over rival Alaska Anchorage but also jumped over the Seawolves to claim the WCHA’s final playoff spot. A four-point weekend from senior Tyler Morely, who had missed the team’s previous six games, had to help the Nanooks get out of the basement. He was one of the WCHA’s leading scorers before getting injured. Now he makes them a potentially dangerous team heading into the playoffs. “Extremely proud of this group,” Alaska coach Dallas Ferguson said. “We talked about it for the last few weeks here, just about pushing and pushing and sticking together and finding ways. Extremely proud of our team an dhow they kept it together and stayed on it.” Anchorage, meanwhile, will sit out the league playoffs for the second year in a row. It lost seven of its last eight games. Alabama Huntsville is the other odd team out, finishing last despite getting points in all but one of its final seven series.

 

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Three things: March 6

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The third regular season of NCHC hockey is in the books. Here are a few of the bigger talking points from the final weekend before the playoffs begin next weekend:

North Dakota wins Penrose Cup outright

To claim sole ownership of the NCHC regular season title, all North Dakota needed this weekend was one point at home against Western Michigan. UND didn’t waste much time getting that and then some.

The Fighting Hawks already had one hand on the Penrose Cup, but the other latched on Friday night when UND tagged Western with an 8-1 defeat. UND scored each of the game’s first five goals, and freshman standout Brock Boeser finished the game with two of them plus an assist.

Saturday’s rematch in Grand Forks, N.D., saw UND experience a greater struggle in a 5-4 win over the Broncos. WMU jumped out to a 3-1 lead in Saturday’s first period before UND needed a Drake Caggiula’s eventual game-winning goal 5:34 into the third period.

Top-seeded UND will host Colorado College next weekend in the first round of the NCHC playoffs, while Western hits the road again to take on No. 2 seed St. Cloud State

Duluth wins right to stay at home

The biggest league series this weekend that didn’t have a trophy up for grabs took place in Duluth, Minn., where Minnesota-Duluth swept Miami to earn home ice in the first round of the league playoffs.

Duluth’s opponent next weekend at the Amsoil Arena? The same team UMD just defeated twice and three times in total so far this season.

The Bulldogs gained the upper hand in their latest series against Miami on Friday when UMD pasted the RedHawks 5-0. Five different Duluth skaters found the back of the Miami net, while Kasimir Kaskisuo stopped all 20 shots he faced at the other end of the ice.

Duluth then prevailed again in Saturday’s rematch, this time handing Miami a 3-1 defeat. The teams entered Saturday’s second period tied at 1-1 before Charlie Sampair and Alex Iafallo scored in the third to allow UMD to take all six points from the series.

Omaha’s late-season struggles continue

A Frozen Four participant last season, Omaha finds its NCAA tournament hopes this time around even more unstable after a pair of road losses to Denver this weekend.

UNO’s 3-0 loss inside Magness Arena on Friday and a 2-1 defeat to the Pioneers in Saturday’s rematch saw the Mavericks’ current losing streak stretch to six games. Also worrying for UNO is the fact that the Mavs are now 4-12 in their past 16 games.

They sit in 15th place in the PairWise Rankings ahead of next week’s first round of the NCHC playoffs. UNO’s opening-round foe? Denver, currently tied for sixth in the PairWise, back in the Colorado capital.

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