Thoughts from the Wisconsin sweep over Duluth + more
Reviewing the weekend in College Hockey
I watched one series closely this weekend (UMD-WI) and caught two other series on the side. I watched Penn State - Alaska-Fairbanks on Thursday/Friday and also had Boston University - Northern Michigan on in the background while watching Wisconsin sweep Minnesota-Duluth. I’ll start with my thoughts on those games and then briefly recap some other games.
Wisconsin sweeps Minnesota-Duluth
This was a pretty great series and at times about as entertaining as hockey can be. It was a fascinating contrast between two programs with storied histories. Talented rosters aside, these programs have two different philosophies of how a team should be put together. Wisconsin has four first round-types and a number of others who will likely have nice pro careers. Minnesota-Duluth, the back-to-back National Champions, obviously have some real talent as well but they have more great ‘college players’, building their team in a very purposeful way with guys like Nicky Wolff — a big, singularly imposing defender — and Justin Richards, who has been a revelation up front for them. While I’m not going to go through the whole roster, Minnesota-Duluth doesn’t have and maybe doesn’t even chase many of those top-end NHL types for the most part. They seem to get the right players for their program to have sustained success and in the case of Hunter Shepard they certainly have the right goaltender. I see UMD as a team built from the back out with an eye to layering well-regarded recruiting classes so they aren’t ever in a weak position year-to-year, whereas Wisconsin has an entirely different set of circumstances and corresponding philosophy. The relatively new staff in Madison has glaring star power on the roster with an approach to recruiting that brings in plenty of guys who will be great — but some will not be great for long. That all made what was a great pair of hockey games that much more of a compelling match-up.
Both teams made a road trip to Boston last weekend before this one. I thought both teams looked pretty good despite the result. I wouldn’t quite anoint Wisconsin (3-1) as a top three team just yet and I suspect the Bulldogs (1-3), who were #3, will be lingering out of the top five when this week’s rankings come out on Monday. The Bulldogs lost a lot last year but still have plenty to work with, though that was tested when they went down two key defenders — Scott Perunovich and Hunter Lellig — tossed in the first period on Friday night.
While they put up a valiant effort in the 6-2 loss, time wore on and Wisconsin broke down this UMD team over the remaining forty-odd minutes. Game two was closer for the full sixty, with Minnesota-Duluth having a full d-corps and putting in a better game overall. On Saturday, Wisconsin hopped out to a two-goal lead off of freshman Alex Turcotte’s power play goal and Ty Pelton-Byce’s eventual game-winner, a nice look driving the middle lane where he got hit on the tape by Sean Dhooghe’s pass and made no mistake. The Bulldogs PK for the most part looked pretty good both nights — even down two defensemen on Friday — and they have forwards who can punish loose play at the point. Duluth’s Noah Cates brought it within one to keep the game interesting before Wisconsin got an empty-netter late in the third.
Prospect Notes - WI
Dylan Holloway looked great in his second set of games for the Badgers. For a player who just turned 18 playing the back-to-back national champions, he got a lot of ice time and looked very good throughout the weekend — engaged, battling for pucks, making plays. The fact that he’s on a top unit with upperclassmen Tarek Baker and Sean Dhooghe shows how much respect the staff have for his game: he rewarded their trust by putting game two away with an assist on Dhooghe’s empty-netter last night. Holloway went 6/9 in the dot on Saturday night, while tallying a big primary assist off the fourth goal early in the third period Friday night, putting the Badgers in control of the game (see below).
Fellow freshman Cole Caufield made history with three two-goal games to start his NCAA career, before being blanked on game two against Duluth. It was not for lack of trying, but Caufield didn’t get the same quality looks he had in previous games. Without making too lofty of a comparison, Caufield really does remind of Alex Ovechkin in the sense that he is so dangerous from that left circle as a right shot. If you give him any where to shoot, he’s going to punch it in. He already draws so much attention that it is creating opportunities for his other teammates to make something happen, in this case Linus Weissbach, who has looked great in front of the net.
Alex Turcotte has put up eight points in his first four games. There may have been some doubt whether he would live up to the hype early — I think there are no questions about that now. Not only is Turcotte playing well, there haven’t been many growing pains. He’s stepped right in and made an impact. His goal in game two was a boomer from the right circle and he has been dangerous in possession, especially on the right side near the goal line and circle, surveying options and distributing the puck.
The rest of this recruiting class looks terrific as well. Ty Pelton-Byce has shown that there is no rust after sitting out a year transferring in from Harvard. A local talent who is going to be a big reason this team finds success this season. When the upper echelon types are all gone (this team has four first-rounders counting likely 2020 pick Dylan Holloway and a future pro in Wyatt Kalynuk), potentially as soon as this spring, Pelton-Byce alongside freshmen Owen Lindmark and Ryder Donovan at forward are going to be great pieces to build around next year. Lindmark has been one of the Badgers top players — the NTDP product is plus six, two short-handed goals, three overall, to go with two assists through the first four games.
Junior forwards Sean Dhooghe and Linus Weissbach also looked sharp against Duluth, combining for seven points on the weekend. Last but not least, sophomore Dan Lebedeff in net has played all games and seems to be ready for a big year. His team played better in front of him than they did the weekend prior and he gave his team a chance to win. He went 57/60 during the UMD series, with two of the goals against coming off of UMD’s power play. He only allowed one puck to cross the line through the last five periods.
Penn State splits with Alaska-Fairbanks
These two traded shutouts in a series that started Thursday night with a 7-0 win for the Nittany Lions. Fairbanks responding with a 4-0 result on Friday. The games were somewhat similar in that Penn State started with an early goal on Thursday and Alaska-Fairbanks did the same in their win Friday. While Penn State poured the goals on throughout their game, Alaska-Fairbanks gritted their teeth and simply hung on, adding goals one-by-one each period before getting their 3rd and 4th in the third frame.
Penn State got punished because they didn’t clear the puck well and likely underestimated the team they had just thrashed — before long they were chasing it against a goaltender who had stopped thirty shots in relief the night prior. They opted to put in fairly untested sophomore Oskar Autio (four games through his career including this one) after Peyton Jones had posted a shutout, and they were burned for it. The game is obviously not on him alone, but he went 19/23. One positive for Penn State is that they didn’t surrender anything on the PK throughout the series, but I have to imagine the team will be looking at this game and shaking their heads after such lofty pre-season expectations.
Some thoughts on Penn State so far
Alex Limoges (4pts), Evan Barratt (3A) and Liam Folkes (2pts) are conspicuously quiet through the first four games of the year. These numbers may not seem quiet, but the Nittany Lions are scoring 5 goals a night on average — including Friday night’s shutout loss — and producing 14.5 points per game with nearly 40 shots a night. This line ought to be the top line in college hockey — they have to be better from an execution standpoint if this team is going to do damage down the stretch.
My other concern for the Nittany Lions is that they need to take less penalties. This is a team that thrives on momentum and cutting off the oxygen for other teams, and the execution was poor when they had to press for a goal Friday night. Getting penalized over and over wastes precious time that could be used layering strong shifts on top of each other and getting to their game.
A couple big bright spots — sophomore Aarne Talvitie has stepped right into the mix with a point-per-game, as well as going 40 for 70 in face-offs now that he is at center. Upperclass forwards Nate Sucese, Brandon Biro and Denis Smirnov have all wasted no time getting back into the scoring mix. Peyton Jones has a .939 sv% through three games, all wins. They’ve already scored six powerplay goals on the year.
BU ties then loses to Northern Michigan
I watched this during the down-time of the WI/UMD series, so I have some basic notes. What I saw, and was watching out for, were the freshmen stand-outs doing their part. For the most part I thought they did, though the series obviously didn’t go their way. At one point it looked like NMU were going to be swept on Friday night, with BU scoring four unanswered halfway through. The power play looked terrific, strong puck movement with everyone executing well. The fourth goal, at even strength, was exciting because of freshman Alex Vlasic’s right-on-the-money, decisive pass to Trevor Zegras at the far side, who quickly delivered it to Pat Curry for the goal. Vlasic’s ability to move the puck, if it continues to evolve, is going to be a real asset for his projection as a pro.
As the second period wore on, there was a ton of stoppage with the refs reviewing plays, and the momentum seemed to be entirely squashed just in time for NMU to start swinging it for them. BU held on for over-time but came away with a tie. I didn’t watch a ton of game two as I was focusing a lot on the other game, but I saw that freshman Dom Fensore got his first two points, both primary assists, and Trevor Zegras got his first goal to make it interesting late in the third. Zegras looked pretty good from what I saw.
Fensore is going to be just brilliant for the Terriers over his collegiate career. I noticed him a fair amount in the Union game as well — I thought the commentating team put it best this weekend when they described his rush through the neutral zone as “Operation ‘see ya!’”. He did plenty for the NTDP U18s last year, but the team was so loaded offensively that he will probably have a bigger role at BU. I had some concerns over how a team with this many freshmen playing big roles could perform, and I do think they will have growing pains, but there is a lot to be excited about with this group. True to form for a young team they got a better result on Friday than on Saturday, but it is still October. Jake Wise seems to be emerging in his sophomore year after an injury-shortened campaign as a freshman, while star rookies Robert Mastrosimone and Ethan Phillips continue to flash glimpses of greatness for the Terriers.
Recapping some other premier match-ups and the rest of the Big Ten action
Denver sweeps BC at home
Denver goaltender Magnus Chrona improved to 6-0 on the year with a sweep of the new-look Boston College team this weekend at home. After shutting out the Eagles in a goaltending duel against Spencer Knight that was 1-0 until two empty-netters for the Pioneers in the final minute, he allowed four in a game with ten goals scored on Saturday night. Chrona (55/59), Knight (59/66). Denver got scoring throughout the line-up as did BC with nine Eagles registering a point on Saturday night. BC freshman Alex Newhook opened the scoring short-handed on Saturday with his first goal of the year while Denver freshman Bobby Brink picked up his fifth and sixth point of the year on the PP alongside defenseman Ian Mitchell, who now has seven in six games. Denver went 4/12 on the PP while BC were 1/7.
North Dakota ties then loses at Minnesota State
UND jumped out to a 3-1 lead early in the second but Minnesota State chipped away and tied it early in the third period to hold on for the tie on Friday night — freshman Nathan Smith scored his first of his college career to make it 3-4 and figured in all four goals. Dryden McKay stopped 34 of 35 as the Mavs held on for the win on Saturday night — they were outshot 14 to 3 in the third period. Freshman Shane Pinto got his second goal of the year and only goal for North Dakota in the loss, while senior captain Marc Michaelis scored his fourth goal and first assist of the year in the 2-1 win.
Ohio State and Omaha split one-goal results. OSU went 3/7 on the PP Friday night with senior Tanner Laczynski leading the way (1-2-3), as all goals were scored on the man advantage. Matt Miller (1-1-2) and Gustaf Westlund (0-2-2). Omaha freshman Ryan Brushett picked up two helpers in the win on Saturday night to pace his team. Tommy Nappier (45/49) played both games for OSU, freshman Isaiah Saville (61/65) for Omaha.
Michigan swept Lake State, 4-0 and 4-3 at home. Junior Jack Becker scored three goals. Freshmen forwards Johnny Beecher (0-3-3) and Eric Ciccolini (0-2-2) are starting to rack up some points. Sophomore defenseman Nick Blankenburg scored the second goal in game one and primary assisted the first goal in game two. Stand-out freshman D Cam York did not dress in either game with an undisclosed injury which held him out for game two against Clarkson the weekend prior. Strauss Mann (47/50) in the blue paint for the Wolverines.
Minnesota staved off early leads in both games against Niagara to sweep at home, winning on Friday in overtime and on Saturday late in the third thanks to a power play look by sophomore Nathan Burke. Sophomore Sammy Walker won the game in overtime on Friday night with a great shot — he had 3 points on the weekend, two of his goals coming from Blake McLaughlin’s passes. Freshmen defensemen Ryan Johnson and Jackson LaCombe each had two assists on separate nights. Jack LaFontaine (25/27) and Jared Moe (20/22) both tended goal for the Gophers.
Michigan State beat the U18 NTDP team off goals from Patrick Khodorenko and Gianluca Esteves, 2-1. 2021 draft-eligible Matt Beniers (Harvard) had the goal for the 18s.
Notre Dame did not play. They hosted a showcase for elite bantam (2005) teams from the US and Canada at the Compton Family Ice Arena.