Maine Trust for Local News sports columnist Travis Lazarczyk is a voter in the U.S. College Hockey Online men’s poll. Each week he’ll share his top 20, as well as hit on a few items of interest in the sport.
- Boston University
- Michigan State
- Maine
- Western Michigan
- Penn State
- Denver
- Michigan
- North Dakota
- UMass
- Quinnipiac
- Boston College
- UConn
- Minnesota State
- Ohio State
- Colorado College
- Minnesota
- UNH
- Cornell
- Providence
- Clarkson
Maine looks strong in weekend sweep of Holy Cross
It looked like the Black Bears took the lessons learned in a 2-2 scrimmage against UNH to heart. Seven players scored at least one goal as Maine outscored Holy Cross 11-2 over the weekend, and freshman Justin Poirier recorded a hat trick in his first college game. Goalie Albin Boija looked sharp as usual, earning his seventh career shutout in Saturday’s 6-0 win. The Black Bears, who are seventh in the USCHO.com poll, face a tough nonconference test at Quinnipiac this weekend. The Bobcats have wins over Boston College and Notre Dame, but also a loss to Alaska-Fairbanks.
Top teams look shaky
Defending national champion Western Michigan opened with a loss to Ferris State. Penn State took a loss to Clarkson. Michigan State split a pair of games with UNH, and Michigan swept a pair of games at Providence. All that made picking a No. 1 team harder this week. I ended up going with Boston University after the Terriers took a win and tie over Colgate, but it wasn’t a confident pick. It’s early in the season and it doesn’t really matter who’s No. 1 in October, but the results last weekend didn’t lend themselves to creating a strong snapshot of the season thus far.
Some series this weekend that will no doubt affect next week’s poll: Maine at Quinnipiac, Michigan State at Boston University (the teams I had 1-2), and Ohio State and UConn.
Did we underestimate UNH?
It appears so. The Wildcats were picked to finish 10th out off the 11 teams in the Hockey East preseason poll. They tied Maine in their scrimmage at Bowdoin, winning the shootout, then split a pair of games at Michigan State, scoring with five seconds left to win Friday night. The Wildcats have experienced forwards, which can only help. With that in mind, I slid UNH into my top 20 at No. 17 this week. UNH jumps into conference play Saturday night at Merrimack.
