Inside College Hockey | WCHA Notebook

November 26, 2008

Great Weekend Getaway: College Hockey Showcase / CCHA

By James V. Dowd

MICHIGAN
8-6-0 (5-5-0 CCHA)
Key Players: Aaron Palushaj, F, So. (14 GP, 7-13-20); Louie Caporusso, F, So. (14 GP, 12-4-16); Chris Summers, D, Jr. (14 GP, 1-2-3).
Team Fact: Michigan’s only win in five tries against ranked opponents this season came on Oct. 18 against a Northern Michigan team that has since fallen into the CCHA basement with a 3-8-1 overall record.
What Will Make Them Successful: The Wolverines have proven themselves fairly strong defensively, but need to maintain a strong transition game in order to be successful. If Michigan can stay up to speed with its neutral zone transitions, it allows Caporusso and Palushaj to effectively unleash their elite talents in the offensive end.
Why It’s Important: The Wolverines surely lost some confidence in a pair of tough losses at Miami this past weekend and needs strong performances against a comparable Wisconsin team and a high-flying Minnesota team to regain some respectability as a contender. In addition, the Golden Gophers may have lost in Ann Arbor last year, but absolutely trounced the Wolverines, 8-2, in Michigan’s last Showcase visit to Minneapolis.

MICHIGAN STATE
14-8-2 (2-6-2 CCHA)
Key Players: Jeff Lerg, G, Sr. (11 GP, 3-7-1, 2.54 GAA, .916 sv%); Jeff Petry, D, So. (14 GP, 1-3-4); Matt Schepke, F, Sr. (14 GP, 5-2-7).
Team Fact: The Spartans’ 20 goals in 14 games ranks them last in the CCHA and 57th nationally in terms of scoring offense.
What Will Make Them Successful: Because they’ve struggled so much in scoring goals, the Spartans need a quick jump to compete with Minnesota and Wisconsin. If the Michigan State forwards can surprise their opponents early and put them on their heels, the green and white can then rely on strong defense and excellent goaltending to hold on for a victory.
Why It’s Important: The team fact states it all, Michigan State needs to start scoring. Now, that won’t be easy against either Minnesota or Wisconsin, but a few goals in each game might give the Spartans some much-needed confidence heading into a home-and-home with Michigan the following week. The Spartans need to play well in that set, or they could head into the second half of the season in the dreaded bottom four of the CCHA.

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November 21, 2008

WCHA Fries at the Bottom of the Bag

By Jess Myers

• For all of the preseason talk about a wealth of upperclassmen being the key to Minnesota State’s success, the youngsters have been regularly making their presence felt for the Mavericks thus far. We’ve written all about Mike Louwerse, the freshman who is third on the team with nine points. Last weekend it was another rookie introducing himself as the Mavs split with Colorado College. Tyler Thompson had a goal and an assist - his first collegiate points - and was named the WCHA’s Co-Rookie of the Week for his efforts.

• Alaska Anchorage had three wins in 28 conference games last season. Last Friday, the Seawolves’ 3-2 victory at North Dakota was their third conference win of this season, in just their seventh WCHA game.

• Another WCHA rookie of note who is defying expectations is St. Cloud State’s Jared Festler. With a goal and an assist last weekend as the Huskies swept Denver, the native of Little Falls, Minn., moved into third place on the national rookie scoring list with 11 points.

• We wonder if Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves will go check out his old apartment this weekend when his team visits St. Cloud State. It’s a long-forgotten fact that Eaves was one of Craig Dahl’s assistant coaches on the Huskies’ first Division I team in 1987-88. The Bagders are looking to continue their hot play, having gone five games without a loss (4-0-1) after that rough 0-6-1 start.

• There were plenty of firsts to be had last Saturday when North Dakota beat Alaska Anchorage 3-1 in the fourth consecutive weekend split for the Sioux. Sophomores Brad Malone and Matt Frattin each scored for NoDak, snapping a pair of notable droughts in the process. Frattin hadn’t scored in 14 games, while Malone had gone 32 games since last lighting the lamp. There were also special teams milestones, as Malone’s goal was the first shortie of his career, and Frattin’s goal was the first power-play goal of his career.

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November 20, 2008

Seen and Heard in the WCHA

By Jess Myers

Tigers having fun despite strange Friday night struggles

Offense has been almost invisible on Friday nights for Andreas Vlassopoulos and Colorado College.

Before Colorado College fans launch into panic mode about the team’s recent Friday night power outages, we’d like to remind folks that the Tigers have lost just twice in their first dozen games, have the hottest goaltender in the conference on their side, and remain in perfect position to defend their WCHA crown.

But Friday nights, and the assorted offensive letdowns, are indeed puzzlement. In six Friday night games, the Tigers have scored a total of eight goals. By contrast, they scored seven goals in one recent Saturday night game versus North Dakota. While he hasn’t found an answer just yet, CC coach Scott Owens is on the case, switching some lines and trying some different warmup ideas on Fridays in hopes of sparking his squad.

“I see it as a whole team thing,” Owens said. “On Fridays is seems like we haven’t had quite the quickness. On Saturday we’re scoring goals, but we’re giving up more too.”

All of that, and the fact that they’re playing well themselves, may have Alaska Anchorage licking its collective chops just a bit for Friday night’s game at Sullivan Arena. That the Tigers have fallen just a bit from their perch atop the national polls is not completely surprising when one realizes they are in the midst of an amazingly challenging stretch of schedule. After traveling across the country to nationally-ranked Clarkson (for two ties) and getting a win and a tie versus arch-rival Denver, the Tigers hosted North Dakota (split) traveled to Minnesota State (split) and now travel to Anchorage. Upon returning from Alaska, it doesn’t get any easier, as a date with currently-undefeated Air Force looms.

“We have a few really tough stretches in our schedule, and this is definitely one of them,” Owens said.

If that’s the bad news, there are plenty of positive angles one can take when glancing at the Tigers. Center Andreas Vlassopoulos says that as fine as the Tigers have looked in stretches, they know they’re nowhere near the ceiling yet.

“We know that we can be a lot better,” said the junior from Los Angeles. “It’s a little scary to think what we could be if we were all on our games at the same time.”

One player who’s game is not being questioned is goalie Richard Bachman. The reining WCHA most valuable player has made a routine out of turning aside 40 shots or more a night (as CC give opponents more power play opportunities than it had in the past) while staying blissfully unaware of the rumored “sophomore jinx.”

“He’s never heard of that,” Vlassopoulos said. “Some of the stuff he does in games, we sit there on the bench looking at each other, just amazed.”

So forget the tough schedule and the Friday night power outages and the 2-2-0 record in their last four and focus on the good stuff, right? College hockey is supposed to be fun, and the Tigers are making sure that’s the case.

“We definitely feel good,” Vlassopoulos said. “We’ve been taking it very seriously, working hard in practice and in games, but having a lot of fun. The team is really tight this year. No cliques, just one unit having a good time.”

Expansion talk has WCHA fans pondering new enemies

Coming soon to a WCHA arena near you?

“Omaha, somewhere in middle America. Get right to the heart of matters. It’s the heart that matters more. I think you’d better turn your ticket in, and get your money back at the door.” - “Omaha” by Counting Crows

That’s the long, and somewhat musical way to say that if you like the 10-team WCHA, but think that it could be so much more, get ready for a change. It was reported by our friend Mike Chambers in the Denver Post recently that conference expansion and realignment is suddenly the hot (but quiet) talk among college-hockey higher-ups, and those proposed changes could soon be seen on a rink near you. This week, the WCHA higher-ups decided to officially sit down to talk it over in January.

College Hockey America, the four-team conference that used to be a six-team conference (before Findlay and Wayne State dropped hockey, Air Force went to Atlantic Hockey, and Robert Morris started a Division I program) is likely going to go away within a few years. It’s hard to field a viable conference, which is due an automatic berth in the 16-team NCAA tournament, with just four teams (Robert Morris, Bemidji State, Alabama-Huntsville and Niagara) to pick from. And for the record, a month into the season none of those teams is above .500.

One of the initial ideas would create four 12-team conferences, with Niagara and Robert Morris joining Atlantic Hockey, Alabama-Huntsville joining the CCHA (briefly giving that league 13 teams) then Bemidji State joining the WCHA and Nebraska-Omaha switching from the CCHA to the WCHA.

On paper, Bemidji State looks like a program that could struggle in the WCHA versus the likes of Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, etc., but why would one think they’d be less competitive, year in and year out, than teams that have struggled to crack the upper half of the league standings in the past decade (Michigan Tech and Alaska Anchorage spring immediately to mind)? Two decades ago, one might have scoffed at the idea that a school like St. Cloud State could be competitive versus the likes of the Badgers and Gophers as well, but as the Huskies blow past 20 years of D-I hockey, they’ve got seven trips to the NCAA playoffs and a WCHA playoff title to their credit.

The other potential new WCHA team to be considered, Nebraska-Omaha, should not realistically be included in any talk of conference expansion in 2008 for the simple reason that the Mavericks could have and should have been a WCHA member for the past decade. Geographically, it has never made sense that a team located between Denver and Mankato plays its conference road games in the Eastern Time Zone and plays its conference tournament games in Detroit. The Mavs needed a conference to call home a decade ago, and when the WCHA hemmed and hawed and didn’t jump at the chance to get them (and their every-night sellout crowds of 8,000-plus at the time) the CCHA filled that void.

Other ideas that have been kicked around related to the topic of conference realignment include a proposal to have the Ivy League schools (Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell and Colgate) break off from the rest of ECAC Hockey, leaving two six-team conferences. And seemingly forever, we’ve heard the threat of Big Ten hockey, if another one of that league’s 11 schools adds a hockey program (Illinois and Penn State are the most promising candidates) which would mean a six-team hockey conference there with Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and one more member to be named later.

Also, a few years ago Air Force coach Frank Serratore talked about how comfortable the Falcons were in Atlantic Hockey despite the fact that their nearest conference rivals were two time zones away. His theory was that the conference was a better fit for them than the WCHA, even though the western league made more sense geographically, because the Falcons (with their recruiting restrictions and their military commitments) couldn’t necessarily compete on an everyday basis in the WCHA. Well, the last time we checked, the Falcons are 10-0-0, with a pair of players from the heart of WCHA country leading the way - Brent Olson from Baudette, Minn., and Jacques Lamoureux from Grand Forks, N.D. Maybe the Falcons really are the next viable candidate to join a major conference like this one.

As we prepare to cook and eat a gigantic holiday meal in the coming days, those ideas are food for thought.

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November 19, 2008

WCHA Stick Salute, Bench Minor, Getaway

By Jess Myers