Conference tournaments wrap up
Five winners will join CHA's Bemidji State as NCAA automatic bids
Oh, it's on … on like Donkey Kong. Or maybe that's Doggy Kong. The final weekend of conference playoff activity started Thursday in St. Paul, Minn., where Minnesota Duluth thrilled its fans, Gopher haters and mathematicians with a gutty 2-1 win over Minnesota. The Bulldogs may have an inside track on an NCAA tournament at-large bid, but we're certain they have a date with North Dakota in Friday's semifinals.
ATLANTIC HOCKEY | CCHA | CHA | ECAC HOCKEY | HOCKEY EAST | WCHA
Atlantic Hockey
Semifinals
Bracket
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Semifinal opponent: No. 4 Bentley
Falcons Fact: Air Force has won two playoff titles in two seasons of Atlantic Hockey play. The Falcons are 9-1 in league playoff games.
How Air Force Wins: The Falcons have a very nice offense, but championships are won with defense. Andrew Volkening is the perfect backstop in a pressure-packed tournament, with seven postseason wins and five outings of two goals allowed or fewer.
Semifinal opponent: No. 3 Mercyhurst
Tigers fact: RIT owns a 13-7 record in Rochester this season, but lost twice at tourney site Blue Cross Arena (against St. Lawrence and the U.S. Under-18 exhibition). The Tigers also lost to Air Force at Blue Cross in the 2008 semifinals.
How RIT Wins: The Tigers, backed against the wall, struck for 15 goals in a pair of wild shootout wins over Holy Cross last weekend. RIT has proved it can strike big against tourney foes, dropping six goals on Air Force three weeks ago and depositing six and five on Mercyhurst in two mid-December wins. RIT must get some better defense, however, having surrendered 14 goals in the three-game set with Holy Cross.
Semifinal opponent: No. 2 RIT
Lakers Fact: This is Mercyhurst's fifth semifinal appearance in six seasons of Atlantic play.
How Mercyhurst Wins: Mercyhurst has scored at least four goals in eight of its past nine games. The defense has come along for the ride, holding foes to three-or-fewer in the past five contests. The combination may be good enough to win.
Semifinal opponent: No. 1 Air Force
Falcons Fact: Bentley is 3-6-1 against the other three semifinalists. This is Bentley's first trip to the semifinal round since bowing out in the 2006 final to Holy Cross.
How Bentley Wins: The line of Jeff Gumaer, Anthony Canzoneri and Dain Prewitt has to deliver. The trio put up eight goals and 21 points in the three-game set with Canisius. Kyle Rank was bludgeoned for five goals Saturday, but delivered solid efforts on Friday and Sunday. It's one-and-done time now, so Rank has to come up big.
CCHA
Semifinals
Bracket
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Semifinal opponent: No. 6 Northern Michigan
Fighting Irish Fact: It's more than fair to say that Notre Dame's power play is extremely effective on a nightly basis, as it converted a nation-best 23.7 percent of its chances this season, but one might need a stronger adjective to describe the Irish's success against Northern Michigan with a man advantage. Obscene comes to mind when reviewing their 15-for-31 mark in four games against the Wildcats this season -- good enough for an eye-popping 48.4 percent mark. Oh, and during that stretch, the penalty kill wasn't too shabby itself, allowing just one goal on 21 Northern Michigan power plays.
How Notre Dame Wins: First and foremost, the Fighting Irish can't look past Northern Michigan -- or any other opponent they may meet this weekend, for that matter -- but coach Jeff Jackson has immense respect for Wildcats coach Walt Kyle and his team, so that's not too much of a worry. Notre Dame just needs to keep doing what it's done so well all year -- take advantage of shut-down defensemen and go to the net relentlessly, as that makes the Irish hard to beat.
Semifinal opponent: No. 4 Alaska
Wolverines Fact: Friday will mark Michigan's 20th consecutive appearance in the CCHA semifinals, and the Wolverines will be vying for their ninth CCHA playoff title. As last year's winners of the Mason Cup, it's worth noting that the Wolverines last won back-to-back playoff titles in 2002 and 2003; they won the regular season in 2001-02 and were able to repeat without doing so in 2002-03 -- a parallel situation to their regular-season championship last year and second-place finish this year.
How Michigan Wins: On top of solid goaltending from Bryan Hogan, Michigan needs to continue to spread the puck around and get goals from all over the line chart. While sophomores Louie Caporusso and Aaron Palushaj have garned a lot of attention, secondary scoring -- depending on the line charts -- from the likes of freshman David Wohlberg, sophomore Matt Rust and seniors Tim Miller and Travis Turnbull is what makes opponents crumble.
Semifinal opponent: No. 2 Michigan
Nanooks Fact: In the three previous postseason meetings between Alaska and Michigan, the Wolverines have outscored the Nanooks by a combined 22-2 mark. That seems like ancient history -- two games played at Yost in 1997 and one at Joe Louis Arena in 2005 -- as it would take an opponent almost 13 games to score 22 goals against this year's Nanooks. They allowed just 1.70 goals per game -- second best in the country.
How Alaska Wins: Alaska needs to keep up its stingy defensive habits, count on a couple of outstanding games from goaltender Chad Johnson and simply just not fall behind. This team doesn't have the offensive firepower to match Michigan or Notre Dame goal for goal, so keeping the puck out of the net and converting its chances is key.
Semifinal opponent: No. 1 Notre Dame
Wildcats Fact: The bad news for Northern Michigan is that it couldn't beat Notre Dame in four chances this season. But on the brighter side, the Wildcats have beaten the Fighting Irish in each of their past two meetings at Joe Louis Arena -- 2-1 in last year's third-place game and 3-1 in the 2002 Super Six quarterfinals.
How Northern Michigan Wins: The obvious key here is for the Wildcats to stay out of the penalty box, as Notre Dame has scored at least two power-play goals in each of the four meetings between the two teams. Beyond that, while it will take a special effort from players such as Mark Olver, Gregor Hansen and Erik Gustafsson, the key to victory will lie in goaltender Brian Stewart's hands.
CHA
Championship: Bemidji State 3, Robert Morris 2 (OT)
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ECAC Hockey
Semifinals
Bracket
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Semifinal opponent: No. 4 St. Lawrence
Bulldogs Fact: Yale has played in three conference semifinal games in its ECAC Hockey history and has yet to win one. The Bulldogs' three losses? Against Cornell in 1986, St. Lawrence in 1987 and Princeton in 1998 -- familiar names this weekend, eh?
How Yale Wins: Most nights this year, Yale found the ways to win the close ones. Two times it didn't were the two meetings against St. Lawrence, which ended in a tie and a St. Lawrence win. Senior goalie Alec Richards didn't start either of those games, and Yale won 17 of his 21 starts. He could be the difference if Yale is to win the close one this time around.
Semifinal opponent: No. 3 Princeton
Big Red Fact: Cornell has an impressive streak of success on the line. If the Big Red don't win twice this weekend, the senior class of '09 will be Cornell's first group of graduating seniors not to have won an ECAC Hockey playoff title since 2002.
How Cornell Wins: Cornell played last weekend without two key offensive players, Blake Gallagher and Joe Devin, and the Big Red will need to make sure they get scoring support this weekend from players other than Riley Nash and Colin Greening. Look for Tyler Mugford, Patrick Kennedy and Locke Jillson to take on increased offensive roles.
Semifinal opponent: No. 3 Cornell
Tigers Fact: Princeton has won 20 games in back-to-back years for the first time in school history, and just the third time overall. Each of the first two 20-win seasons resulted in a trip to the NCAA tournament.
How Princeton Wins: The Tigers would be wise to break through early in their semifinal game against Cornell, as they did in Sunday's deciding quarterfinal series win over Union. Princeton was held off the scoreboard in two regular-season games against the Big Red for the first 119 minutes of two games. Two goals in the last minute of the third period in the second meeting gave Princeton an improbable victory. The Tigers would be wise to get in front against the strong front-running Cornell.
Semifinal opponent: No. 1 Yale
Saints Fact: St. Lawrence is looking to join Cornell, Harvard and Clarkson as the only teams in ECAC Hockey to have won a playoff championship at all three tournament sites -- Boston, Lake Placid and Albany.
How St. Lawrence Wins: Most teams would be thrilled heading into the league semifinals with a starting goalie who ranks eighth nationally in save percentage (.928) and 12th in the country in goals-against average (2.13), but Alex Petizian's total overall numbers are actually fourth-best in a goaltending-laden tournament. He's got to perform on an even level to his peers, or even better, to give the Saints' talented forwards and dangerous defensemen a chance to make a difference.
Hockey East
Semifinals
Bracket
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Semifinal opponent: No. 6 Boston College
Terriers Fact: The Terriers reached the Hockey East semifinals for the 18th time (8-9 record) in the league's 25-year history, snapping their tie with Maine for the most all-time appearances. They've also advanced to the semifinals for the eighth consecutive year, which set a new record. And BU has won four of its six Hockey East titles as the No. 1 seed.
How Boston University Wins: Don't let up. The Terriers have been the best team in Hockey East all season, and when they play with a purpose, they blow teams out of the rink -- just use the Maine series as an example. And in this one-and-out format, the Terriers have to be smarter and stay out of the penalty box. They gave up four power-play goals in their Game 2 loss to the Black Bears. Other than that, BU has a great cast of blueliners in front of its typically rock-solid goalie in Kieran Millan, and it has two tremendously talented scoring lines.
Record: 25-10-4 (18-6-3 HEA)
Semifinal opponent: No. 5 UMass Lowell
Huskies Fact: Their last trip to the Hockey East semifinals came in 1994, which was the longest active drought in the league. Northeastern was also the only team in Hockey East not to play a league playoff game in the TD Banknorth Garden/FleetCenter.
How Northeastern Wins: Keep playing great defense, and protect goalie Brad Thiessen. The Huskies learned how to handle the pressure of playing in the Garden during last month's Beanpot and can take advantage of UMass Lowell's inexperience in that regard. They've also developed some big-game forwards in Wade MacLeod, Joe Vitale, Alex Tuckerman and Steve Quailer.
Record: 19-15-2 (14-11-2 HEA)
Semifinal opponent: No. 2 Northeastern
River Hawks Fact: They lost their first seven one-goal games of the season, but they've gone 7-1 in one-goal decisions since then. That streak also includes six consecutive victories in games decided by one goal.
How UMass Lowell Wins: The River Hawks have simply been playing harder than their opponents, and they've got a physical edge that is rarely matched. They've also scored 19 goals during their four-game winning streak, and sophomore Scott Campbell is leading the way with three goals and five assists during that span. Lowell is 10-3-2 in its past 15 games, but two losses came against Northeastern -- its semifinal opponent -- on Feb. 27-28. The River Hawks scored only one goal that weekend and went 0-for-12 on the power play. Clearly, an upset of the Huskies has to start with better play on the man advantage.
Semifinal opponent: No. 1 Boston University
Eagles Fact: The three-time defending Hockey East champions are 17-1 in the conference playoffs over the past five seasons, but their only loss came against Boston University -- Friday's opponent -- in the 2006 championship game.
How Boston College Wins: Goalie John Muse is playing at a championship level again, and he obviously plays better when the games mean more. The Eagles have to stay steady defensively in their zone and not allow easy scoring chances. No team in the field knows what it takes to win at this time of year better than Boston College.
WCHA
Semifinals
Bracket
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Semifinal opponent: No. 7 Minnesota Duluth
Fighting Sioux Fact: Senior Ryan Duncan's game-winning goal last Friday was the 17th of his career, leaving him one shy of Mark Taylor's school record, set in 1980. Duncan has moved into a tie with Tony Hrkac for 15th place on UND's all-time scoring list with 170 points. Duncan (2007) and Hrkac (1987) are the only Hobey winners in Sioux hockey history.
How North Dakota Wins: While pondering what their team might do in St. Paul, the "glass is half empty" Sioux fans would probably point the spotlight at rookie goalie Brad Eidsness and wonder aloud how a freshman who's never been in that situation before would respond to a half-hostile crowd of 15,000 or more. We think, after a season in Grand Forks playing before 11,000 of the most knowledgeable and demanding fans in college hockey, the Xcel Energy Center will be pretty much the same deal, albeit with a few fewer Sioux logos and a very disappointing laser show. The key for NoDak is depth, and the inability of opponents to focus their attention on stopping any one line or one player.
Semifinal opponent: No. 8 Wisconsin
Pioneers Fact: The Pioneers are the defending Broadmoor Trophy champions, having defeated Minnesota 2-1 in the 2008 title game. They will be looking to go four for their last four trips to St. Paul, having won the tournament in their last three Final Five appearances, in 2002, 2005 and 2008.
How Denver Wins: One has to wonder what else can go wrong for the Pioneers, injurywise this season. They've been without Tyler Bozak for several weeks (but expect him back for the NCAA tournament), lost Rhett Rakhshani for a time, and are now without Tyler Ruegsegger for the rest of the season, after the 15-goal junior suffered a knee injury in the opener of Denver's playoff sweep of Alaska Anchorage. Those would be more crippling maladies if not for the Pioneers' offensive depth, and the ability of players like Anthony Maiani, Luke Salazar (15 goals as a freshman) and the league's two best blueliners named Patrick -- Wiercioch and Mullen -- to step in.
Semifinal opponent: No. 1 North Dakota
Bulldogs Fact: This season, junior goaltender Alex Stalock became the second Bulldog ever to finish as the WCHA's goals-against average leader (the first was All-American Rick Kosti in 1983-84). Stalock had a 2.39 GAA in league play.
How Minnesota Duluth Wins: The strongest stretches for the Bulldogs this season have come when the big guns (Justin Fontaine and MacGregor Sharp, mostly notably) have been moving the puck, getting shots to the net and pouncing on rebounds. In addition, the power play was a key all season, as the Bulldogs led the WCHA in man-advantage efficiency (22 percent) in part because Stalock is so adept at handling the puck and starting the breakout when the penalty-killing opponent clears the puck the length of the ice. Stalock was named the league's defensive player of the week four times, and is the poorly kept secret to the Bulldogs' success when he's in control.
Semifinal opponent: No. 2 Denver
Badgers Fact:The Badgers need two wins this weekend not only to assure themselves of a NCAA tournament invite, but to keep a 40-year streak alive. Since 1970, the Badgers have won at least one WCHA playoff title in every decade, with four in the '70s, three in the '80s and three in the '90s. Their last hoisting of the Broadmoor Trophy was in 1998, when they beat North Dakota 3-2 in Milwaukee for the title.
How Wisconsin Wins: After raves about the defense all season (accompanied by questions about the offense and goaltending) the Badgers have recently reacquired the art of shooting the puck. In their two-game playoff sweep of Minnesota State, Wisconsin sent more than 110 shots at the Mavs' net and scored 11 goals. The secret weapon on offense for the Badgers is junior forward John Mitchell, who is about as secret as a 6-foot-5, 222-pound guy can be. His wheels, reach and shot make the Wisconsin offense click, and with a player like Jamie McBain on the blue line feeding pucks in deep, the Badgers suddenly look like a more realistic NCAA tourney threat.
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