Each week, USCHO.com will pick the top 10 moments from the past weekend in our Monday 10 feature.
1. Michigan State continues its winning ways
No. 1 Michigan State kept its streak alive with a weekend sweep at Notre Dame, winning 4-1 on Friday and 3-1 on Saturday. Goaltender Trey Augustine notched his 50th career win for the Spartans, with 52 saves and a .963 save percentage on the weekend.
“It’s hard to sweep on the road in our conference,” said Michigan State coach Adam Nightingale about getting six points on the road in the Big Ten.
After dropping the season opener against New Hampshire, the Spartans have won nine straight, tied for the longest winning streak in D-I men’s hockey, including four in a row in conference.
2. Undefeated Dartmouth achieves marks not seen in years or decades
It’s still early in the season for the six Ivy League teams in ECAC Hockey, but No. 19 Dartmouth has come out of the gate strong, improving its record to 6-0-0 and remaining the only team in Division I without a loss.
The Big Green swept the conference weekend in New York’s North Country with a 6-1 win at St. Lawrence on Friday – including a hat trick by Nathan Morin – and a 3-1 defeat of Clarkson. It was Morin’s second hatty of the 2025-26 campaign and the first multiple hat trick season for a Dartmouth player since 2017-18. That season was also the last time the Big Green got a sweep at St. Lawrence and Clarkson.
The last time Dartmouth started 6-0-0 was the 1957-58 season.
3. Nittany Lions end difficult losing streak vs. Michigan
A 7-1 thumping at the hands of visiting No. 2 Michigan on Friday was so difficult to swallow that Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky chose not to speak to the team after the game, saying that it would be “all emotional reaction.” For the first time this season, players were not made available to media.
But after being outscored 14-2 in its previous three games, No. 5 Penn State recovered some swagger Saturday night with a 4-2 win over the Wolverines, ending that three-game losing streak. Four different players tallied for the Nittany Lions.
Penn State visits Minnesota this coming weekend, and is then idle until a Jan. 3-4 nonconference home-and-home weekend with Rochester Institute of Technology. The slumping and unranked Golden Gophers split a home stand with visiting LIU, moving Minnesota to 5-8-1 on the season.
4. Quinnipiac drops BU back below .500
After battling back to .500 overall with a sweep and 5-of-6 points vs. Merrimack last weekend, No. 13 Boston University dropped to 5-6-1 at the hands of No. 10 Quinnipiac, 6-2, in the lone game of the weekend for both.
The Bobcats improved to 4-1-1 against Hockey East and set a season high in shots on goal with 49, including 25 of them in the first period.
“The first thing we did was hit the net,” Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold told media after the game. “We’ve been missing the net a lot.”
5. Denver takes first two games of Gold Pan Series and five NCHC points
No. 4 Denver and No. 17 Colorado College meet four times in conference each NCHC season under the current scheduling system. That is in keeping with the tradition of four games a year in the annual Gold Pan Series between the two teams that stretches back to 1950.
They had their first home-and-home weekend of the 2025-26 campaign with the Pioneers taking the home Friday game in overtime, 2-1.
“The one chance we did have, we made it count,” said Denver coach David Carle of Boston Buckberger’s game-winner, the only shot on net for Denver in 3-on-3 extra play.
DU won Saturday’s game at CC’s Ed Robson arena, 3-2. The Tigers made a late push and scored twice in the third, but came up short. “We sat and watched the hockey game for two periods,” said Colorado College coach Kris Mayotte. “You’re not going to win many in this league like that.”
6. Arizona State splits in first trip to North Dakota
Arizona State made its first-ever trip to No. 6 North Dakota’s Ralph Englestad Arena and brought three points back to Tempe.
The host Fighting Hawks prevailed on Friday with a 5-2 win capped off by a three-goal third-period outburst in front of a sold-out crowd.
Arizona State got the split on Saturday with a 4-2 win, despite being outshot 41-15. Goalie Connor Hasley had 39 saves for the Sun Devils.
ASU is now 3-2 all-time vs. North Dakota.
7. Defending champ Western Michigan sweeps Miami
It’s tough to be the defending champion. No. 9 Western Michigan has had a few stumbles in the early season, including getting swept at home at the hands of then-No. 9 Denver on Nov. 7 and 8.
The Broncos took down an upstart Miami 5-2 and 6-2 over the weekend to improve to 7-5-0.
In Saturday’s contest, Western Michigan outshot the RedHawks 51-16, holding Miami to just five shots in the first two periods.
“I loved the way we came out,” said WMU coach Pat Ferschweiler. “I loved the way we engaged from top to bottom.”
8. Boston College and UConn sweep their weekends, as do Minnesota State and Bowling Green
Boston College and Connecticut both swept their Hockey East opponents this past weekend.
The No. 18 Eagles got their first win on home ice Friday, 7-3, over No. 12 Massachusetts, including a four-goal third-period explosion.
BC capped the sweep with a 4-0 shutout on Saturday at UMass on a 32 save performance by freshman Louka Cloutier. The Eagles improved to 4-2-0 in Hockey East, while UMass dropped to 1-4-0 in conference.
No. 16 UConn took a pair of games against No. 11 Northeastern. Jake Percival had a hat trick in Friday’s 4-2 win at home. UConn needed overtime at Northeastern to prevail 4-3.
In the CCHA, Bowling Green got a weekend sweep of Ferris State 9-5 and 5-2, while No. 16 Minnesota State took a pair from Lake Superior State on the road. BGSU pulled into a tie atop the CCHA with Bemidji State at 17 points, while Minnesota State trails first place by five points with two games in hand.
9. After a trouncing on Friday, Vermont upsets Maine
Axel Mangbo and Aiden Wright combined for 43 saves in a 2-1 win for Vermont over No. 8 Maine in front of a sold-out crowd at Alfond Arena. Mangbo had to leave the game with an aggravated injury after making 35 saves in 54:48.
Daniel Sambuco’s goal at 1:29 of the third – his first of the season – would be the game winner.
Maine had taken Friday’s game 7-0 in front of an Albin Boija shutout.
“It’s just a gritty win by us,” said UVM coach Steve Wiedler on ESPN+. “I’m really proud of our guys and their response. It would have been easy to roll over and die.”
10. RIT extends to nine straight, Holy Cross keeps pace in AHA
Flying under the radar as the team tied with No. 1 Michigan State for longest current winning streak is RIT. The Tigers dropped their first two games of the season against Atlantic Hockey America foe Sacred Heart, but have followed that with a win over Clarkson at the Tigers’ annual homecoming game in front of 10,556 at downtown Rochester’s AHL barn, plus home sweeps of Air Force and Mercyhurst and road series wins over Colgate and this past weekend at Robert Morris.
Both victories were close and not at all pretty against the Colonials, 2-1 on Friday and 3-2 on Saturday, the second clinched by a clutch goal by Christian Catalano with 46.5 seconds left.
After Friday’s win, RIT first-year head coach Matt Thomas said, “It was a great win, don’t get me wrong. We found a way late. However, we are trying to grow our game, and that was a bit of a step back in how we want to play.”
A standout throughout this streak has been goaltender Jakub Krbecek. The sophomore from Prague, Czech Republic has a 9-1 record. He’s fifth nationally GAA in save percentage at .942 and sixth in GAA at 1.51.
Holy Cross kept pace ahead of RIT with two wins at Air Force, leading the second-place Tigers by five points, while having played one more AHA game.