Come back each week for a preview of interesting NCAA games coming up and some thoughts on what happened in the previous week's action. Check out Thursday's How to Watch for links to all the weekend's games.
(8) Cornell at (7) Quinnipiac
Friday at 6:00 PM Eastern
The Bobcats faceoff with the two teams ahead of them in the ECAC standings this weekend, first facing Cornell and then hosting Colgate. They are on a five game winning streak including victories over Clarkson and St. Lawrence After losing two of their first four games, Quinnipiac has really put things together and gelled as a team. Maya Labad continues to improve in her career and leads the team in points. The Bobcats have seen a lot of roster changes with transfers in and out. Labad has stepped up in the opportunity that was created and is thriving. Kaley Doyle has been more than solid in net, giving the team the solid base they needed while they grew into themselves in those early weeks.
Cornell has had a similar trajectory and is on their own five-game win streak. As an Ivy, their season started about a month later, so they've had less time to try and find their equilibrium, but overall they're in a similar place of seeming to have put a shaky start behind them and settle into the team they can be. Freshman Lindzi Avar leads the team with six goals and has really lived up to the potential she showed at the U18 level. With the graduation of last year's Patty Kazmaier winner in Izzy Daniel, the Big Red also had room for someone to step up into a leading role and Avar has handled that transition really well.
Both of these teams can get bogged down in being too defensive-minded at times and this series could come down to which team takes the right risks. Neither can sit back and rely on their good goaltending and defending, but they're both not particularly inclined to be a take-charge offense. It might be out of their comfort zone, but the team that is more confident in what they can do on offense is going to be at an advantage here.
(10) St. Cloud State vs. (3) Minnesota (home and home)
Friday at 6:00 PM and Saturday at 3:00 PM Central
Minnesota is riding high from a weekend sweep of Minnesota Duluth while St. Cloud State had a rough weekend against Mankato. The Gophers have some ground to make up in the standings still from some early losses and the fact that they're trying to catch up to the top two teams in the country. They really need every conference point and this series will be no exception.
SCSU, notably, has an Olympic-sized rink. The fact that this is a home and home and the teams will play both at Ridder and at Herb Brooks in the same weekend is kind of fascinating and those wanting to see how the ice size changes things could do well with watching both of these games closely. Generally I think the ice size conversation can get a little overblown, but I do think being comfortable with it is to the Huskies' advantage. Where they could get in trouble will be if Abbey Murphy has a chance to really use the large sheet to her advantage. She's been known to cycle around the zone looking for passing and shooting lanes when she's on smaller ice, so I imagine she'll be looking to do the same at St. Cloud knowing there will be way more space unoccupied. The Huskies have to find a balance of letting her have as much of the perimeter as she wants and all the time to tire herself out skating circles while not letting her get a chance to exploit lanes.
The Huskies have struggled this season to put together as dynamic an offense as they had last year when they were led by Klára Hymlárová. The scoring has been balanced, but not prolific enough. This is a team in want of an offensive star. Emma Gentry has been consistently good for SCSU, but I'd love to see her take another step forward. She was just selected for the six nations tournament with Team USA in December.
I still think that for the Gophers to be a Frozen Four-level team this season they have to have bigger contributions from players not named Abbey Murphy. It seems like transfer Natálie Mlýnková has started to feel comfortable and find her footing in the WCHA, but it feels like a lot of players are content with being complements to Murphy when the Gophers need more options.
(11) Boston College vs. (14) Connecticut (home and home)
Friday at 2:00 PM and Saturday at 6:00 PM Eastern
Connecticut and Boston College are functionally tied for second place in Hockey East right now (teams have different number of games played, but each of these has dropped seven possible points in their games thus far while Northeastern has dropped 10 points) so these games could have a massive impact in conference standings. A sweep by either team will represent a massive swing.
Boston College had a bunch of ups and downs in their series last weekend, ultimately pulling out an OT victory on Friday before losing on Saturday. Beyond points, they'll be looking to find some consistency from period to period and to kind of get back to a more even-keeled feeling. At this point it's clear that they're a talented and fully capable team, but they have to believe it and be able to deliver that for a full sixty minutes. The goal is not too high, not too low and I'm not sure they've landed in that middle ground consistently much thus far.
UConn swept a series with Merrimack last weekend. The big push for the Huskies has to be on offense. They're skating on the thinnest of margins right now, averaging 1.9 goals scored and 1.6 goals allowed. The other top Hockey East teams are simply putting way more pucks in the net and have shown themselves capable of a lot more offense. It puts Connecticut in a tough spot in hoping for the best in low scoring games and unsure that they can keep up if things become a shootout.
I expect BC to really push the pace and the shot count in this series. It would be nice for UConn's goalies if the team's outcome didn't hinge on how good they can be. The Huskies need to try and slow down the Eagles, particularly in transition, not let them get short-handed chances and try not to let BC set up camp in the offensive zone.
(Photo: Cornell Women's Hockey/Instagram)