Weekend College Hockey Review
This last weekend was the final weekend of the regular season for our NCAA teams, and it did not disappoint. With conference tournament seeds and easier routes to a conference championship—ensuing automatic NCAA tournament bids—on the line, teams provided some thrilling hockey this weekend.
Starting in the Big Ten, Penn State entered the weekend four points ahead of Ohio State, but Penn State’s schedule was already over. That meant that the Nittany Lions had to wait and hope for the last-place Wisconsin Badgers to stop the Buckeyes—and the Badgers did just that. In defeating the #10 Buckeyes Friday night, the Badgers played spoiler, and followed their performance with a tie on Saturday night in Columbus. Not only have the Badgers now played four straight games against top ten ranked opponents going 3-0-1 (they swept then-#9 Arizona State last weekend), the Badgers finished last of the seven teams in the Big Ten while the Buckeyes finished second.
Yes, that means that Wisconsin and Ohio State will play for a second weekend in a row in Columbus, this time in the Big Ten conference tournament best-of-three. Additionally, Montreal prospect Cole Caufield became the second freshman to ever win a share of the Big Ten scoring title. The Badgers may be the hottest team to ever finish last in their conference before their conference tournament, and I cannot imagine anyone on Ohio State is excited about this weekend.
In the WCHA, the top two teams in Minnesota State and Bemidji State had a massive series to determine the conference champion. In a statement win, Bemidji State upset the #2 Mavericks on Friday night. Although the Beavers then lost to Minnesota State on Saturday, letting the Mavericks win the conference, their win on Friday night is a statement win in their schedule coming at the perfect time of the season. If they previously were, now nobody should be underestimating Bemidji State.
Joining Penn State and Minnesota State, the other conference winners were Cornell of the ECAC, American International College of Atlantic Hockey, North Dakota of the NCHC, and Boston College of Hockey East.
Bobby’s Top-Four Rankings:
- Cornell
- Minnesota State
- North Dakota
- Boston College
Nashville Predators News
Hindsight Happy Hour: Predators 2, Avalanche 3 – Adjust the Antenna, There’s Interference
A great analytic piece by Bryan after the Predators’ last game.
Okay, so, since it’s Monday and you all need somewhere to direct your anger, let me offer you this take you all will disagree with: it doesn’t matter that the Predators got jobbed by the no-goal call. They had 59 other minutes to score another goal. Unfortunate, sure, but this stuff happens to teams across the league. Nobody’s out to “get” the Predators, except maybe (definitely) Corey Perry. If one call ruins a whole hour of hockey, you probably didn’t play well enough to definitively win the game anyways, and focusing on the one call is a great way to deflect blame and mistakes made throughout the rest of the game.
Around Hockey
Second Thoughts: How Good is Minnesota State?
Ryan Lambert, famously of Puck Soup, chips in for this article on CHN about Minnesota State’s wagon of a team.
Rankings roundup: How the top 20 NCAA hockey teams fared, Feb. 28-29
A full roundup of the top teams in college hockey. Going into this last weekend, Cornell was #1 overall in both Men’s and Women’s hockey. If each team were to reach the Frozen Four, they would join Wisconsin, Boston College, and Ohio State as the only schools to send both men’s and women’s teams to the Frozen Four in the same year.
Flyers beat Rangers for 6th win in a row
I picked the Flyers to win the metro last year. This last summer was embarrassing, as my friends never let me live it down. Clearly I just jumped onto the Carter Hart train a little prematurely.
The 25 Most Powerful Women in Hockey
Oh look a Wisconsin Badger…and another Badger…and another one…another one…
How the NHL trade deadline altered the playoff landscape
No, the Predators are not featured in this article. But many other teams are, and Dimitri Filipovic is always a great read.
Canucks’ Hughes Named NHL ‘Rookie of the Month’ for February
The Predators only had a player win ‘Rookie of the Month’ once in the last decade: Filip Forsberg back in November of 2014.