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.
DAN: Another week in the books here in college hockey land, and all that means is that we’re finally starting to hit a stride when it comes to the season. Trends are emerging, players and teams are building reputations, and we’re now well aware of the coaches and players that will set a pace for the rest of their comrades.
For me, the conversation always boils down to a debate between hot teams and good teams. On more than one occasion, we’ve seen a really hot team catch fire at both the best and worst times of year (aka – catch fire to start the season before finishing with two wins after Christmas), but we’ve also seen good teams go wire to wire.
Turning to the poll, we’ve got a unanimous choice at No. 1 right now, and I suppose that begs the question, Ed, if Michigan State is both the best and hottest thing in college hockey?
ED: I think the Spartans may be the best, are arguably the hottest, plus they were also the “last man standing” out of the weekend.
Let’s take them in reverse order.
With Michigan State sweeping Penn State 2-1 in OT on Friday and emphatically with a 5-0 win on Saturday to pick up five of six points in the Big Ten, they eliminated the Nittany Lions from consideration for No. 1 in the poll this week. Meanwhile, Michigan’s split with Wisconsin took the Wolverines out of consideration for No. 1 also.
So of the three getting votes at the top last week, only Michigan State was unscathed. Or 83.333% unscathed, I guess.
You can argue for them being the hottest as they are tied for the longest current winning streak at seven with RIT (who has seemingly turned a rebuilding year into a rebuilding week, as one local reporter put it).
As far as the best? There’s a lot of hockey left to be played, but they are doing all of the right things. Trey Augustine is sixth in both save percentage at .944 and goals against at 1.41. They’re eighth in team offense, third in team defense, and they aren’t taking many penalties. So they are in the conversation as one of the top teams and likely will be all season. You can choose whatever criteria you like and decide who might be better.
I think there’s another team that can make the argument that they are the hottest right now, and that’s Minnesota Duluth. They’re No. 3 this week after being way down the list of teams receiving votes in USCHO’s preseason poll. Are you surprised at the success of the 10-2-0 Bulldogs one-third of the way through their schedule?
DAN: Absolutely not!
Look, like you, I want to take this thing in reverse for a second because I already gave away the punchline. I was very into Duluth when we talked about the team’s matchup against Minnesota on our USCHO Edge podcast. I was very into the team during a pick ’em in last year’s podcast, and I’ve been very in on Scott Sandelin as a head coach since I watched him win his second consecutive national championship in the pre-COVID era (which, by the way, was part of an NCHC run that’s arguably better than the old WCHA).
It goes deeper than that for me, though, because even the numbers are backing me up. Max Plante is the national leader with 22 points. Zam Plante is right behind him with 19 points. Ty Hanson is second among defensemen with 13 points, and Adam Gajan is in the top-20 nationally with a 1.70 goals against average (and a .925 save percentage to boot). The team is seventh nationally in scoring defense and is no. 11 in scoring offense. Power play is sixth. Penalty kill is 10th.
Compared to the rest of the NCHC, it’s virtually impregnable. Of the two losses, one was against North Dakota at the Ralph and the other is becoming more negligible with each passing week. Even last weekend’s five-pointer against St. Cloud gave the team a 4-0 win before the Bulldogs came from behind to score a 3-2 overtime win at home.
Few teams are that dominant right now. I’d throw a special mention to Dartmouth as undefeated, but the Ivy League schools just started their seasons, so it’s hard to judge.
While I’m not surprised by Duluth, I’m curious if there were results more specifically from last weekend that shocked you. Now that all of college hockey is back, what’s been the individual game that you enjoyed most so far?
ED: To avoid people groaning and rolling their eyes, I will leave out games I’ve broadcast (although RIT’s win over Clarkson in the annual homecoming game for the Tigers in front of 10,556 started their seven-game stretch, and it’s my favorite game almost every year).
I’ll pick two, which I have only been able to watch as highlights since I’m working almost every Friday and Saturday. (Thanks Big Ten for those Thursday games on BTN, BTW.)
The first has to be from this past weekend, with Tiernan Shoudy’s double-clutch overtime goal to propel the Spartans past Penn State after chances at both ends of the ice to win.
The other also involves the Spartans, as they downed then-No. 1 Boston University 4-3 in overtime on Oct. 18 for a weekend sweep. Shane Vansaghi swept a Cole Eiserman shot off the goal line setting up a 2-on-1 to the BU net and an overtime winner for Matt Basgall. That also started a 1-5 stretch for the Terriers, who only got back to .500 on the season this past weekend.
I’ll be willing to join you on Dartmouth once the sample size is bigger and if they can continue this early momentum.
Since we started with the poll, let me ask you if there are any teams whose poll position does surprise you.
DAN: I’m going to turn into a massive homer here by picking Bentley. Yep, unlike you, who left out games that you’ve broadcast, I’m going to make a case for an Atlantic Hockey team – not just any Atlantic Hockey team but the one that I actively broadcast – to jump into the top 20 rankings.
Let me start with the obvious case of a team that’s unbeaten in its last six games. I understand that Canisius and Mercyhurst aren’t the same as beating Michigan State or Michigan, but the Falcons jumped into this past weekend with one of the hottest streaks of the entire season. Goaltender Nick Bevilacqua had posted a goals-against average that was below 1.00 in his first three starts, and his save numbers ranked atop the start of the season opposite any goaltender that wasn’t one of the regular Ivy League starters.
Additionally, the defending conference champions outright steamrolled both of the aforementioned teams in the aftermath of taking UMass, a team that’s actively ranked because of its skill level, into overtime after holding three different leads. Three-on-three overtime aside, that means that Bentley hung with the No. 12 team in the country after playing No. 17 Colorado College and No. 4 Denver in its first two road games. Those two games weren’t wins, but the strength of schedule component is therefore much more difficult than teams with more votes that are in the poll or around the bubble…namely Union, which had 38 votes and likewise holds a case that it should probably be inside the rankings over a team like Dartmouth or Cornell because of the body of work (which, yes, actually stands in the face of a point I constantly make about the Ivies that they’re dinged for not playing games early in the season).
Dartmouth’s four games were against Stonehill, Yale, Colgate and Cornell, and I’d argue that Yale probably deserves more recognition than the Big Green after taking five points and two wins from Quinnipiac and Princeton. Yet back to Bentley, which lost in a shootout to Army on Friday before earning a victory on Sunday over the Black Knights.
Army split with Holy Cross – considered the class of Atlantic Hockey America before the season – and beat Stonehill, a common opponent with Dartmouth, and Northeastern while tying Union. From a head-to-head standpoint, that gives Bentley style points while simultaneously giving the Falcons an inside track to the best record in the conference to start the season. Combine that with a postseason ranking that finished inside the poll after it pushed Boston College to the limit in the Manchester Regional, and I’m starting to think that Metrowest Massachusetts deserves a little more love and recognition.
And again, I’m the first one to admit that last season’s results don’t totally matter here, but Minnesota held onto its ranking significantly longer than it likely deserved and BC – another Dan Rubin workplace special – is still ranked despite a 4-4-1 record that got to .500 after two wins over Vermont, which lost to St. Lawrence and New Hampshire – teams without votes.
Maybe it’s a name recognition thing with Atlantic Hockey, which still battles the anonymity bug outside of Holy Cross and RIT, but pointing to a team like Miami, which is 7-1 after beating Ferris State, RPI and Lindenwood, as a team that’s comparable and with more points makes me think that Bentley needs a bit more love.
And, yeah, I realize that I’m opening the door for some flack here. Maybe more than that. But even if the Falcons aren’t getting one of the top 20 spots, I think more than eight votes is warranted.
Anyways, once the blistering heat from this take subsides, I’ll ask the same question of you.
ED: I’m already ducking the fire aimed at you and hoping some stray shrapnel misses me entirely!
I’m also going to duck your question. Sort of.
Every time USCHO posts a poll, people ask, “How did they come up with those rankings?”
Well, they aren’t rankings, per se. They are the assembled ballots of 50 people, about 30 or so coaches and the rest various media types: sportswriters, broadcasters, and the like. These voters are spread out fairly evenly across conferences and geography. Every Monday, our super secret poll administrator tabulates the ballots. No. 1 gets 20 points, No. 2 gets 19, all the way down to No. 20 getting one point. Then those ballots are added up to create the poll. (The tabulation is actually computerized to avoid math errors.)
So the poll is the combined opinion of 50 people voting independently. Some may consider the season’s record; others, how a team did last weekend. It’s all a combined opinion of which teams each voter considers No. 1 to No. 20 each week.
And you’ll notice that this time of the season, a lot of teams are in the range from about No. 17 or 18 to all those receiving votes because there’s still not enough data to separate the wheat from the chaff. In fact, 32 teams got votes this week, which is 50.79% of men’s D-I.
You also mentioned that there are teams that have some sort of inertia keeping them from dropping like a rock. Others have the same resistance as they try to climb the ladder. Reputation gets in the way in both directions.
All that said, you’ve made a great argument for how to assemble a ballot and what thought might go into it.
Now here’s where I don’t completely duck your question. I think that we have a real separation between the top three conferences – Big Ten, Hockey East, and NCHC – and the other three and independents. The ECAC may overlap its top three or so into that upper territory, but I don’t think that the AHA and CCHA are that far behind. Given that, I have no issue with there being 16 teams from the top three conferences, though maybe Hockey East is over-represented prior to its traditional midseason cannibalization.
Let’s see where things stand in a month after the Ivies (finally!) have a decent number of games under their belts and everyone in a league has had a significant amount of conference play.
Oh, and if you think you and the general public have issues with the poll, let me introduce you to the hot mess I think the NPI will be until we get to semester break, or maybe well into 2026.