The WCHA six-point weekends takes a while to get used to. It leads to major deck-shuffling in the standings every weekend. Heading into the penultimate weekend of the regular season, Lake Superior State was the “It Girl” of the WCHA, but coming out of it they dropped two places in the standings, suffering through their “Come to Jesus” moment.
Bowling Green came into this weekend teetering on the proverbial cliff—27 hours later their prospects for making the NCAA Tournament had climbed four points to 55 percent after a five-point weekend up in Bemidji.
Minnesota State spent the wee hours Friday night in Fairbanks cavorting with the oldest (106 years) and heaviest (40 pounds) hockey trophy in America, clinching the regular season WCHA title. A day later they were sleepless in Seattle, slogging through their three-hour red-eye connection after being shut out by the 50th-ranked squad in college hockey. As the number crunchers at College Hockey News might say—go figure.
Pity Lake State. They spent a full week basking in the love of the college hockey media circus who had rediscovered the former dynasty from the Sault. It was a consensus feel-good story: USCHO wrote lengthy pieces and devoted 20 minutes of their national podcast to the Lakers and the WCHA anointed both the Player of the Week and Defenseman of the Week to Laker skaters. For a team and a region that hadn’t received this kind of attention in decades, this was heady stuff. That intoxicating siren song accompanied the Lakers’ bus for its two-hour ride to Northern Michigan. And then they stepped off in Marquette and got punched in the mouth.
Grant Potulny’s Northern Michigan Wildcats outworked and outplayed the Lakers for two consecutive games, leapfrogging them in the standings. LSSU head coach Damon Whitten used words like “passengers” and “way too pretty” to describe his troops’ lackluster performance Friday, and then appeared flummoxed after the sweep was completed on Saturday. “There haven’t been many weekends like this,” said Whitten. “A strange feeling. We’ve got to respond quickly.”
While the Wildcats played with both intensity and control, the Lakers lost their way, never more evident than in Saturday night’s third period. Trailing 4-3, Lake Superior’s burly defender Steven Ruggiero used a gratuitous World Wrestling move to subdue a Wildcat forechecker, getting tagged with an obvious penalty. A minute later, Northern Michigan senior Denver Pierce buried the power-play dagger, his second goal of the period, to seal the deal. The sexiest team in the WCHA is now in fourth place, needing points in the final weekend to secure home ice in the league quarterfinals. How the world turns.
Northern Michigan took over as the WCHA team wallowing in the spotlight, posing for photo ops with the Cappo Cup and getting social love from ESPN media monster John Buccigross.
Northern Michigan, coached by Grant Potulny, is 10-4-2 in their last 16. Finish up regular season next weekend with home and home vs Michigan Tech. pic.twitter.com/M83jKeQeK4
— Bucci Mane (@Buccigross) February 24, 2019
The 6,100-mile Playdate
The historic MacNaughton Cup, forty pounds of pure silver, took a 6,100-mile round trip for a well-documented playdate with the 2018-19 WCHA regular season champs. Had Minnesota State been playing at home this past weekend, the chalice would simply have just gone a few feet from the Mavericks’ trophy case to the Verizon Center ice surface. But with the Mavs scheduled to play 200 miles from the Arctic Circle, the old James MacNaughton keepsake got stashed, stamped and shipped north.
And when the Mavericks finished lighting up the Nanooks up at the Carlson Center Friday night, there was WCHA Commissioner Bill Robertson handing off the heavy metal, igniting the second Cup party (MacInnes Cup, Feb. 19) in as many games for the Mavs. “It’s not new to them,” said the man affectionately known as Billy Rob. “They were carrying on like it was the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals.”
Hoisting USA’s oldest hockey trophy left a strong impression on German-born freshman Julian Napravnik. “This is awesome,” said Napravnik. “One of our goals from the very start and getting the trophy is unreal… Something I know is important to the guys.”
Robertson enjoys having a “marquee team” to help showcase his league. Minnesota State will likely lead all Division I teams in total wins, but that’s not the metric that bursts his buttons. “What I would like to see is them or one of our teams carry it all the way to Buffalo, the Frozen Four.
BGSU Falcons: Life on the Bubble
Faced with a major gut-check, Chris Bergeron’s Falcon squad played the ultimate road series this past weekend, a five-point trip to Bemidji which gave them undisputed control of second place. Friday night’s win gave Bergeron his fifth straight 20-win season.
“I’m extremely proud of that on behalf of all of us,” said Bergeron, giving props to his entire staff. “Twenty wins in college hockey has always been a really good number.”
As the season swings into March, scoring is at a premium. Bergeron’s proudest recruit, Max Johnson of Lakeville, Minnesota, has been finding the back of the net with regularity. Not only did he score on both Friday and Saturday, but he tucked in double-overtime Saturday, a goal that will not be reflected in his personal statistics. He would gladly trade off a point in his scoring line for that point in the standings.
Where does this leave the Falcons tenuous NCAA Tournament hopes? Let’s go to the best source, CHN’s Pairwise Probability Matrix (PPM). BGSU is currently 15th in the all-important Pairwise, which gives them a 37 percent chance at the coveted at-large bid. But factoring in their projected run to the WCHA finals, CHN’s PPM has them as a 55 percent favorite to get into the national tournament.
The fact that Bowling Green is college hockey’s ultimate “bubble” team is ripe with irony, seeing as Bergeron’s teams have been hard-luck tournament victims several times in recent years. He would forego any one of those 20-win seasons in a heartbeat for his first invite to the postseason party.
Author Tim Rappleye just released his latest book: Hobey Baker, Upon Further Review (Mission Point Press, 2018). He can be reached on Twitter @TeeRaps.