PairWise and Frattin

     No. 5-ranked North Dakota will be without forward Matt Frattin for Thursday's WCHA Final Five play-in game versus No. 11 Minnesota Duluth at Xcel Energy Center. Frattin was suspended by the WCHA on Monday for one game for a hit on Minnesota defenseman Kevin Wehrs on Sunday night in Grand Forks, N.D. Wehrs suffered a concussion.

      Brad Elliott Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald has a story here. Schlossman notes that: Frattin was called for a five-minute, contact to the head charging major at the time — a call disputed by both benches. North Dakota's coaching staff argued against it, while Minnesota’s coaching staff wanted Frattin thrown out of the game. Referees Derek Shepherd and Marco Hunt called the major but allowed Frattin to stay in the game. He later scored a goal.

     And an upated from Minneapolis Star Tribune beat writer Roman Augustoviz is here. And at the bottom of that post is a link to the pro future of Jordan Schroeder here.

     The Grand Forks Herald also has three photos of the Frattin-Wehrs meeting here, here and here.

     The Frattin-Wehrs video on You Tube is here.

     And if you've been ignoring the PairWise Rankings until the college hockey season got down to serious playoff business, we are now there. U.S. College Hockey Online and College Hockey News have Pairwise Predictors on their Web sties where fans can factor in any playoff possibility on the final conference post-season weekend and see how it would affect their team.

     The USCHO predictor is here. The College Hockey News predictor is here.

     The PairWise Rankings are here.

     North Dakota, like fellow WCHA members -- No. 1 Denver, No. 3 Wisconsin and No. 6 St. Cloud State will be in the NCAA tournament. UMD is on the bubble at No. 11. Here's a quick analysis on UMD from College Hockey News:

      11. If Duluth loses the Thursday play-in game at the Final Five, it's in immediate trouble. It automatically loses the comparison to both Alaska and Northern Michigan at that point. And it loses the comparison to New Hampshire. In fact, winning the play-in then losing the next two, has the same effect. Thus, the only way for UMD to make the NCAAs is to win the Thursday game, and then win one of the next two against a field that includes four of the top six teams in the nation. A tall order, but obviously do-able, since UMD won the Broadmoor Trophy from this spot a year ago.

     It's very all-or-nothing, since going 2-1 at least will get UMD a pretty good seed, maybe a matchup with Bemidji State (since it can't play SCSU or North Dakota). A loss, and the Bulldogs plummet.

Posted by: pates on 3/16/2010 at 8:03 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: kevin wehrs, matt frattin, north dakota, pairwise rankings, umd hockey, wcha

USCHO Poll

     Monday's U.S. College Hockey Online poll below. And the Inside College Hockey Power Rankings, with Minnesota Duluth at No. 13, is here.

USCHO Division I Men

 1 Denver              (46)  27- 7-4  
 2 Miami                ( 4)  26- 6-7  
 3 Wisconsin                  24- 9-4 
 4 Boston College           23-10-3
 5 North Dakota             22-12-5
 6 St. Cloud State          22-12-5
 7 Cornell                      19- 8-4  
 8 Ferris State               21-11-6
 9 Yale                          20- 9-3 
10 Bemidji State           23- 9-4
11 Minnesota-Duluth   22-16-1
12 Northern Michigan     19-11-8
13 New Hampshire         17-13-7
14 Vermont                    17-13-7 
15 Union                         20-11-6  
16 Michigan State           19-13-6
17 Michigan                    23-17-1 
18 Alaska                       18-11-9  
19 Maine                       18-16-3  
20 Boston University      18-16-3

Others Receiving Votes: Colorado College 75, RIT 45,
Nebraska-Omaha 19, Mass.-Lowell 15, St. Lawrence 11,
Minnesota 6, Massachusetts 3, Minnesota State 1.

Posted by: pates on 3/15/2010 at 4:28 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: umd hockey, us college hockey online

Monday in the WCHA

     The top seeds survived and the WCHA Final Five pairings are set --- just the way you thought -- for St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center.

      With updated PairWise Rankings being used: No. 11 Minnesota Duluth (22-16-1) faces. No. 5  North Dakota (22-12-5), at 7:07 p.m. Thursday. In Friday's semifinals, No. 3 Wisconsin (24-9-4) vs. No. 6 St. Cloud State (22-12-5), at 2:07; and No. 1 Denver (27-7-4) vs. UMD or North Dakota at 7:07 p.m. On Saturday, third-place at 2:07 and championship at 7:07. All games televised on FSN North.

       Better than the NCAA tournament? Well, not better as significant, but more highly-ranked teams for a five-team field, and certainly a lot more fans.

       What happened Sunday night in three WCHA deciding games? Three home teams won. St. Cloud State had to go to overtime to eliminate Minnesota State-Mankato 3-2; North Dakota broke from a 1-1 tie to eliminated Minnesota 4-1; and UMD scored first and last in eliminating Colorado College 4-0.

      The victory at the DECC not only got the defending league playoff champion to the Final Five, it bumped the Bulldogs momentarily off the bubble for the NCAA tournament and up five spots to No. 11. The PairWise Rankings are here.

    Final Five ticket information is below along with women's Frozen Four ticket information as the No. 2 UMD women face No. 3 Minnesota at 8 p.m. in Friday's semifinals at Ridder Arena in Minneapolis.

     In Grand Forks, N.D., the Gophers were in a 1-1 tie after one period, helped by a Jake Hansen goal. But North Dakota had the only goal of the second period, by Jason Gregoire, and added goals in the third from Matt Fratting and Brett Hextall. The Fighting Sioux led in shots 29-19, scored twice on power plays and are 9-1 the past 10 games. Minnesota had been to the Final Five for 11 straight years. There was some rough stuff, including Frattin hitting Minnesota's Kevin Wehrs. The Grand Forks Herald game story is here.

     "This is probably as difficult of an environment as there is in college hockey. And the guys really went toe-to-toe right to the end tonight," Minnesota coach Don Lucia told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

     In St. Cloud, Minn., the Mavericks of Mankato led 1-0 and 2-1 before Garrett Raboin tied the game with 7:31 left in the third period. In OT, Hermantown's Drew LeBlanc scored on a power play at 3:21 as St. Cloud State moved on, finishing 2-2-1 vs. Mankato the last two weekends.

     "As you can imagine, this is exciting as can be," LeBlanc told the St. Cloud Times."You get the puck like that and your eyes light up. I was darned near on top of the crease, so I figured I had to shoot that one."

     At the DECC, Kyle Schmidt scored less than 3 minutes into the game and Kenny Reiter got his second home shutout of the season and the Bulldogs defeated Colorado College for the second straight year to open the league playoffs. UMD was at home for the post season for first time since 2004. The Colorado Springs Gazette game story is here.

FINAL FIVE TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets can be purchased at the Xcel Energy Center Box Office, Ticketmaster ticket centers, charge by phone at 800-745-3000 or online at www.ticketmaster.com. To charge by phone using Ticketmaster TDD/TTY, call 800-359-2525. Groups (10+) call 651-312-3486.

Prices for single game tickets:

Thursday, March 18: Quarterfinal: 7 p.m. – $20 / $15

Friday, March 19: Semi-Final #1: 2 p.m. – $35 / $15

Friday, March 19: Semifinal #2: 7 p.m. – $45 / $15

Saturday, March 20: Third Place Game: 2 p.m. – $25 / $15

Saturday, March 20: Championship Game: 7 p.m. – $45 / $15

A limited number of five-game ticket packages for the tournament are also still available.

AND THE UMD WOMEN ARE in the NCAA Frozen Four starting Friday at Ridder Arena in Minneapolis, vs. Minnesota in the semifinals at 8 p.m.

Tickets are still available for the 2010 NCAA Women’s Frozen Four. Fans can purchase tickets through the Golden Gopher ticket office (612-624-8080) or online through gophersports.com.

 2010 NCAA Women’s Frozen Four Schedule • Ridder Arena • Minneapolis, MN

Friday, March 19

Semifinal Game 1: No. 4 Cornell vs No. 1 Mercyhurst, 5 p.m.

Semifinal Game 2: No. 3 Minnesota vs No. 2 Minnesota Duluth, 8 p.m.

Sunday, March 21

National Championship Game: Winner of Semifinal Game 1 vs Winner of Semifinal Game 2, Noon

Posted by: pates on 3/15/2010 at 8:57 AM | Comments (2) | Permalink

Tags: frozen four, wcha final five, wcha hockey

Updated: UMD 4, Colorado College 0

The final college playoff game in the DECC’s 44 years is sending Minnesota Duluth to the Xcel Energy Center in style.

The No. 16-ranked Bulldogs stopped No. 19 Colorado College 4-0 Sunday night in the deciding game of a best-of-three Western Collegiate Hockey Association men’s first round series before ,3402 fans.

Catalyst Kyle Schmidt, fully recovered from an arm injury, scored before the game was three minutes old, the Bulldogs added a couple of power-play goals and goalie Kenny Reiter earned his third shutout of the season (and the second by 4-0 at home).

UMD (22-16-3) next faces No. 5 North Dakota in the WCHA Final Five play-in game Thursday night in St. Paul. Colorado College (19-17-3) finished the season 2-5 against UMD, including 1-4 at the DECC.

“What we needed was to have everyone just give 5 percent more [than in Saturday’s 5-3 loss]. And we had to come into this game expecting to win. That’s the attitude we need and that’s what we had,” said Schmidt, who has 11 goals. “This was one of our best team wins.”

Lamb had a goal and two assists, Justin Fontaine had three assists and Reiter made 25 saves. UMD finished 14-8 at home. The Bulldogs start the 2010-11 season in the DECC and move to the expansion rink Dec. 30.

UMD scored the game’s first goal for a third straight night, as Cody Danberg kicked the puck to Schmidt for a backhand attempt into an open net past freshman goalie Joe Howe at 2:39, and the Bulldogs used that as a spark. For the series, they were 6-of-17 on power plays.

Each team would lose a defenseman to a five-minute checking-from-behind penalty, but because the Tigers were playing only four for much of the series, it was a blow. Tigers defenseman Gabe Guentzel was out of the game with 3:46 to go in the second period. UMD lost Chad Huttel in the first period.

“Penalties kept us out of sync and we couldn’t get much flow,” said Colorado College coach Scott Owens. “Part of it was playing in a third game and more tired players were making more mistakes. We weren’t manufacturing any good scoring chances.”

Owens pointed to a UMD 5-on-3 power play late in the second period as a turning point. The Bulldogs were already up 2-0 on Lamb’s drive from the right circle at 5:26 of the period. Then Guentzel hit Schmidt from behind and defenseman Nate Prosser hit UMD’s Jack Connolly with a cross-check one minute later.

Winger Rob Bordson took a Fontaine pass and scored from in front with 16.9 seconds left in the second, with a two-man advantage, then Mike Connolly needed just 46 seconds of the third period to finish a power-play chance from the slot. Two goals in 63 seconds and Howe had taken the brunt of the attack.

“Our plan was to play defense first and keep them off the scoreboard,” said Lamb, with 11 goals this season to lead UMD’s defensemen. “We wanted to cycle the puck as much as we could and body them as much as we could, and wear them down. That’s what you want, especially in a three-game series.”

Colorado College, sixth place in the regular season, outshot UMD 25-22, but many shots came late in the game. Reiter’s best stop came on center Matt Overman with 5:40 remaining. He’s 3-1 his last four starts.

UMD’s last four home WCHA playoff series have been three-game victories. The others were over Minnesota State-Mankato in 2004, St. Cloud State in 2003 and Minnesota in 1998. The Bulldogs have won four of five best-of-three series since the format began in 1987-88. Colorado College has been eliminated in the WCHA’s first round four of the last five years, including two losses at home last season to UMD. The Tigers, in Duluth for the playoffs for the first time, went 2-7 the final nine games this season.

“Our power play came through, Kenny was great, our first goal got us going, our fourth goal gave us a boost, and our third period was very good,” said UMD coach Scott Sandelin, whose team is 8-2-1 the last 11 games versus the Tigers. “We got back to playing four lines and finally got to Howe.”

North Dakota eliminated Minnesota 4-1 in a deciding game Sunday in Grand Forks, N.D. UMD and North Dakota tied for fourth in the league in the regular season. North Dakota led UMD 3-1 in games this season. 

Colorado College ...........0-0-0—0

Minnesota Duluth.…........1-2-1—4

   First period – 1. UMD, Kyle Schmidt 11 (Cody Danberg, Drew Akins), 2:39. Penalties – Matt Overman, Colorado College (roughing), :06; Joe Marciano, Colorado College (holding), 4:48; Danberg, UMD (slashing), 7:39; Andrew Hamburg, Colorado College (tripping), 11:27; Chad Huttel, UMD (5-minute checking from behind major, served by Mike Seidel, game misconduct), 13:50; Dylan Olsen, UMD (unsportsmanlike conduct), 14:28; Mike Testwuide, Colorado College (unsportsmanlike conduct), 14:28; Rylan Schwartz, Colorado College (contact to head), 14;28; Bill Sweatt, Colorado College (interference), 18:02; Testwuide, Colorado College (unsportsmanlike conduct), 19:39; Mike Connolly, UMD (hit after whistle), 19:39; Travis Oleksuk, UMD (contact to head), 19:39.

   Second period – 2. UMD, Brady Lamb 11 (Justin Fontaine, Jack Connolly), 5:26; 3. UMD, Rob Bordson 12 (Fontaine, Lamb), 19:43 (5x3 pp). Penalties – Bordson, UMD (contact to head), 5:26; Marciano, Colorado College (contact to head), 12:55; Jordan Fulton, UMD (goalie interference), 14:32; Gabe Guentzel, Colorado College, 5-minute checking from behind major, served by Tim Hall, game misconduct), 17:16; Nate Prosser, cross-checking), 18:17.

   Third period – 4. UMD, Mike Connolly 14 (Fontaine, Lamb), :46 (pp). Penalties – Fulton, UMD (charging), 9:00; Akins, UMD (high sticking), 17:26.

   Shots on goal – Colorado College 9-6-10--25; UMD 4-11-7--22. Goalies – Joe Howe (17-15-3), Colorado College (22 shots-18 saves); Kenny Reiter (13-9), UMD (25 shots-25 saves). Power plays – Colorado College 0-of-7; UMD 2-of-8. Referees – Todd Anderson, Brad Shepherd. Assistants – Tony Czech, Dan Dineen. A – 3,402.

Posted by: pates on 3/14/2010 at 10:55 PM | Comments (4) | Permalink

Tags: colorado college, umd hockey, wcha playoffs

Final: UMD 4, Colorado College 0

Minnesota Duluth relied on some third-game magic Sunday night to eliminate Colorado College 4-0 in the deciding game of the best-of-three Western Collegiate Hockey Association playoff opener before 3,402 fans at the DECC.

The No. 16-ranked Bulldogs (22-16-1) advance to the WCHA Final Five play-in game Thursday night at the Xcel Energy Center to likely face North Dakota or Minnesota State-Mankato.

UMD got goals from Kyle Schmidt, Brady Lamb, Rob Bordson and Mike Connolly. Sophomore goalie Kenny Reiter got his third shutout of season with 25 saves

No. 19 Colorado College (19-17-3) ended its season with a 2-5 mark against UMD, 1-4 at the DECC. The Tigers have failed to advance out of the first round in  four of the last five years.

The game marked the final college playoff game in the 44-year-old DECC. An expansion rink opens Dec. 30.

UMD had the only goal in a feisty first period when 12 penalties were called. The Bulldogs lost defenseman Chad Huttel to a checking-from-behind on Bill Sweatt with 6:10 left in the period.

Winger Kyle Schmidt lifted in a backhand shot from the right edge of the crease 2:39 into the game. It was his first goal since being injured in January, missing eight games, and returning three weeks ago versus Minnesota. He has 11 this season.

Defenseman Brady Lamb gained his third goal in six games, and 11th of the season, 5:26 into the second period. He got the attention of Justin Fontaine, by tapping his stick at the right circle, then wound up from the right circle. The play was reviewed for goal interference and stood as called.

UMD took advantage of a 5-on-3 power play in the waning seconds of the second period. Defenseman Gabe Guentzel was called for a checking-from-behind major on UMD’s Schmidt with 2:44 left and Nate Prosser was called for a cross-check on Jack Connolly with 1:43 to go. Rob Bordson scored from in front, on a Fontaine pass, with 16.9 seconds remaining for a 3-0 lead.

The Bulldogs pulled even in shots on goal at 15-15 through 40 minutes.

Mike Connolly scored 46 seconds into the third period on a power play.

UMD’s last four home WCHA playoff series have been three-game victories. The others were over Minnesota State-Mankato in 2004, St. Cloud State in 2003 and Minnesota in 1998. The Bulldogs had won four of five best-of-three series since the format began in 1987-88.

Colorado College ...........0-0-0—0

Minnesota Duluth.…......1-2-1—4

   First period – 1. UMD, Kyle Schmidt 11 (Cody Danberg, Drew Akins), 2:39. Penalties – Matt Overman, Colorado College (roughing), :06; Joe Marciano, Colorado College (holding), 4:48; Danberg, UMD (slashing), 7:39; Andrew Hamburg, Colorado College (tripping), 11:27; Chad Huttel, UMD (5-minute checking from behind major, served by Mike Seidel, game misconduct), 13:50; Dylan Olsen, UMD (unsportsmanlike conduct), 14:28; Mike Testwuide, Colorado College (unsportsmanlike conduct), 14:28; Rylan Schwartz, Colorado College (contact to head), 14;28; Bill Sweatt, Colorado College (interference), 18:02; Testwuide, Colorado College (unsportsmanlike conduct), 19:39; Mike Connolly, UMD (hit after whistle), 19:39; Travis Oleksuk, UMD (contact to head), 19:39.

   Second period – 2. UMD, Brady Lamb 11 (Justin Fontaine, Jack Connolly), 5:26; 3. UMD, Rob Bordson 12 (Fontaine, Lamb), 19:43 (5x3 pp). Penalties – Bordson, UMD (contact to head), 5:26; Marciano, Colorado College (contact to head), 12:55; Jordan Fulton, UMD (goalie interference), 14:32; Gabe Guentzel, Colorado College, 5-minute checking from behind major, served by Tim Hall, game misconduct), 17:16; Nate Prosser, cross-checking), 18:17.

   Third period – 4. UMD, Mike Connolly 14 (Fontaine, Lamb), :46 (pp). Penalties – Fulton, UMD (charging), 9:00.

   Shots on goal – Colorado College 9-6-10--25; UMD 4-11-7--22. Goalies – Joe Howe (17-15-3), Colorado College (22 shots-18 saves); Kenny Reiter (13-9), UMD (25 shots-25 saves). Power plays – Colorado College 0-of-7; UMD 1-of-7. Referees – Todd Anderson, Brad Shepherd. Assistants – Tony Czech, Dan Dineen. A – 3,402.      

Posted by: pates on 3/14/2010 at 9:32 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink

Tags: umd hockey