Don Lucia's kids garnered this year's first unanimous Number 1 selection.
On Friday night, 17-year-old freshman and USA prospect Thatcher Demko hung in after surrendering two early Gophers goals, helping his Eagles to a 3-3 deadlock thanks to a career best 36 saves.
Though Hudson Fasching and Travis Boyd (PP) tallied within the first 4 1/2 minutes of the contest, BC came roaring back with three before intermission. Johnny Gaudreau opened the floodgates four minutes later, then Edina, MN native and junior Michael Sit beat Alex Weaver twice in an 11-second span before the midway point to put the visitors on top.
Minnesota finally answered on Taylor Cammaratta's goal with 4:27 to play in the second, and both clubs let caution to the wind and had multiple chances to net the go-ahead score before the end of regulation.
BC frosh defenseman Ian McCoshen made a game-saving play with 1:20 left in overtime, diving in the crease and sweeping out a Cammaratta chance with his glove, inches to go before the puck would have crossed the goal line.
On Sunday afternoon, the top-ranked team in the nation flexed their muscles with a four-goal period stoking Minnesota's 6-1 decision.
Nate Condon, Seth Ambroz, Mike Reilly and Brady Skjei lit the lamp in the opening 20 minutes, Michael Brodzinski and Jake Bischoff did so in the third period and Wilcox came up with 30 saves.
Evan Richardson's first career goal was all the offense now #8 BC mustered, leaving Brian Billett out to dry as he stopped just 22-of-28 shots in the loss.
Notre Dame remained stuck behind the Gophers in the poll, after splitting two on the road against Minnesota-Duluth, winning 3-2 and losing 4-1.
The Providence Friars vaulted five spots all the way up to No. 3, continuing their hot start (4-0-1) after winning 3-2 in OT and tying 4-4 against NCHC's Miami of Ohio. The RedHawks, as a consequence, sunk three spots to #6
Michigan remained in the fourth spot by earning a split in its Big Ten-Hockey East schedule, winning 2-1 on Friday against Boston University and dropping Saturday's 2-1 result against conference champion UMass-Lowell.
North Dakota managed to move up one spot to No. 5 despite playing one game, a 4-1 exhibition victory against the U.S. Under-18 National squad.
Rounding out the Top 10, Quinnipiac rose from ninth to seventh, St. Cloud State jumped one spot into ninth and RPI vaulted two slots to No. 10.
Yale took the biggest nosedive, dropping from #7 to #11 after two weekend games at Prudential Center.
On the local scene...
Penn State endured a rough weekend, picking up just one point after going 0-1-1 in two contests. At the 'Peg on Friday night, the Nits lost leads of 1-0 and 3-2 en route to their first-ever tie in Division I play. Curtis Loik put PSU ahead on a marker 8:47 into the third period, only to see RIT's Brad McGowan knot the score with 7:19 remaining in regulation.
Matt Skoff ended up with 22 stops, while counterpart Jordan Ruby came up with 32 saves. Penn State also received goals from Dylan Richard and David Goodwin.
On Saturday evening, Penn State and Vermont clashed in the second annual Philadelphia College Hockey Faceoff, and the Catamounts got a measure of revenge for this past January's 4-2 loss in the first event at the Wells Fargo Center.
Our man Tom Zulewski was on the scene, and wrote the following:
"Penn State head coach Guy Gadowsky has preached discipline and hard work in his two plus year’s as the Nittany Lions bench boss. Saturday night his team lacked both qualities.
Penn State has had trouble this season staying out of the sin bin and Saturday night’s contest was no exception. The Nittany Lions were penalized nine times, including a questionable five-minute major and game misconduct penalty to David Glen at 1:43 of the second for contact with the head on Vermont forward Mario Puskarich.
Gadowsky after the game was disappointed with his team’s effort. "It doesn’t take Scotty Bowman to figure this out, we got to change," Gadowsky said. "I thought this game was poor and I didn’t like our flow and tempo."
Penn State has now taken three major penalties in their last two contests."
All of that spelled disaster in a 5-2 victory for the Catamounts, made a little bit more special since Nick Luukko, son of Peter Luukko, registered a goal in front of his "home crowd" to help fuel the victory -- yet another for Hockey East in its early-season showdown with the nascent Big Ten.
PSU captain Tommy Olczyk showed his disgust with his school's effort following the game: "One shot in the second period is embarrassing. Quite frankly, I’m sick of losing games like this. It’s hard to swallow and we had a good week of practice after getting swept by Air Force ... I think a lot of guys including myself have to look at ourselves in the mirror and figure it out."
The youngest team by average age in all of D-I, now 1-3-1 on the year, has one game this week, a Friday home tilt against Robert Morris which is the first of a five-game homestand against non-conference opponents.
An unofficial opening to the Ivy League schedule occurred over the weekend in Newark, NJ, as the first-ever Liberty Hockey Invitational pitted four venerable institutions against one another: Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth and defending national champion Yale.
The Tigers topped the Big Green on Friday night by a 3-2 count in overtime on Tucker Brockett's first career goal -- one set up by senior and Hobey Baker hopeful Andrew Calof. The Bulldogs put to rest any hopes of the Orange and Black coming away with a share of the title, after posting a 3-2 win Saturday.
Matt Beattie and Nicholas Weberg bested Sean Bonar in the first 6:14 of regulation and Princeton was forced to play catch-up for the rest of the contest. Tyler Maugeri tallied in the second period and Andrew Ammon in the third.
Princeton opens up its league slate this weekend with two road games, at Cornell and Colgate.
Bang the link for some quick hits and prospect analysis from Russ Cohen.
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