PC Hockey Jumps to #7 in National Rankings After Sweeping Colorado College
Robert McMahon, Sports Columnist
PC Hockey Jumps to #7 in National Rankings After Sweeping Colorado College
Entering this past weekend, the Providence College Friars hockey team was ranked #10 and the Colorado College Tigers #8. Thanks to a great weekend at Schneider Arena with 4-3 and 5-1 wins against the Tigers, the Friars have surged to #7 in the 12/9/24 US College Hockey Organization poll. This is the highest ranking in the USCHO poll for the Friars, now 12-3-2, this season.
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The complete USCHO poll results are shown below.
Some observations on these rankings: There are 65 Division 1 college hockey teams in the country. Hockey East has 4 of the top 10 ranked teams—Boston College, Maine, Providence, and UMass Lowell. Denver, the preseason favorite to win the NCAA championship this season, occupied the #1 spot for several weeks, going 12-0. They have lost 3 out of their last four games and have slid to #4. This is the first time this year that the Minnesota Gophers have been ranked #1, after shutting out and stunning Michigan twice this past weekend. The Boston College Eagles have rotated between the #1 and #3 rankings in the last 3 weeks.
You’ll notice that North Dakota, which beat the Friars in the first game of the season and was ranked #6 at the time, has fallen on uncharacteristic hard times. The Fighting Hawks, playing just .500 hockey the last few weeks with a current record of 9-7-1, has dropped to # 16 in the latest poll.
There are many surprises in college hockey this year, but two of the most surprising are Maine and Arizona State.
Maine, which I tabbed in the pre-season as a #3 or #4 team in Hockey East with Providence College, currently leads Hockey East in points and is strong #5 in the country. The Maine Bears have gotten incredible goal-tending from sophomore Albin Boija. The Bears are scoring 4 goals/game, while only giving up1.6 goals/game. Maine will play PC in a twin bill at Schneider the weekend of February 7th and 8th. Should be a great test for the Friars.
Arizona State is playing better hockey than the pre-season polls predicted. The Friars swept them at PC in mid-October winning 4-1 and 2-1. And the Sundevils wandered for several weeks at the bottom of the National College Hockey Association (NCHA). But they swept Denver at Denver a couple of weeks ago and are nationally ranked this week and last week for the first time in the history of the relatively new program.
Some Additional Slap Shots
Some good news from the PC sweep of Colorado College this past weekend:
--Defenseman Taige Harding had 4 assists in the 5-1 PC win.
--Nine different Friars scored a point in the 5-1 win. Talk about balanced scoring!
Some not-so-good news from the weekend games with Colorado College:
--PC was 0-7 on the power play and is 0-13 in their last 4 games; the PC season success rate on the power play is now only 17%.
Correction: The next PC home game against Boston College is January 18th (not January 16th as previously reported).
Providence returns to action on Saturday, Dec. 28 when the Friars take on the Northeastern Huskies at 4 p.m. in the Ledyard Classic at Thompson Arena in Hanover, N.H.
Trivia Answer
The following players from the PC 2015 NCAA Championship team are still playing in the NHL:
Kevin Rooney—Currently playing for the Calgary Flames; formerly with the New Jersey Devils and the New York Rangers.
Brandon Tanev—Currently with the Seattle Kraken; formerly with the Winnipeg Jets and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Noel Acciari—The pride of Johnston, RI, and currently with the Pittsburgh Penguins; formerly with the Boston Bruins, the Florida Panthers, the St. Louis Blues, and the Toronto Maple Leafs.