CCHA flexes muscles on opening night
Four games were played on the opening night of the college hockey tournament and all three CCHA teams that played won. Scratch that, as they didn’t just win - they dominated. They outscored their opponents 15-5. The Michigan Wolverines slowly wore down Niagara as they scored zero goals in the first, two goals in the second, and three goals in the third to close out the Purple Eagles. Likely Hobey Baker winner Kevin Porter led the team with 4 goals on the night.
Prior to the game during the pregame show Red Berenson talked about how Porter moved over from playing on the wing to center the top line. His reposonsible defensive play is just as important as his offensive stats. While strictly offensive players like Mike Comrie and TJ Hensick tend to be fan favorites, it takes really strong two way players like John Madden and Kevin Porter to have any shot at a championship.
But the most impressive wins had to be Notre Dame and MSU both heading over to Colorado and spanking New Hampshire and Colorado College. In a bracket viewed as a death march, the two CCHA teams cruised to victory and will face off tonight for a berth in the Frozen Four. Colorado College was recently ranked #2 in the country and New Hampshire was ranked #5 at the end of the season. This utter domination by the conference to this point coud signal that three teams will make it to the Frozen Four.
Miami has to be a prohibitive favorite to come out of the Northeast region. They should cruise past the Air Force and then will have to play either Minnesota or BC. Playing BC in Woostah might be the only real stumbling block that prevents the Red Hawks from making it to the Frozen Four.
The Wolverines are in much better shape than any of the other CCHA teams as far as their path to the Frozen Four goes. Clarkson is ranked higher than Notre Dame, but they’ve only gone 7-8-1 outside of the ECAC. The only elite team they’ve faced all season was Colorado College and they got smoked in both games by a combined score of 11-3. If the Wolverines don’t crap the bed they should be on their way to the Frozen Four for the first time since the 2003 season.
The only doubt lingering regarding the Wolverines is how they’d fare in a matchup against MSU. The Spartans have gone 2-1-1 against Michigan. Something similar happened during the regular season in 1997-98 where the Wolverines just couldn’t beat MSU. Someone - maybe OSU if I remember correctly - did Michigan a solid and knocked MSU out of the tournament. The Wolverines then went on to beat BC to win their 9th national championship.
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