In the CCHA, which used to be the WCHA for both men and women, it couldn’t be more competitive. Bemidji State leads with 37 points on an 11-7-2 record; St. Thomas and Bowling Green are tied with 35 points and identical 11-8-1 records. Minnesota State Mankato also has 35 points and an 11-7-2 record. 

This weekend, things could get straightened out a bit — or even more tangled — in the CCHA when Bemidji State faces two games at St. Thomas, while Lake Superior State invades Mankato, Michigan Tech is at Bowling Green and Northern Michigan at Ferris State.

In the Big Ten, Minnesota stumbled at Notre Dame, but came back from a 6-1 embarrassment to gain a 3-2 overtime victory in the rematch when Jaxon Nelson scored late to tie it, and Jimmy Snuggerud scored at 1:18 of overtime to win it.

Nevertheless, Minnesota’s stretch of 9-1-1 was broken, as was the Gophers hope to vault up into the top spot in the conference. At 12-6-4, the third-place Gophers have 37 points to stay ahead of Notre Dame, but they still trail first-place Michigan State (46 points, 14-4-2 record) and second-place Wisconsin (13-6-1, 39 points). The Gophers are idle this weekend, while last-place Ohio State heads for Michigan State after ruining Wisconsin’s title hopes with 3-2 overtime and 3-1 victories for the Buckeyes last weekend.

The NCHC, meanwhile, which had some struggles early, has now settled into its usual position as the nation’s best conference. The top five teams could legitimately feel as though they could win any other conference in the country. Those top five are North Dakota, St. Cloud State, Colorado College, Denver and Western Michigan, and they are all bunched within eight points.

Rough weekend for UMD vs. Denver
Minnesota Duluth isn’t among the NCHC title-chasers this season, but if they can pull all their loose ends together for the final six regular-season games, the Bulldogs may well decide who wins it. The Bulldogs languish in seventh place after being swept 5-4 in overtime and 5-2 by Denver last weekend at AMSOIL Arena. While Denver looked like the best team any hockey fans in Duluth have seen this year, they trail the leaders: North Dakota (11-6-1, 37 points), St. Cloud State (10-4-4, 36 points) and surprising Colorado College (12-6, 33 points). Denver is 11-6-1 with 31 points.

UMD, having lost twice to powerful Denver, now finishes the regular season at North Dakota this weekend, at Colorado College and back home against St. Cloud State. How’s that for a playoff tuneup?

Last Friday night’s game might have been the most entertaining and exciting games of the season for the Bulldogs who, if they didn’t have their torturous loose ends together, they pulled them together in that wild finish with two goals after pulling goaltender Zach Stejskal to tie the game 4-4 — only to fall on a goal by Aidan Thompson at 1:46 of the 3-on-3 overtime.

The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, all within about four minutes of elapsed time.

The loose ends came back to haunt UMD Saturday night, after another similar rally seemed to lift the Bulldogs from a horrible three-goal opening deficit fashioned in a shaky first seven minutes, to self-destructing when two of their promising scorers — Ben Steeves and Anthony Menghini — wound up sharing penalty box time for misconduct penalties through the final minutes to eliminate any chance of continuing the rally.

It was, in a word, embarrassing. That, after an embarrassing start of three goals on five shots that caused coach Scott Sandelin to pull Stejskal and send in Matthew Thiessen.

“And you know what the most embarrassing thing was?” Sandelin said, challenging three media types who showed up after the game. “That stuff at the end. Having two guys sitting there for mouthing off. It’s frustrating, and I get it, but I’m sorry, if they don’t learn it’s not going to bode well for us. You don’t disrespect the team.”

And with that, Sandelin stalked away from the podium. Press conference over.

That Saturday night, UMD’s fire was extinguished early when Zeev Buium scored on the first shot of the first shift, at 0:31, and Connor Caponi shoveled in a backhander at 5:25. Jared Wright got loose on the right boards and flew in to score short-side on his breakaway for a 3-0 lead at 6:39. Shots were 5-5, but the score was 3-0 Denver, and the crowd was silent. Thiessen was sent in to tend goal, and he was sharp immediately, and made saves on all eight shots the rest of the first period.

Denver took a 5-2 lead in the third period, and the air went out of the balloon. At 9:57 of the third period, it got worse. That’s when Menghini, who has scored seven goals as a freshman, was called for checking from behind. Menghini said something to the ref, and was given a 10-minute misconduct, too. Sandelin sent Steeves over to serve the minor, and it ended just as a whistle blew. Steeves skated out and, as he passed the ref, he made a comment. Bang! He also was awarded a 10-minute misconduct, with eight minutes to go.

Losing the chance to make one last bid to win was too much for Sandelin, and while he has defended his players all season, he blew up this time, although UMD’s dressing room full of players might have been a better audience than the three-person media contingent that showed up after the game.

UMD women’s hockey close to home-ice advantage
Meanwhile, on the women’s front, UMD had a more beneficial answer to the women’s WCHA run to the playoffs. Needing three points to clinch home ice for the first round, the Bulldogs edged St. Cloud State 1-0 on Clara Van Wieren’s goal at 4:33 of the third period, and goalie Hailey MacLeod held on for the victory by that score. Playing as afternoon preliminaries to the UMD men, the Bulldogs played another amazing battle with St. Cloud on Saturday, this time going 0-0 through all three periods and overtime, and sending the game to a shootout to be decided.

Goalies Jojo Chobak of the Huskies and freshman Eve Gascon of UMD were brilliant throughout, but when the shootout started, everybody scored! Hanna Baskin scored for UMD; Emma Gentry scored for the Huskies. Van Wieren scored for UMD; Laura Zimmermann matched it for St. Cloud. Then Olivia Wallin skated in but was stopped by Chobak, putting all the pressure on Finnish freshman Sofianna Sundelin, who scored on Gascon and gave the extra point to the Huskies.

In what might be a brilliant political PR performance, UMD’s MacLeod was named goaltender of the week by the WCHA for her first-game performance, overlooking Chobak’s two-game performance, stopping 28 of 29 shots in the first game and all 39 shots the Bulldogs pelted her with in the second, for a weekend tally of 57 saves on 58 shots.

UMD coach Maura Crowell admitted she was pleasantly surprised that her sophomore goalie got the award, but added Chobak’s cumulative two-game performance deserved something.

UMD senior center Mannon McMahon was cited for playing in her 164th and 165th consecutive games over an illustrious five-season career, and she admitted stopping the game to acknowledge her achievement was “a special moment.”

More importantly, the Bulldogs will play at Minnesota this weekend, after which UMD and St. Cloud will reconvene at AMSOIL Arena next weekend for the first round of the best-of-three WCHA playoffs. And the Huskies, after very impressive performances in both games of last weekend’s series, will not be bothered by not having home ice.

The post ‘Minnesota 6’ Compete for Conference Titles appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Timing couldn’t be better, because girls playing high school hockey in Minnesota are just starting their sectional playoffs ahead of the girls state tournament. And we can dedicate the whole week to those girls and young women advancing to play for any of the six Division I college hockey teams that make up a sizable segment of the WCHA — the best women’s college hockey conference in the country.

The stretch drive in the WCHA is well underway, with Ohio State the runaway No. 1 seed with its No. 1 national ranking and a 21-1 record atop the WCHA. The battle for second place rages with Wisconsin second at 18-4 and Minnesota third at 16-5-1, while the struggle for the fourth and final home-ice slot for the WCHA tournament is the tightest in the league.

St. Cloud State is making its strongest bid for contention and held third place until last weekend, when the Huskies lost 5-2 and 2-1 in overtime at Wisconsin. At the same time, Minnesota-Duluth was at home, beating sixth-place Minnesota State Mankato 3-0 and 2-1. Those two victories lifted the Bulldogs by six points, to a 12-10 record worth 35 points, vaulting ahead of St. Cloud State’s 10-11-1 for 33 points.

Duluth women’s team looking for home-ice in playoffs
UMD coach Maura Crowell laughed about the coaching cliche of playing “one game at a time,” and acknowledged that if there ever was a time when she’d like to be able to demand “two wins at a time,” this would be the weekend.

UMD women’s hockey coach Maura Crowell said she’s felt like her team has been in playoff mode since returning from the holiday break. (Photo courtesy of UMD Athletics)

“Ever since we came back from Christmas to play at Quinnipiac, we’ve felt like we had to be in playoff mode,” Crowell said. “The players just need to play and not worry about the standings and all these things the media talks about. We know the pressure is on us, but when there’s pressure, you know you’re playing for something.”

This weekend is the perfect opportunity for UMD to pad its new-found edge for the fourth and final home-ice spot in the playoff tournament, where first-round winners advance to Ridder Arena on the University of Minnesota campus for the Final Faceoff. The Bulldogs play at eighth-place St. Thomas on Friday and Saturday and are heavily favored to sweep both games — while St. Cloud State has a huge challenge with a home-and-home series against Minnesota, where the Huskies are underdogs but have proven competitive.

After this weekend, only two weekends remain in the regular WCHA season, with St. Cloud State at UMD for a showdown series that could determine fourth place. Or, maybe not. On the final weekend, UMD is at Minnesota in what could project as a battle for the Golden Gophers to try for second place while UMD will need to hold onto fourth. St. Cloud State finishes at Bemidji State, where the Huskies will be favored in a closing series that could vault them back into fourth place.

The classic, of course, is that the fifth-place team plays at the fourth-place team in the first round of WCHA playoffs, which seems destined to throw the Bulldogs and Huskies into what indeed might be a classic dogfight for survival, and home ice could be pivotal.

Goalie Hailey MacLeod has a 1.23 goals-against average in 13 games this season. (Photo courtesy of UMD Athletics)

“I really like the way we’ve been playing,” Crowell said of her Bulldogs. “We’ve played a lot of games under pressure, and we’ve made some mistakes along the way, which gives us things we can work on in practice to improve our play.”

The sweep against Mankato was vital for UMD, because the Bulldogs had just finished losing four straight to Ohio State and Wisconsin. The disparity in the WCHA means that the top teams regularly beat up on the bottom three, with Minnesota State, Bemidji State and St. Thomas clustered at the bottom.

UMD, for instance, is 11-1 against those bottom three, but 1-9 against Ohio State, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Bulldogs stay in the fight with close games
That is not to say the wins have been blowouts and the losses have been equally lopsided. Many of the games have been nail-biters, and the Bulldogs have needed timely scoring and the consistently brilliant goaltending of the previously untested tandem of freshman Eve Gascon and sophomore Hailey MacLeod. In the first game against Minnesota State, MacLeod stopped all 16 shots she faced to get the shutout, her fourth during an 8-4-2 rookie season. Gascon just missed her fifth shutout of the season and is 7-7-1 for the season.

Crowell played Gascon most in the early going, but went to an alternating plan she has followed since January started.

“Both have been playing great,” Crowell said. “They have both settled in, and that allows both of them to focus on one game, which is nice mentally and physically for both. They work hard every game, but also every day in practice, which makes it hard on our players to score in practice.”

The biggest difference between the two is that Gascon, who is from Mascouche, Quebec, is 5-foot-8, while MacLeod is a 6-foot rookie originally from Abbotsford, British Columbia.

UMD goaltender Eve Gascon has alternated time with Hailey MacLeod. (Photo courtesy: UMD Athletics)

MacLeod said one of the strengths of both of them is their close friendship.

“Being good friends with each other is important, because we always support each other,” MacLeod said. “When Eve plays her best, it makes me want to play my best.

“Competing with her has pushed me out of my comfort zone. When I have a bad game, I always make sure to be physically prepared for my next game. If I could have any game to play over again this season, it would be the game I played at St. Cloud.”

There’s that name again. The Bulldogs went to St. Cloud in December and won 2-1 in overtime, but then got shelled 5-1 in the second game. Maybe that will add a bit of a revenge motive for MacLeod and the Bulldogs in two weeks. But for now, it’s time to celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day, and weekend.

The post Bulldogs celebrate ‘National Girls and Women in Sports Day’ appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

But the women’s representatives from Minnesota deserve to be recognized for their prominence, too. A look at the week before Christmas national rankings show that five of the top eight teams are from the WCHA, starting at the top:

1. Ohio State, 14-2
2. Minnesota, 13-2
3. Wisconsin 13-3
6. UMD, 10-5-1
8. St. Cloud State, 12-5

The 1-2-3 punch at the top had to survive the sort of upsets that never used to happen in the WCHA.

St. Cloud State, clearly the surprise of women’s college hockey this season, invaded Columbus and, after falling behind 1-0 in the first period, scored twice in the second period. Finnish import goaltender Sanni Ahola stifled the Buckeyes the rest of the way for a shocking 2-1 upset. Ohio Sate had lost only one game all season, and while everyone anticipated a tough game, nobody expected a Huskies win.

St. Cloud’s Addi Scribner said that after that upset, an Ohio State fan came up to her and said: “Your goalie is unreal. She’s a Cyborg!”

The Buckeyes came back in the second game and broke a 1-1 tie with four straight goals in the second period to gain a 6-2 victory and a split. While being upset by St. Cloud could have cost Ohio State the No. 1 ranking, it didn’t. That’s because No. 2 Wisconsin suffered a similar weekend, against Duluth.

UMD went to Wisconsin and lost 3-0, solidifying the Badgers position on Saturday. However, the Bulldogs battled the Badgers through two scoreless periods in their Sunday afternoon rematch, and were determined to make their effort stand up in the third. UMD won that second game 3-2 for the split. 

A victory by the Badgers would have elevated them back to the No. 1 ranking.

The upsets weren’t over when the weekend ended, though, because the Gophers had a one-game matchup Tuesday against St. Cloud State. Peyton Hemp gave the Gophers a 1-0 lead but Scribner tied the game in the second period. The game went to overtime and a shootout. Allie Franco’s shootout goal gave the Gophers, who came in on an eight-game winning streak, the extra WCHA point. 

But it seems there are no such things as upsets anymore in the WCHA. At least going into a frantic pre-holiday-break weekend that features Wisconsin at Minnesota, and UMD at St. Cloud State, with Bemidji State at St. Thomas for good measure among Minnesota’s teams.

Minnesota teams have always dominated with NCAA championships
For statistical evidence, it’s not as though the Minnesota teams and the West are just emerging on top. Go back to the year 2000-01, which was the first year the NCAA conducted a national tournament for women’s teams. In the first 13 years it was held, Minnesota Duluth and Minnesota virtually owned the championship.

UMD won the first three NCAA titles, with spectacular players such as Jenny Schmidgall, Maria Rooth and Caroline Ouellette leading the way. Under Shannon Miller’s coaching, UMD won five championships in all, with the 2001, 2002, 2003, 2008 and 2010 trophies still filling the school’s trophy case. Minnesota won championships in 2004, 2005, 2012 and 2013 — meaning that the Bulldogs and Gophers won nine of the first 13 NCAA women’s championships.

The other four titles were won by the emerging power at Wisconsin, meaning that those three WCHA teams won all of the first 13 women’s national championships. The Badgers won in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011, and their 2007 team went 36-1-4 to eclipse the 31-3-2 of UMD in 2003 and the 36-2-2 by the Gophers in 2005.

But in 2013, the Golden Gophers had a load of talent throughout their lineup and set the record for all time with a splendid 41-0-0 championship season.

It was the following year, in 2013-14, that Clarkson broke through and claimed the first NCAA title for women for the East, and Clarkson also won championships in 2017 and 2018. And that’s it. Only three times did a non-WCHA team win the title, and all three times it was Clarkson.

All NCAA tournaments took a year off during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. When they resumed, Mark Johnson led his Badgers back for their sixth championship, with Ohio State emerging to capture the 2022 title. Last spring, Wisconsin was a surprise winner of its seventh title, and the same WCHA teams seem clustered for another run this season.

St. Cloud State women marking their mark
But maybe there will be an additional team in the mix, after St. Cloud State pulled off the seemingly impossible task of upsetting Ohio State on the road and coming home to tie the Gophers. That takes care of the top two-ranked teams, and now they get to take on old rival UMD, which upset No. 3 Wisconsin.

The games at St. Cloud State’s Herb Brooks National Hockey Center are expected to be tight, low-scoring battles, because both teams have two outstanding goaltenders. UMD has record-setting Hailey MacLeod, who is setting records for goals-against and save percentage, alongside freshman Eve Gascon, from Montreal.

St. Cloud State has an interesting duo, with Ahola capturing the spotlight in net. She’s paired with Jojo Chobak, who spent a season at UMD before transferring to St. Cloud State because she had grown weary of backing up Swedish Olympic star Emma Soderberg, who decided to stay another year.

Both teams depend on depth, getting scoring from their three top lines, and four for St. Cloud State. Both play tough defensive hockey but with defensemen who can readily move up into the play to help the rush or fire lasers from the points.

“We hung our hats on being a tough defensive team last year,” said St. Cloud State coach Brian Idalski. “We haven’t changed that and still want to play tough defense, but we’ve added some new players and I think we’re capable of scoring more goals this year.

“Especially coming off two tough games at Ohio State, then tying the Gophers on Tuesday. We’re getting contributions from all four lines, and we’re approaching this weekend like we’re preparing for the playoffs.”

From Duluth’s end of the transition from last weekend’s upset to this weekend’s rivalry series, the sound was similar. Center Mannon McMahon praised third-line center Jenna Lawry, who was cool and poised as she scored the game-winner at Madison.

“It was super cool to see how Jenna and her line have stepped up, and now they’re being rewarded,” McMahon said. “A lot of us were disappointed at losing 3-0 in Saturday’s game, but we were confident enough to not let that happen again on Sunday.

“Our response from the first game to the second was what I was most proud of. Now we have to carry that through to St. Cloud. It’s going to be tough. They just don’t quit, and they love to battle.”

The post Women Take Command appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

When the University of Minnesota concluded its interconference rivalry series against Minnesota Duluth in early November, the Bulldogs rallied from a 3-1 deficit in AMSOIL Arena with a spirited third-period rally, which forced overtime. Nobody scored in the overtime, so the game went to a three-player shootout, which UMD won when Quinn Olson and Ben Steeves scored and UMD goaltender Matthew Thiessen stopped the first two Golden Gopher shooters, giving UMD a 4-3 victory in the game.

But that was in the view of all the players on both sides, and the 7,345 fans who saw UMD bounce back from a 5-1 loss in Minneapolis the previous evening to gain a split with their long-time rival. That’s what they saw happen in front of them, so that’s what they took home with them, even though the NCAA counts the game as a tie, for purposes of nationwide rankings.

No matter, Minnesota coach Bob Motzko treated the loss as though it had been a tie game, which is the same attitude he had after the Gophers lost shootouts against Michigan and at UMD. The fans and players know better, of course, but they also know that sometimes what you see is not what you get.

College hockey lives in its own world, and in Minnesota, we’re lucky to have six Division I programs and they participate in three of the best college hockey conferences in the country with the NCHC, Big Ten and the CCHA. Plus, we have the WCHA that is now strictly for women’s hockey. The NCAA leaves it up to the leagues to decide how to treat their ties, and they can award an important extra point to a shootout winner. But in non-conference games, it is closer to mass confusion.

You could make the case that if we as observers aren’t sure what rules they’re going by, maybe the coaches and the officials of the different conferences aren’t sure, either.

Hailey MacLeod was engulfed by her teammates after recording her first UMD shutout, 3-0. She came back to anchor a 1-1 tie in the second game. (MHM Photo / John Gilbert)

UMD women have strong showing vs. No. 2 Colgate
We can gather a unique bit of evidence at Duluth’s AMSOIL Arena, where the UMD women’s team last weekend was host to Colgate, the No. 2 team in the nation which brought a 12-game winning streak to the Head of the Lakes. UMD played its best game of the season, winning the first game 3-0 behind Hailey MacLeod’s first shutout for the Bulldogs.

In the second game, Colgate played much more intense. But UMD turned it up, too, and took a 1-0 lead into the third period. After their second straight strong showing, the Bulldogs seemed ready to clinch the sweep when Colgate’s Kristýna Kaltounková was penalized at 18:58 of the the third period.

A power play for the final 1:02 seemed to secure the victory. But in the last-minute scrap for possession behind their own net, the Bulldogs botched the breakout control, and the puck suddenly popped out to the right circle. Red Raiders right defenseman Allyson Simpson read the play perfectly, moved in from the right point and got her full force on a shot that MacLeod couldn’t block.

The stunning tie defied the five-minute, 3-on-3 overtime, so it was time for a shootout. But as the few fans waited for what would be the highlight of the game, the teams broke off into handshake lines and headed for their dressing rooms, and left the game unsettled at 1-1.

“It’s the choice of the home team,” said UMD coach Maura Crowell. “We don’t have to have one, and it’s up to the home team. I didn’t like the way the game was going at the end, so we chose to not have the shootout.”

St. Cloud State men’s team hosts Michigan 
Let’s switch our attention to the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center in St. Cloud, with the only remaining full Olympic-size 200-by-100 foot ice surface. The Huskies had come out of a tough preseason stretch and welcomed Michigan to town last weekend. The Wolverines had earlier lost a shootout to Ohio State and beaten Minnesota in another. Michigan beat the Huskies 2-0 in the first game and grabbed a 3-0 lead in the second game. 

Colgate’s Allyson Simpson (10) scored the only Red Raiders goal of the weekend against UMD goaltender Hailey MacLeod, shorthanded with 44 seconds remaining, for a 1-1 tie that fueled a debate about mandatory shootouts. (MHM Photo / John Gilbert)

“I thought we played really good all weekend,” said St. Cloud State coach Brett Larson. “We hit a pipe and three crossbars the first game and just couldn’t put one in.”

In that second game, Veeti Miettinen scored a shorthanded goal to cut the deficit to 3-1 late in the second period, and Kyler Kupka scored a power-play goal early in the third to trim it to 3-2. With the goalie pulled at the finish, Kupka scored again with 0:07 remaining, sending the big crowd into a frenzy and forcing overtime. Five minutes, 3-on-3, and still 3-3. Time for a shootout, and each team scored. Kupka scored yet again for the winner.

“In conference play, you get an extra point,” Larson said. “In non-conference, you get nothing, but everybody on both teams and all the fans in the building knew that we won the game.”

I told Larson what had just transpired in the Duluth women’s game, where Crowell said she didn’t want to have a shootout and as home team coach, her decision ruled.

“We were told we had no choice,” Larson said. “We were told we had to have a shootout against Michigan. But here’s a crazy thing: A few weeks ago we played in Mankato, and Luke Strand, their coach, and I talked it over and said we had to agree. So we agreed that if we tied, we would have a shootout. As it turned out, we did tie the second game but they beat us in overtime.”

So, incredible as it may sound, three distinct games involving St. Cloud State’s men and UMD’s women exposed three completely different concepts of how to decide a tie game. And nobody seems to be prepared to change what they did. Well, except for UMD.

“I had long conversation with our commissioner of the WCHA,” Crowell said. “She told me we had to have the shootout and should have had it against Colgate. I told her I never understood it that way, but we’ll do it from now on.”

That’s a relief. So from now on, college coaches realize they can have the glass have full, or the glass half empty, but they no longer can tip the glass over and leave the result spilling onto the floor.

Coming up
UMD’s women, who just ran a gauntlet by facing Minnesota and Colgate on back to back series, heads for Wisconsin and a rare Saturday-Sunday series against the league-favorite Badgers. While Minnesota is at home trying to avert an upset against Bemidji State. Two other Minnesota rivals, Minnesota State Mankato and St. Thomas, will play a home-and-home series. St. Cloud State hits the road to face No. 1 ranked Ohio State in Columbus.

The men are scattered around, too, with Minnesota at Penn State for a Big Ten series, St. Thomas is at Ferris State in a CCHA series, while MSU-Mankato is at Lake Superior State in another. UMD comes back from a bye week to play host to Omaha.

The Gophers have found consistency an elusive target this season, and they found out Michigan State was for real in the Big Ten last weekend when they lost 4-3 in a shootout opener on Friday. They had a 5-3 lead at Mariucci Arena on Sunday afternoon, but the Spartans came back for two in the last five minutes to forge a 5-5 tie. This time, Jimmy Clark scored at 3:58 of the sudden-death, five-minute overtime to lift the Gophers to a 6-5 victory.

The first game? Forget it. That was a shootout, when the Gophers built leads of 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2, only to have the Spartans come back for a tie, then won it in overtime. Or was it a tie. It was both, depending on your point of view and the rules used that night.

The post Tricky Ties in College Hockey appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.