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.
Jim: To Dan – and all of our readers – welcome back to college hockey season!
It’s great to have the first weekend of play in back of us for many college hockey teams. And what a way to begin the season than to have a top-10 battle between defending national champion Quinnipiac and perennial power Boston College go to overtime.
Ultimately, the Eagles prevailed on a late goal by Cutter Gauthier, putting a slight damper on the banner-raising night for the Bobcats, but that was a heck of a way to kick off the season.
I felt like it was a weekend of great storylines. In addition to that battle in Hamden, you had Mike Hastings coaching his first two games at Wisconsin and his Badgers earning two shutouts over Augustana. You had the return of Robert Morris to Division I hockey after a two-year absence with a weekend split with Bowling Green.
And you had the nation’s top recruit, Macklin Celebrini, needing about 27 minutes to notch what will probably be his first of many collegiate goals in No. 1 Boston University’s 3-2 overtime win against Bentley.
What stood out most for you? Or are you simply happy just to have college hockey back?
Dan: First of all, a good hearty good season to you and all of us who are back on this wonderful journey to a national championship.
I think the feeling I had when I walked into the Bentley Arena on Saturday told me everything. Seeing people I hadn’t seen in months, looking at familiar logos and uniforms, seeing the warmups – it all felt new and fresh while remaining familiar. I was overjoyed, and the fact that Boston University – the No. 1 team in the nation – was there made it all the more special, especially since I grew up going to games at Walter Brown Arena. I wished I could have bottled the feeling, especially since I was overexhausted from some residuals from being sick.
But what stood out for me was simply the unknown. Coaches preach about how every season is brand new, but it’s always been more than just coachspeak cliches for me. No team starts the season in an exact continuation of what happened last year, and the progression and changeover is what makes the first days so unclear. I’d love to sit back and say that we all knew Boston College was going to bring some thump to the defending national champions, but we didn’t know – nor do we still know – if BC is going to be that good or if Quinnipiac is taking a step back or if there’s any championship hangover or anything. We don’t know any of that.
I guess that’s why I don’t ever put a ton of stock in these first couple of weeks. A team like St. Thomas can beat St. Cloud, but that doesn’t mean the Tommies are championship material, nor does it mean that the sky’s falling on St. Cloud. Bentley can take BU to overtime, and it doesn’t mean that the Terriers are a paper No. 1 or that Andy Jones solved the missing riddles for an Atlantic Hockey team. Alaska-Anchorage can beat UMass-Lowell, and it’s not much more than a good feeling in the Great White North. It’s a time to be happy – or unhappy – and nothing more than that to me.
That said, the first weekend gave us at least a few things for good, quality overreactions. Give me your hottest take and your biggest overreaction from the first weekend – mostly so I can hold it against you in three months.
Jim: Oh, I love that you’re asking for blackmail material this early in the season, but I’ll take the bait.
Both my takes come from the Big Ten. First, and I said this on the Weekend Review podcast yesterday, I think Michigan State is the most improved team in the country. Adam Nightingale has done a fantastic job tapping into the recruiting pipeline and brought in a very strong freshman class. That take, though, isn’t that sexy given that USCHO poll voters already had the Spartans a top ten team in the preseason poll.
The take that is definitely an overreaction relates to Sparty’s natural rival, Michigan. A 4-2 loss at home to open the season on Saturday was followed up with a 5-1 lead nearly slipping away (Michigan did hold on for a 5-4 win) the next day is a little concerning. Allowing four goals per game on the weekend makes me think one thing: Erik Portillo is no longer in net.
Now, I should give Michigan’s opponent Providence some credit. I think the Friars might be the best sixth-place team in any conference’s preseason coaches poll. But you asked for an overreaction, so I gave you one.
Now, I’ll put you on the spot. And you need to be original. Give me your takes from week one that I’ll remind you of in April in St. Paul when it crashes and burns.
Dan: Here’s a blistering take for you…
Remember when we had the Frozen Four in Boston a couple of years ago? I made a joke about how ironic it was to have four western teams playing for a national championship in Boston. I’ll never forget the electricity of watching BU play for the title in the Garden since it felt like an extra home rink for that team, and the fact that it was an all-Hockey East final that year with Providence, which won the title, added to the down-home sell-out crowd feeling.
We were robbed of that when we had an all-Minnesota semifinal game between Minnesota State and the Gophers and a second game between Denver and Michigan that wound up going to overtime. No matter how good those games were, and that was a fun final, I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if there were multiple Beanpot schools playing for the title in that scenario.
So here’s the take: an all-eastern final in Minnesota this year. I legitimately think Hockey East could run six or seven teams deep this year, and even if it’s only four or five that get into the tournament, I think the league is loaded compared to last year when there were two teams in the tournament. I think BC and BU are both playing with immense pressure and expectations that they could conceivably live up to, and Northeastern is separating itself as a perennial powerhouse capable of going on runs. Merrimack went to the tournament last year and is emerging from the pack, and we all know that UMass is bound to rebound from last year’s struggle. Count Providence and UMass Lowell in there, and you’ve got a league capable of slapping four or five teams into the tournament.
But remember what I said here – an all-eastern final. And while I don’t think Quinnipiac is going to have the same magic as last season, I think Cornell has the back end capable of dominating teams. Clarkson should be significantly better than last year and has the core of a team that should have competed for a championship last year, and Harvard is always a factor. Count a step forward, and ECAC is still a league capable of swiping three or four spots in the tournament.
The Big Ten is always going to be a factor, but I think the tide is shifting back east. Bold statement: we’re all going to Minnesota to crash the “pahty” with a heavy dose of Dunkin.’
Imagine what the “state of hockey” would do if the four Beanpot schools made the Frozen Four.
Jim: Well, if when you and I write TMQ the readers didn’t think we had an eastern bias, they do now. Nice job, Skippy.
Bringing things back west a little, two western teams that earned sweeps that we should discuss are Wisconsin and Denver. We mentioned the Badgers a bit already, but it impresses me that the Mike Hastings school of defense lived on in weekend one with the Badgers. And Denver made the long trip to Fairbanks and came away with two ‘W’s.
I really like this year’s Denver team. David Carle has put out a consistent product in his entire career as head coach and this year’s club has a lot on both sides of the puck.
Are they your favorite in the NCHC or are you ready to go in another direction?
Dan: I adhere to a major line of thinking when it comes to conference preseasons: the champion is always the champion until someone says otherwise.
That doesn’t devalue the regular season by any stretch, but it does mean that Denver opens the season as the league’s favorite until someone proves to me that they’re ready to step to the forefront of the conference race.
Trips up to Alaska are significantly more difficult than people realize. Fairbanks, especially, is isolated from the rest of the college hockey world, and the Nanooks play particularly well on home ice. Heading up there requires a bit of travel for everyone, and success in early weeks at Alaska is a good way to forge a team’s individual culture. Denver entered the year as the favorite, but the way that team won the games this weekend is a potential sign of things to come.
Dominant as usual, I feel like Denver rolled last year right into this year with that straight line of offseason tinkering and improvement, and it’s going to be a tough sled for anyone to unseat the team in the NCHC.
That, I guess, brings me to the last point. It’s early, so the missive for the upcoming season is towards the rest of the NCHC. We know Denver is going to be very good, but I feel like the rest of the league needs to close the gap over the course of the season. The conference has been lights out since it started in 2013, but last year was an awkward shift to the Big Ten, ECAC and Hockey East over the NCHC’s usual dominance. It was the first time the league didn’t produce a Frozen Four team, and it felt like a few teams spun their wheels in the mud as the season went along.
Again, we’re early, but that HAS to be the mission this year. Denver is going to be very good, but the only way to catch that lot is to claw and close the gap. Nobody, especially tough eastern leagues, is going to open the door (shoutout my eastern bias again).
I know the talent is there. I’m interested to see what happens in these early weeks with Minnesota Duluth playing Northern Michigan this week and North Dakota heading to the Ice Breaker. St. Cloud split with St. Thomas last week, but the series against Minnesota State this weekend could push some momentum. Western Michigan-Ferris, Union-Colorado College, even Miami-Canisius. These are all important games for the league’s overall profile for this season.
