Each week, USCHO.com will pick the top 10 moments from the past weekend in our Monday 10 feature.
As the calendar turns to 2022, there hasn’t been a lot of hockey played in the past few weekends. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty to talk about.
Here are 10 things that are on many minds on the first Monday of the New Year:
1. COVID’s ugly return to hockey
It’s not like this season reached the halfway point COVID free, but for the most part cases among players and teams were relatively low in the first half of the season. But with the omicron variant the topic of many people’s minds, we’re already seeing its impact on college hockey. Nearly a dozen games were canceled or postponed since teams began their return to campus. Certain schools like Northeastern and Dartmouth are no longer allowing spectators to their games. Could there be more impact? That’s still to be seen.
2. World Juniors canceled (or maybe just postponed)
The deadly virus certainly reared its ugly head at the World Junior tournament in Alberta. Under strict guidelines set forth by the Canada’s healthy authority, the tournament was quickly shutdown after four plays across three teams tested positive. The first two came on Team USA, which forced a game against Switzerland to be forfeited. Those forfeits continued a day later forcing organizers to pull the plug on the event. At the time, it was said to be canceled, but the IIHF and president Luc Tardif left a window slightly open to resume the tournament in the summertime.
3. Boston College dominates Ledyard Bank Classic
The Eagles, a team that returned from Christmas on the wrong side of the PairWise bubble, started off their second half strong with dominant wins over Mercyhurst and host Dartmouth to capture one if the nation’s oldest holiday tournaments, the Ledyard Bank Classic in Hanover, N.H. Leading scorer Jack McBain remained red hot scoring four goals – two in each game. The senior now has 13 goals and 24 points in 18 games.
4. Holiday tournament excitement returns to Milwaukee, gives Badgers reason to celebrate
The KwikTrip Holiday Faceoff Championship became the first college hockey game to be hosted in Milwaukee in a number of years when FISERV Arena, the home of the Milwaukee Bucks, transformed from a basketball arena to a hockey rink last week. And while the event was a reported success overall, host Wisconsin had plenty to celebrate, taking home the championship in dramatic fashion, Brock Caufield’s overtime game winner over Yale in the semifinals was followed by a shootout victory in six rounds over Providence in the title game.
Could this be a precursor to a Frozen Four to return to Milwaukee? Not likely. Though the event hasn’t been to the Cream City since 2006, FISERV Arena only holds about 14,000 fans for hockey, well under what the NCAA typically mandates for a Frozen Four.
5. The GLI – The tournament that wasn’t
There was plenty of controversy around the oldest of holiday tournaments, the Great Lakes Invitational – or GLI. For one, the tournament had already been pushed away from Little Ceasars Arena in downtown Detroit and was going to be held on campus sites at Michigan and Michigan State with the opponents each night predetermined. Early last week, though, the administration at Michigan, missing a handful of players at World Juniors, announced the team would only be playing one of their two games, canceling their matchup with Western Michigan on night two. Needless to say, that caused a firestorm of controversy as many teams this season have gone forth with contests with less-than-optimal lineups due to COVID protocols and injuries.
6. Impressive start to second half for Minnesota State
The nation’s number one team, Minnesota State, began the second half with a massive test – a home-and-home series with Minnesota Duluth. And the Mavericks, which have been incredible in non-conference games this season sweeping Massachusetts, splitting with St. Cloud State and knocking off Providence (their only other NC game was a loss to Michigan), swept the Bulldogs to further cement their national standings. Impressive, as usual, on the weekend was goaltender Dryden McKay making 26 saves in a 2-1 overtime win on Thursday before posting his seventh shutout of the season, a 3-0 road win on Saturday.
7. Arizona State places itself back in NCAA tournament discussion
The Sun Devils pulled off a two-game sweep of Cornell at Oceanside Arena in Tempe to bring themselves back into the NCAA tournament discussion. At 12-10-0, Arizona State still sits a ways from the NCAA bubble at 25th in the PairWise, but consider what remains for this team. The Sun Devils hit the road, which hasn’t been kind this season, the next two weekends to face Boston University and RIT for two-game sets. Then lies the series that is circled on their calendars – a two-game series at Minnesota State on January 28-29. Win the large majority of those next six games and the final six games of the season – four against Alaska and two against LIU – could become catapults to a 20-win season and another NCAA tournament bid.
8. St. Cloud State sweeps Bemidji State
It hasn’t been smooth sailing for St. Cloud State, which entered the break at 10-6-0 record. But thus proves the gauntlet that is the top half of the NCHC as two wins this past weekend over Bemidji State improved the Huskies to 12-6-0 to catapult them to fourth in the PairWise. Sam Hentges had a strong offensive weekend for St. Cloud State, scoring three goals over the two games.
9. Scheduling on the fly returns to college hockey
With COVID forcing game cancelations and postponement, we have once again seen teams begin to resort to changing their schedules on the fly. Certainly, there will be a lot of games to reschedule, particularly league contests, in the second half (hello, midweek hockey!). But this past weekend we saw Penn State take a last-minute road trip to play Army and Merrimack and UMass announced they’ll play an impromptu non-league contest tonight at the Mullins Center (free admission!). Hopefully we won’t see league switch to week-to-week scheduling like we did in Hockey East a year ago, but you certainly never know.
10. Merrimack’s Uens with a statistical abnormality
Speaking of Merrimack, their defenseman put up a single-game line that you don’t see often in hockey in Sunday’s 7-1 win over Brown. Zach Uens finished the game with a single assist and zero shots on goal. But look further on his stat line to see he was a +7. In other words, he was on the ice for all seven Merrimack goals and wasn’t on the ice when Brown scored its only goal. That’s a stat line you won’t see every day.
