Vegoe’s Top 20 – 10/21/2024

DU raised their NCAA record 10th championship banner this past weekend and handled Northeastern without any trouble. They welcome a struggling Wisconsin team to Magness Arena next, but we probably won’t know much about how good this Pioneers team actually is this season until they travel to North Dakota in mid November.

Speaking of the Fighting Hawks, they split their series with Minnesota State this past weekend in Mankato and might have been lucky to do so considering they needed three third period goals and got a goal taken off the scoreboard with a coaches challenge to come back on Friday night. North Dakota maybe controlled the pace of the second game according to Brad Schlossman as they out attempted the Mavericks 77-47, but Minnesota State blocked 34 shots and capitalized on the Fighting Hawk mistakes. I dropped NoDak from third to sixth in my poll, but they’ll get a chance to redeem themselves with my second ranked team Boston University visiting Ralph Engelstad Arena.

The Golden Gophers made their first two game round trip to Duluth since 2011 and it was one to remember for Minnesota fans as they dominated the Bulldogs in a crazy 7-5 win Friday and steadier 5-1 win Saturday. The Bulldogs got a bunch of strange goals on Friday night, but it was clear the Gophers controlled play outshooting the home team 49-22 during that game. Saturday’s game was closer in shots 34-32, but Minnesota took advantage of their chances while keeping Minnesota Duluth to the perimeter. Friend of the GPL Podcast Jess Myers covered the game for the Pioneer Press and UMD coach Scott Sandelin continued his praise of the Gophers from earlier in the week saying ‘ We’re just not quite there yet. Obviously this is one of the better teams in the country, so they exposed us in some areas.”

Other risers and fallers in the poll were Maine who swept Quinnipiac maybe showing that last year’s NCAA tournament bid could be in the cards again this year and Omaha who dropped two games to Augustana. UNO coach Mike Gabinet told Mike Patterson that it simply “wasn’t good enough. Every time you turned around, they got a goal.” Wisconsin also will be dropping in the polls after being swept by Ohio State. Badger coach Mike Hastings admitted to Todd Milewski that no one will feel sorry for them, “offensively we’re not very productive right now. So that’s got to be torn down and rebuilt in a real hurry. Because I’m going to tell you, we’re going on the road to a place that is very difficult to play.”