Each week during the season, we look at the big events and big games around Division I men’s college hockey in Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
Paula: Dan, that weekend of college hockey was an absolute gift.
There’s so much to laud about it, from the four-day format to the four teams that move on to Boston. You and I texted a bit over the weekend about the quality of hockey played, and that’s how I’d like to begin.
When we talked about the field of 16 before, we talked about how good the top eight teams were and how little difference there seemed to be between them. The regionals proved us mostly right about that. The No. 1 seed overall, Michigan, advances. The top seeds in three regionals advance, and the No. 2 seed from the Worcester Regional advances – and that team, Minnesota, came within a breath of being the top seed in the tournament itself, and only dropped after losing the Big Ten championship game.
There were no real upsets, no real surprises. There was plenty of drama, like that cuckoo third period between Quinnipiac and Michigan, and eight one-goal games including three decided in overtime.
Is this the best tournament you’ve seen?
Dan: You know, the regionals are always a letdown for me.
We set these incredible expectations for what we want to see, and it permeates to a degree that the games can’t help letting us down. The action is either substandard, or we complain about the attendance or the buildings. Someone scores an upset, and we talk about it for a day or two.
I specifically think about the 2018 tournament when Boston University beat Cornell and Air Force beat St. Cloud. Those two teams were my favorites to advance to the national championship, but when BU and Air Force challenged them, neither was able to stand up to the task. Then came the Michigan win over BU and the Ohio State win over Denver, and it felt like the road to Minnesota was littered with these high-profile letdowns.
This year didn’t have any of that. Every single winner showed it could both dish and take punches. AIC didn’t let Michigan off the hook after its early 2-0 start and just kept coming at the No. 1 overall seed in a 5-3 loss. Quinnipiac had leads of 2-0, 3-2, and 5-3 over St. Cloud, but the Huskies kept coming. Denver rallied against a tough-minded UMass Lowell team. Harvard nearly recaptured its magic against Minnesota State. Three teams needed overtime to win their first game, including Minnesota, which vanquished UMass, a team that fought valiantly as a defending champion.
The best part was that it was only the first round. The second round saw Minnesota beat Western Michigan in only the second all-time meeting between the two teams, and Notre Dame, which beat North Dakota in the first round, became the latest recipient of “Dryden McKay recorded a shutout.”
If ever there was a period that encapsulated what we saw this weekend, the third period between Michigan and Quinnipiac was it. The Bobcats, who have long been derided as the best of a bad conference, earned a measure of respect against St. Cloud, cut a 4-0 lead to a one-goal deficit over half the period before pulling the goalie a little early, in my opinion. Michigan scored three times to go back up four, in total adding to a period that saw seven goals scored.
The one observation that I made to you as all of this broke down is that our best of the best made it to Boston. They might not be the top seeds, but we knew the top eight teams were going to be very good this year. We didn’t see the upset, but we saw good teams playing top-flight hockey. They all dealt with pressure in their own way, but they all earned their spots.
That’s something we’ve gotten away from in past years when teams felt like they coasted thanks to a properly-placed upset. I can’t think of another time when this happened.
Paula: I think that how each team emerged from its regional tells a little bit of the story of how it can win a national title – or lose one or be eliminated before they even have a chance to play for one.
You mention Michigan’s games against AIC and Quinnipiac. Against the Yellow Jackets, taking nothing away from AIC’s performance, some opening jitters and then some sloppy defense from the Wolverines kept that one closer than the score may indicate. AIC outshot Michigan 12-5 in the third period and scored an unanswered goal for it.
When the Wolverines played the Bobcats, Michigan had worked out its jitters and completely dominated a very, very good hockey team for two periods – and then let up in predictable but also unacceptable ways in the third. After allowing three unanswered goals to make a 4-3 Michigan lead, the fifth goal that the Wolverines scored should have been the absolute final nail in Quinnipiac’s coffin. Allowing a Quinnipiac goal after adding two more Michigan markers should be something that troubles the Wolverines. Michigan can score a lot of goals. They can also let down.
The other B1G team – the team you said was done in January – showed grit in their 4-3 OT win against Massachusetts. The only lead they had in that game Ben Meyers’ game winner. Against Western Michigan, Minnesota played a disciplined game with balanced scoring and good team defense, and Justen Close registered his third shutout in six games.
In their 4-3 over Harvard, the Mavericks saw their three-goal lead diminish with two late second-period Crimson goals. Even though Minnesota State outshot Harvard 40-22, the shots were even at six apiece in the third period and the Mavericks had to work to keep an increasingly confident Harvard team from tying it. The Mavericks obviously studied tape of their own performance in that game before facing Notre Dame in a tough defensive battle.
Then there’s Denver. The Pioneers may have had the most consistent and complete performance among the remaining four teams. Denver outshot opponents 62-43 for the weekend, and even more importantly, the Pioneers outscored opponents 3-1 collectively in the third period of both one-goal wins. Solid if not spirited work from the Pioneers.
Dan: I find myself often thinking back to the TMQ when I said Minnesota was dead. Jack LaFontaine signed with Carolina, and the impending Olympics were going to rob the Gophers of several key components for the better part of a month. I suspected it was going to drop the team enough in the Pairwise Rankings to cause an unfavorable draw, but instead, Minnesota rallied with the air of a champion. I picked that team to win it all (over Michigan, I might add), largely because I forced myself to watch it on a weekly basis after I made those comments.
I have no idea if the Gophers have copies of what I said in the locker room, but if they win the championship, I’m asking for a t-shirt as a finder’s fee.
For what it’s worth, I also picked Minnesota to see if there could be a form of Rubin Jinx involved. It still could rear its ugly head, but hey, at this point, it’s not on my dark-hearted soul.
As I typed that up, something occurred to me that I didn’t think about much after the weekend. Massachusetts teams admittedly went winless, but there is zero eastern representation in a Frozen Four held in Boston.
As a resident Bostonian, that hurt my head, and I really needed to reflect on this past season. I stand by my Quinnipiac comments, and the Bobcats win over St. Cloud vindicated how I felt about them, but the fact that UMass, UMass Lowell and Northeastern all lost in the first round is a sign of where the power brokers are now residing in this sport. I credit UMass for defending its championship as valiantly as possible, but I’m still flabbergasted a bit at how this is breaking down.
Watching the Big Ten and the NCHC develop into these powerhouse leagues is a big win for the first round of realignment, and Minnesota State is always lurking as the Gonzaga of our sport because it’s able to churn No. 1 seeds and 35-win years annually despite playing in a league that doesn’t have the same relative power. There’s always a hearty debate about the strength of those two leagues, but it’s very weird to me that there isn’t any Massachusetts representation in a tournament centered in the home of the Beanpot and Hockey East. The only way anyone would know about Hockey East is by looking into the rafters next week.
I am, in particular, looking at Denver, the team you said had the most complete performance of the remaining four. A couple of years ago, Minnesota-Duluth’s second championship illustrated just how good the NCHC is, and I wrote an article after that tournament about how the NCHC reflected the old WCHA. In many ways, this Frozen Four is going to feel like those old days. Three old WCHA teams against a CCHA team. Realignment is a topic in that regard, but when we talk about those days, I’m going to turn this one back to you:
The old WCHA’s run of championships, the NCHC’s run of championships at the end of the 2010s, the presence of the old WCHA at this year’s tournament in the home of Hockey East – is this just a continuation of that storyline, and is there a way to break that stranglehold, UMass’ championship last year aside?
Paula: Before Massachusetts won last year – and excluding the Frozen Four cancelled because of COVID – the NCHC had a four-year run of national champions with Minnesota Duluth’s consecutive wins in 2018 and 2019, Denver (2017) and North Dakota (2016).
A quick look at the NCAA website shows that five of the seven programs listed for most NCAA championships are “western” teams – Michigan, Denver, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Minnesota, who are responsible for 36 of the 73 championship titles. The other two teams included in that list are Boston College and Boston University, each with five titles.
Maybe the discussion shouldn’t be centered on geography so much as it’s centered on powerhouse programs. Maybe it’s not about the legacy of the old WCHA – and the old CCHA, for that matter – but about which schools have been able to establish such powerhouse programs and why.
Yes, there’s been a western stranglehold on the championship game for the last little while, but the three years immediately prior to that were three of the most exciting I’ve covered in college hockey, when we saw championships from Yale (2013), Union (2014) and Providence (2015). There was a lot of buzz during those three years about the parity of the sport, about how great it was to see schools not usually present during the Frozen Four, and about how that may help grow our sport.
I cannot explain how or why that didn’t last.
In this century – and I’m including the year 2000, just for the sake of argument – there have been 12 national champions combined from the NCHC, the old WCHA, and the old CCHA. There have been eight from Hockey East and the ECAC combined. That’s a western edge, certainly, but not dominance.
The most interesting thing to me is that among those 20 winners, there are a dozen programs, and among those dozen, five have won multiple times: Boston College (4), Denver (3), Minnesota Duluth (3), Minnesota (2), North Dakota (2).
And who’s going to the Frozen Four? Michigan, the team with the most titles in NCAA history (9) and the most Frozen Four appearances (26). Denver, with three titles in the last 20 years and the program with the second-most championships plus 17 Frozen Four appearances. Minnesota, with two titles in the last 20 years, five championships total, and 22 Frozen Four appearances.
Minnesota State is the only outlier here, making its second consecutive Frozen Four appearance, which is its second in history.
Yeah, it’s all western this year – but three of the four attending are among the NCAA’s usual suspects.
Dan: I suppose that’s what makes things great in any sport. Sure, it’s great to talk about parity, but truthfully, returning dynasties to their spots atop a sport is a breathtaking feeling. Think about the NHL’s Original Six franchises and what they mean to the sport whenever they win. That same emotion exists when a team adds to its Frozen Four legacy.
I sometimes worry that dynasties are a thing of the past. Parity is important because administrators, coaches, players, journalists – everyone wants to feel like everyone has a shot. But to see those teams do what they’re expected to – almost what they’re supposed to do – is a thing of beauty. Minnesota and Michigan are prime examples. Their conference changed, but their histories didn’t. It’s the same with Denver. Any of those teams winning will add to already beautiful history, and the pictures will display alongside the champions of our parents and grandparents.
For me, that’s a beautiful thing because I know how it felt when the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup. It connected me to my dad, who watched Bobby Orr, and my grandfather, who talked about Dit Clapper until he passed away. We all had something in common. Those teams appearing on this stage connect those pieces together…even if nobody knows it as it’s happening.
As for Minnesota State, I truthfully don’t include it in the same level as a Michigan or Minnesota, but a championship would finish a journey that started in the Division III and Division II ranks. I went to school in Division III, and I often wonder what it would feel like to see UMass Dartmouth competing with these schools.
To a student who went to school in Mankato in the 1970s or 1980s, this is that moment in the making. Winning a championship would entrench the Mavericks alongside those other schools, and while it wouldn’t play directly into the parity storyline, it would complement how we look at dynasties. It would mean the world for a championship to make its way back to Mankato, and I’m sure doing it against Minnesota and either Michigan or Denver would only mean that much more.
Do I root for parity? Absolutely. But I know I speak for a good number of us when I look forward to seeing dynasties fight it out for the next chapter of their storied histories.
