Each week, USCHO.com will pick the top 10 moments from the past weekend in our Monday 10 feature.
1. Michigan State makes its statement in Madison
If there was any concerns about Michigan State and if it belonged in the conversation with No. 1 Michigan and No. 2 Wisconsin, the Spartans answered with a road sweep at No. 2 Wisconsin, 4–3 and 4–1. Coming off a rocky stretch around the holidays, going into Madison and taking all six points is the weekend the Spartans were hoping to see from a team that has national title aspirations.
Michigan State showed depth scoring, handled a tough environment, and looked much more like the connected, layered team that climbed to No. 1 earlier in the season than the group that stumbled against Ohio State in early January. In a year where the Big Ten is jockeying for multiple No. 1 seeds, that sweep is the kind of result that will keep the Spartans in the protected-seed conversation all the way to March.
2. No Ivankovic, no problem (so far) as Michigan rolls at Minnesota
Michigan’s response to losing Jack Ivankovic has been a major storyline this week in Ann Arbor, and this weekend in Minneapolis was the first real test without their No. 1 goalie. The Wolverines took five of six points at Minnesota with 5–1 and 3–2 (OT) wins, and backup Stephen Peck passed his first exam on the big stage. He stopped 17 shots Friday and 26 more on Saturday; through the weekend he’s sitting at a 2.26 GAA and .910 save percentage with a 3-0-0 record. That’s exactly the kind of stability Michigan needed after Ivankovic’s long-term knee injury.
Beyond the crease, Michigan’s continues to crank. They scored eight more combined goals in the two games and continue to get production up and down the lineup, which gives Peck a little margin for error as he settles in as the starter. When you add in Brandon Naurato’s new four-year extension through 2029-30, this was a pretty good week in Ann Arbor.
3. Providence sweeps Boston College – and builds real NPI separation
On paper, a weekend in which Providence beats Boston College 4–3 in overtime at Conte Forum and 4–3 again at Schneider already looks like a major result in Hockey East. In the NPI world, it’s even bigger. The Friars have climbed to 12th, and the gap between them and 16th-place St. Cloud State is roughly 1.8 points — the same distance that separates St. Cloud from the low-30s. That’s an enormous cushion in the neighborhood of the at-large cut line.
Boston College, meanwhile, did something you don’t always see: they actually moved up in the NPI despite a sweep. The Eagles still banked 40 percent of a win for Friday’s overtime loss, and a lot of the teams clustered around them in the rankings also had rough weekends. It’s a good reminder of how sensitive the NPI can be to context — opponent quality, game state, and what everyone else does around you — and a sign that both Providence and BC are very much in control of their NCAA fates if they handle their business from here.
4. Sacred Heart closes the gap on Bentley in Atlantic Hockey
Atlantic Hockey America has been one of the sneakily entertaining races this season, and Sacred Heart’s four-of-six points from Bentley tightened things up again at the top. The Pioneers showed some resilience, rallying from 3–0 and 4–3 down to earn a tie in the second game of the series. it was an excellent response to Bentley’s pushback after Friday’s loss.
Bentley still has the inside track, but these are the series that determine who hosts games and who has to go on the road in March. Sacred Heart’s ability to turn what could have been a tough weekend and an even tougher climb in the standings into a net positive to keep them right on the Falcons’ heels and sets up a fun stretch run.
5. The CCHA race is officially bonkers
If you wanted chaos, the CCHA provided it. St. Thomas swept Bemidji State, Augustana swept Ferris State, and Michigan Tech swept Minnesota State in a weekend that tightened an already compressed standings picture. Augustana’s second-year surge has been one of the big national stories all season, and another six-point weekend is more evidence that the Vikings are more than a novelty act in their new league.
Michigan Tech’s sweep of Minnesota State might be even more significant in the long run. The Mavericks have been the league’s standard-bearer in recent years, and suddenly there’s a plausible scenario where multiple CCHA teams are flirting with the bubble. It certainly will make for a stretch run in a tight CCHA where multiple NCAA bids is suddenly the league’s goal.
6. The Boisvert–Eddy fight and Hockey East’s message
Fights are rare in college hockey, which is why the scene Friday at Agganis Arena turned so many heads. Boston University’s Sacha Boisvert and UMass Lowell’s Connor Eddy took matching penalties in the third period, then stepped out of the box and immediately dropped the gloves for a full-on tilt. Both got the automatic game disqualification and one-game suspension, but Hockey East didn’t stop there, adding two more games for each player after reviewing the incident.
From a discipline standpoint, that’s a pretty clear statement from the league: hard, edgy hockey is the norm, but you’re not going to import pro-style fighting into this level. It’s especially notable given Boisvert’s profile — a first-round Chicago Blackhawks pick and one of BU’s key offensive drivers — and Eddy’s status as a veteran power forward with a physical edge. The extra suspensions don’t just punish two players; it is a warning shot from Hockey East commissioner Steve Metcalf and discipline chief Brian Murphy as the intensity ramps up down the stretch.
7. Alaska’s Governor’s Cup becomes a full-season drama
Alaska Fairbanks and Alaska Anchorage opened their annual Governor’s Cup series with a 1–1 tie (won by Anchorage in the shootout) and a 4–1 Nanooks win, and that would be notable enough in a vacuum. The twist this year is that these two will see each other six more times before the regular season ends. It’s a genuine mini-season inside the season.
Beyond bragging rights, both programs are fighting for relevance in the late-season independent team schedule. This has been a series dominated by Fairbanks in recent years; the last time Alaska Anchorage won the Cup was 2009.
8. Northeastern snaps a skid and breathes life into its season
Northeastern badly needed something positive after the break, and a “home-and-home” with New Hampshire turned into the reset button. Coming off five straight losses, the Huskies had watched a 10–4–0 start slide into serious danger territory for both NPI and Hockey East positioning.
The response was exactly what Jerry Keefe would have drawn up: a 4–0 win in Durham on Friday that looked like a throwback to Northeastern’s old shutdown identity, followed by a second win at Walter Brown, NU’s first “home” game in the post-Matthews era, to finish the sweep and end the losing streak. That pushes Northeastern back over .500 and stabilizes their freefall in the NPI, though the task to make the NCAA tournament is still tall for the Huskies.
9. Quinnipiac quietly takes control of the ECAC
While Dartmouth’s start and Princeton’s jump grabbed most of the ECAC headlines, Quinnipiac has just quietly turned into Quinnipiac again. The Bobcats are 18–4–2 overall and 10–2–0 in the league, sitting on 28 ECAC points and a two-point cushion at the top of the standings with games in hand on some of the pack. They’ve also pushed themselves firmly into the national top 10 in both polls and NPI.
The recent body of work is exactly what you’d expect from Rand Pecknold’s team: a rout of Harvard, a methodical home win over Dartmouth to open 2026, a sweep of the Capital District teams at home, then a statement road sweep this weekend at Colgate and Cornell. The ECAC story was about surprises; now, as the second half starts to settle, it’s Rand Pecknold’s group that has the inside track to yet another Cleary Cup.
10. Mercyhurst finally finds traction
If you’re looking for a somewhat feel-good story developing, Mercyhurst is it. The Lakers went into January 0–17–1, having been hammered a few times in non-conference play (including a pair at Michigan to open the year) and then worn down by Atlantic Hockey. They were, by the numbers, the last winless team in the country and sitting at the very bottom of NPI.
That changed on Jan. 9, when Mercyhurst finally broke through with a 3–0 home win over Army, then followed that up by sweeping Niagara this past weekend: 3–0 at home on January 16 and 4–2 on the road on Jan. 17. In the span of nine days, they went from 0 wins to 3–18–1, and — maybe more important than the record — proved they could outplay league opposition for full weekends. Given how beat up that roster was in the first half, this feels less like a random blip and more like a team finally getting healthy enough to resemble itself. A good story for legendary coach Rick Gotkin’s final season in Erie.