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
Ed Trefzger: Welcome to our rotation of TMQ writers, JD!
Let’s start out with our new No. 1 on the USCHO.com men’s Division I poll, Michigan, which garnered 47 out of 50 first-place votes in the poll. It’s just the first of what may be many changes at the top, but how often in a season do you get No. 1 vs. No. 2, and in a rematch of the previous season’s national semifinal to boot?
For me, the key player all weekend was Michigan goalie Jack Ivankovic. He made 28 saves on Friday and 33 on Saturday. Ivankovic faced 25 shots combined across the second and third periods on Friday night.
DU netminder Johnny Hicks was out with what appears to have been a minor injury. Hicks is expected to be available next weekend when Boston College visits Magness Arena.
I’m really glad to see two top teams schedule each other early. Other programs stick to games against weaker opponents in October while playing the NPI game. What can both teams take away from this series?
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John Doyle: Thanks Ed! Looking forward to diving into TMQ.
Totally agree that it’s great to see those teams schedule each other early on. It’s such a better test than the typical October routine. Both squads are likely taking away a ton of data on their systems and depth under pressure, especially seeing how those goalies hold up in a high-stakes environment.
While Michigan-Denver was the marquee matchup over the weekend, it was far from the only heavyweight inter-conference matchup. We had No. 9 Minnesota Duluth taking a win and a tie at rival No. 20 Minnesota, St. Cloud went to No. 16 Boston College and got a split, and No. 12 Colorado College earned a split at No. 17 Connecticut.
And by the way, far be it for me to criticize anyone’s USCHO poll vote (I know I’ve gone against the grain several times), but Michigan went into Magness Arena and beat the then-No. 1 team not once but twice! I know Hicks was out, but what more do you have to do to be the unanimous No. 1?
Ed: I suppose that’s like asking the Baseball Writers’ Association of America why someone isn’t a unanimous Hall of Fame first-rounder! Win the national championship and then you get 50 votes.
Those were all great split series you mentioned. A couple of teams that people may have overlooked that had successful weekends — No. 11 Michigan Tech and No. 13 Augustana.
MTU was picked to finish first by coaches in the CCHA. Last weekend, they secured a pair of wins over Alaska, following a split with St. Cloud State and a sweep during the opening weekend against visiting Minnesota. Goalie Owen Bartoszkiewicz got his first shutout of the season and the fifth of his career against the Nanooks on Friday.
Augustana is the sleeper of the two in the eyes of the college hockey world, and apparently also the CCHA coaches poll which had them fourth. Garrett Raboin had been named as a candidate for the Minnesota job that Brett Larson was eventually awarded, but Raboin opted to stay at the program he started. The Vikings took a home-and-home series against Omaha over the weekend, which should help in the NPI.
If the CCHA has more than one team in the NCAA tournament, one of these two is likely to be the at-large. And I have to think a strong CCHA is great for college hockey.
JD: Augustana is definitely a program to watch — Raboin staying put was a huge move for them. And Michigan Tech has looked solid right out of the gate, so I agree that having strong early season results vs. big-time programs is going to be vital for the conference this year.
And don’t forget Bowling Green, which was impressive in winning the Ice Breaker Tournament with wins at Sacred Heart and UConn the weekend of the 10th, though the Falcons fell back to Earth with close home losses vs. Niagara this past weekend, and subsequently fell out of the USCHO poll.
Speaking of goalie play, there were some noteworthy performances over the weekend. You mentioned Bartoszkiewicz at Michigan Tech and Ivankovic for the Wolverines; there was also Michael Simpson at New Hampshire who picked up two wins, which were UNH’s first two wins of the season; and Caleb Heil with a pair of shutouts for North Dakota in a weekend sweep (both by 5-0 scores) at home vs. Bentley. Interestingly, the Fighting Hawks’ website claimed Heil is “believed to be” the first freshman goaltender to record back-to-back shutouts to begin his UND career — could be that records from the program’s early history in the late 1940s aren’t 100 percent complete, or there’s some ambiguity on what defines a “freshman” these days.
Ed, you had a front-row seat (figuratively — since you’re the radio guy, you were probably in the back row) to see Michigan State freshman Joshua Ravensbergen make 25 saves vs. RIT. Have any other goalies stood out to you so far this season?
Ed: Ravensbergen made several great saves on shots that could have made the game much closer; 15 of those 25 stops came in the third period. Michigan State has found a more than suitable replacement for Trey Augustine.
A goalie whose performance caught my notice — not because of stats alone, but because of the situation — is Arizona State’s Sam Urban. He made a career-high 42 saves in Saturday’s 4-2 win at UMass Lowell, following a 33-save performance on Friday.
Getting those two wins was huge for the Sun Devils. I know some college hockey fans will permanently root against ASU because of the situation there, but I’m not going to hold that against the players or the newly hired staff.
Those games represented the start of the Dave Hakstol era at Arizona State, and I think they made an excellent choice. Hakstol made it to 11 NCAA tournaments and seven Frozen Fours at North Dakota before being hired by the Philadelphia Flyers. Most programs and fans would love that track record.
Hakstol also has NHL bona fides which is vital in this transfer portal and CHL era of college hockey as the development league before turning pro.
Timing was fortuitous for ASU in Hakstol’s hiring. The Sun Devils have this coming weekend off and Hakstol said he would use about six practices to get things in place before focusing on the next opponent, St. Cloud State.
The whole situation starting with Matthew Mayich’s heat-induced injury on August 20 has been handled poorly by the university, and more reckoning is coming. But the hiring of Hakstol might be the first right decision ASU made in the aftermath, and it may very well have been the one to save the program.
JD: I am 100 percent rooting for Arizona State to have a successful season on the ice. It reminds me of the Penn State football scandal of 2011, when Joe Paterno was fired for his failure to adequately respond to allegations that former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was sexually abusing young boys. It was easy to root against the Penn State football program, but the players on that 2011 team found themselves in an incredibly volatile situation that was not of their own making, and responded with a resilient effort to block out the noise and unite on the field.
I’m seeing the same thing with the current Arizona State hockey team, where player response to the controversy surrounding Mayich’s catastrophic collapse has been defined by an assertive, unified rebellion against the university’s official narrative. My fervent wish is that the athletes continue to heal emotionally and psychologically while holding Mayich and his family in their thoughts. If that translates to success on the scoreboard, all the better.