Vegoe’s Top 20 – 10/14/2024
1 Denver
2 Boston University
3 North Dakota
4 Boston College
5 Michigan State
6 Omaha
7 Minnesota
8 Quinnipiac
9 Colorado College
10 St. Cloud
11 Cornell
12 Maine
13 Michigan
14 Providence
15 Massachusetts
16 Western Michigan
17 Wisconsin
18 Notre Dame
19 Minnesota State
20 Northeastern
This past week some of the top teams in the polls were tested, but the results were probably more inconclusive than definite. Boston College shutout Michigan State on Friday night 3-0, but Sparty came back to split the weekend 4-3. Minnesota downed Air Force 7-1 on Friday in Las Vegas, but couldn’t get a second shot past Omaha’s goalie Simon Latkoczy despite 54 shots and lost 2-1 in overtime.
The battle between the Eagles and Spartans was the big series of the weekend and the BC Hockey Blog liked what their team did overall during the weekend. Friend of the GPL Podcast Paul Caponigri called the game for BTN and closed out his Friday night broadcast saying BC might deserve to be the No. 1 team based on how they played nearly mistake-free hockey on the road to start the season. Cappy acknowledged that he has Denver as his top team right now, but that is based a little bit more on how they finished last season as opposed to projecting this year.
Some of my other top teams did take care of business as Boston University took down Union 4-1, North Dakota put away Providence 5-2, Quinnipiac escaped a scare from Penn State with a 3-2 win and Colorado College swept Northern Michigan 4-3 in OT and 6-1. While it’s early in the season, North Dakota coach Brad Berry told Brad Elliott Schlossman after the game that they try to pick out the best teams than can out of Hockey East, Big Ten and ECAC because it not only helps in the Pairwise, but helps his team play the right way.
The biggest surprise from the scoreboard this weekend was Wisconsin having to win a Saturday game in overtime to get a split with Lindenwood. Former Gophers goalie Owen Bartoszkiewicz had a good weekend for Lindenwood making 34 saves in his Friday 4-2 win and then 42 saves in his Saturday 3-2 OT loss. Todd Milewski noted the Badgers were about six minutes from perhaps their most humbling opening weekend in its modern era.
We will see more big games coming up this weekend as Northeastern plays at Denver, Quinnipiac visits Maine, North Dakota travels to Minnesota State. St. Cloud visits Michigan and of course the Gophers spend the weekend in Duluth.