Vegoe’s Top 20 – 10/28/2024
1– Denver
2– Boston College
3– Minnesota
4– Boston University
5– Michigan State
6– North Dakota
7– Maine
8– Colorado College
9– Providence
10– Cornell
11– St. Cloud
12– Western Michigan
13– Michigan
14– Minnesota State
15– Ohio State
16– Quinnipiac
17– Penn State
18– UMass-Lowell
19– Union
20– New Hampshire
Denver is still the top team in my poll as they’ve won 15-games in a row if you go back through last season. David Carle’s crew got a bit of a scare from Wisconsin on Friday night when the Badgers jumped out to an early lead at Magness Arena, but the Pioneers rallied back to win 4-2 and then made no doubt about it on Saturday winning 6-1. The Badgers are now 1-5 and only have five even strength goals through six games — Mike Hastings has his hands full there.
Boston College welcomed Western Michigan to Chestnut Hill and also got a score from their visitors. The Broncos came out of the gate fast getting a two goal advantage while outshooting the Eagles 15-8. BC Hockey Blog came away very impressed by Pat Ferschweiler’s team and expects them to back in the NCAA tournament which would make Ferschweiler 4 for 4 getting WMU into the postseason. Fun to hear USCHO’s Jimmy Connelly on the call for this one as it was streamed on ESPN+.
The big matchup of the weekend was Boston University at North Dakota — and the results are a little inconclusive again for a top ten matchup. The Fighting Hawks tamed the Terriers Friday 7-2 scoring five goals in the first 13 minutes 12 seconds of the weekend to ignite the Ralph’s crowd. “We got outbattled, outcompeted – you name it – really from start to finish,” Boston University coach Jay Pandolfo said. “We’ve got to see what type of group we have tomorrow and now we respond.” BU bounced back to win on Saturday 4-3 by capitalizing with two power play goals and a shorty. Big game of the week coming up is North Dakota playing Cornell — who keeps getting someone’s No. 1 vote in the USCHO Poll.
Minnesota looked very impressive this past weekend by sweeping the coaches’ pick to win the CCHA St. Thomas with a 7-1 win on Friday and 6-2 win on Saturday. The Gophers defensemen have gotten off to a hot start this season with 23 points in six games. Sam Rinzel has to be a favorite for B10 Star of the Week, he’s got four goals and five assists already this season.
Maine looks like they might be one of the better teams in Hockey East this season after sweeping Northeastern on the road, Michigan State took care of sweeping Canisius playing them in Buffalo. Colorado College was another team that took an interesting road trip and survived it by sweeping Alaska Anchorage. Minnesota State had a big weekend winning the battle of the Mavericks over Omaha this weekend. Impressive victory, almost as impressive as the team awards handing out the Horns, Hammer and Savage team trophies.
Back of the poll is messy right now — Massachusetts tied and lost to UConn, Notre Dame split with LIU, Augustana lost two close ones to SCSU.
Besides the NoDak visiting Cornell this weekend, we’ll also see Michigan head out to Boston University and Boston College coming to St. Cloud –which will be on Fox9+.