Henrik Borgström is the NCHC’s points leader.
The NCHC has been cruising through the season. It leads all conferences with seven ranked teams, including three top ten teams in the uscho.com rankings.
Only five NCHC teams were active last weekend, with St. Cloud State being the only team play a non-conference foe.
SCSU 13-3-3 (2) vs UMN 13-10-1 (9)
Like every year, the Huskies and in-state rival University of Minnesota Gophers squared off in a home and home series. Unlike other years, they played their games on Saturday and Sunday this time around.
With Saturday’s game being played in St. Cloud, the Huskies had a distinct advantage. They have not lost a game in regulation at Herb Brooks National Hockey Center yet this season. That is a trend that would not change.
The Gophers struck first early in the first period, but it was all Huskies from that point on. They went on to score four unanswered goals, two of which coming off the stick of Mikey Eyssimont for his seventh and eight goals of the season.
SCSU entered the third period with a 3-1 lead. They quickly added a goal to make it 4-1, but UMN scored six minutes later to pull within two goals once again. The Huskies netted one more goal in the period coasting to a 5-2 win.
Special teams continue to be a strength for SCSU as they shut out the Gophers on their four power play opportunities.
The teams headed to Minneapolis Sunday for the second half of the series.
It was a defensive struggle through and through as neither team could muster a goal until the Gophers broke the tie with a goal three minutes into the final period. An empty-net goal in the final minute of play gave the Gophers a 2-0 lead and their first victory over the Huskies since 2014.
SCSU travels to Kalamazoo, Michigan this weekend to face the Western Michigan Mustangs. This will be their first meeting of the season.
DU 12-6-4 (5) vs UM 9-9-2 (20)
Denver and Miami faced off last weekend in Oxford, Ohio. The teams split their series in two very entertains games.
Looking at the stat sheet from Friday, one would assume that the Pioneers ran the RedHawks out of the arena. The final score, however, did not reflect that.
MU got out to a good start. They found themselves up 2-0 four minutes into the second period. They held the two-goal lead for ten minutes before giving up a goal cutting their lead to 2-1.
Once again, the RedHawks struck again just over four minutes into the period, this time in the third with a power play goal.
Henrik Borgström continued his dominating season scoring his 14th goal of the season to cut the lead to 3-2.
Another power play goal from Louie Belpedio for MU gave them a lead they would not relinquish at 4-2. DU added an extra attacker goal, but it was enough and they fell 3-4 to the RedHawks.
The star of the game was Ryan Larkin, MU Goalie. He was under constant pressure all game long. He saved 44 shots, while his team only got 19 shots on net in the victory.
Miami held DU scoreless in their five power play chances.
Denver dominated Saturday. Jarid Lukosevicius got the Pioneers started with a goal not even a minute into the game. Later in the period, he netted another goal to give DU a 2-0 lead.
The Pioneers added to the lead again in the third period with another early goal after a scoreless second frame.
The only goal the RedHawks could muster was with an extra attacker halfway through the third period. The Pioneers scored an empty net goal on their way to a 4-1 victory.
Denver has this weekend off and will resume play against UNO next weekend.
The RedHawks head to Omaha to face UNO this weekend. Last season, MU was 0-3-1 against the Mavericks.
UND 11-6-5 (7) vs UNO 10-9-1 (17)
The University of North Dakota hosted the University of Nebraska-Omaha last weekend and the teams skated to a series split.
The scoring started halfway through the first period on Friday. The Mavericks scored the first goal of the game, then UND answered with a penalty shot goal tying the game at 1-1.
The game was all UNO from this point on. The Mavericks added two power play goals in the second period including one from David Pope, his 12th of the season.
Zach Jordan added another goal in the third period to make the final score 4-1, Mavericks.
It was a rough evening for Fighting Hawk goalie Cam Johnson who let in four goals on 17 shots. It was the opposite for UNO goalie Evan Weninger who stopped 34 of the 35 shots he faced.
UND flipped the script Saturday night in their 7-0 drubbing of UNO.
The Hawks struck in the final minutes of the first period to take a 1-0 lead.
They took the momentum and scored again in the first few minutes of the second period on a power play. Two minutes later, they found the back of the net for the third time. They added another after a Christian Wolanin goal with just under four minutes remaining in the period giving UND a 4-0 advantage.
The Hawks piled it on in the third period. Two goals from Austin Poganski paved the way to a 7-0 beat-down of the Mavericks.
UNO returns back home this weekend for a series with Miami University RedHawks. They hold a 4-2-2 record against MU in the last two seasons.
The Hawks face the Bemidji State Beavers this weekend. They both sit at 11-6-5 and UND hasn’t lost to the Beavers since 2014.
Points Leaders:
1. Henrik Borgström DU 30 2. Wade Allison WMU 28
3. Nick Halloran CC 27