Weekend College Hockey Review
This last weekend, the Big Ten continued to be a complete mess of a conference, with five teams all within one point of the conference lead. In fact, the Wisconsin Badgers, despite having Cole Caulfield, are the only team eliminated from earning the #1 seed in the conference tournament.
In Hockey East, the University of Massachusetts, despite not having Cale Makar this season, has finally started to find a little breathing room. Despite having played two more games than Boston College, the Eagles fell to UMass-Lowell on Friday night, making the two-point gap between Boston College and Massachusetts a little larger. Greg Carvel, head coach of Massachusetts, seems like the kind of coach whose name may be brought up in future NHL coaching searches for his phenomenal job with the Minutemen.
With its 17th win of the season last night, @UMassHockey has matched its eighth-best wins total in program history.
In 90 seasons of UMass hockey, THREE of the top nine wins totals (17 in 17-18 & 19-20 / 31 in 18-19) have come in @CoachCarvelUM’s four years in Amherst.
— Jillian Jakuba (@jjakuba) February 8, 2020
Elsewhere, top teams like Minnesota State, Bemidji State, and Cornell all took care of business.
Notably, tonight is the championship of the famous Beanpot tournament between all four Boston schools. Northeastern will be playing Boston University in the final, while Boston College and Harvard face each other in the consolation game.
Bobby’s Top-Four Rankings:
- North Dakota
- Minnesota State
- Denver
- Cornell
Nashville Predators News
Nashville Predators 2, Edmonton Oilers 3: Bad Officiating Leads to Bad Results
Our recap of the Preds’ last game in case you missed it.
The Rink on Broadway – Skating Hours
In case anyone’s looking to tear up some ice and then get yelled at for going too fast by supervisors this week.
Around Hockey
GOTW: Behind two-goal night for Biro, Penn State bests Ohio State, 6-3, re-takes top spot in B1G Hockey standings
A tough loss at home Saturday night for my Buckeyes. The bigger loss, though, is the authors failing to properly add a “The” in their title.
Crowded Interest
A long read about what could be affecting college hockey attendance, in addition to college athletic attendance declining across all sports.
How Senators’ Mark Borowiecki went from die-hard fan to franchise stalwart
When you like eating your dish of suffering with an extra side of suffering.
Is Alex Ovechkin the NHL’s greatest goal scorer ever?
…but, really, Ovechkin is and it really isn’t close. These are the kind of goalies Wayne Gretzky was scoring goal after goal on:
Sure, there’s an argument for “different goalies, different era” but, if you went that route, Ovechkin is already a better goal scorer than Gretzky.
Ovechkin 700: Opponents helpless vs. NHL’s best goal-scorer
Man, only if Don Cherry was still around to be forced to talk about Ovechkin tearing up the league. Or Kovalchuk driving the Habs and looking like ten times the player he was in LA. Missed opportunities.
A Lasting Legacy: A Look Back At The Sedins: Part 1
Reminder: they were the second highest scoring pair of brothers in NHL history.
First? The Gretzkys, with Wayne scoring 2,857 points and his brother Brent with a solid (checks notes) 4.