Maine
With a loss, Maine slips in the latest college hockey poll
Maine’s Thomas Freel skates after Bentley’s Ethan Leyh, who gained control of the puck during the Black Bears’ 4-2 loss Sunday at Cross Insurance Arena in Portland. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald
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 will share his top 20 votes, as well as hit on a few items of interest in the sport.
1. Michigan State
2. Boston College
3. Minnesota
4. Western Michigan
5. Providence
6. Colorado College
7. Maine
8. Denver
9. Minnesota State
10. UMass Lowell
11. North Dakota
12. St. Cloud State
13. Michigan
14. Ohio State
15. Cornell
16. Boston University
17. Quinnipiac
18. Arizona State
19. Dartmouth
20. UNH
What to do about exhibition games? That’s the question after a lot of teams returned from the break by playing either a Canadian university team, like UMass Lowell (a 2-0 win over Simon Fraser), the U.S. national development team, like Arizona State (4-3 and 1-0 wins for the Sun Devils), or a talented club team, like Colorado College and Denver did in playing UNLV. Colorado College beat UNLV, 8-0. Denver, on the other hand, earned a tie against UNLV but lost the shootout. The Pioneers did rally from a 5-1 deficit after two periods to salvage the tie, but still, Colorado College beat the same team by eight goals. Is it comparing apples to apples or apples to hockey pucks? The games don’t really count, but at the same time they count. I went with my gut and slid Colorado College up to No. 6 and Denver down to No. 8. Plenty of hockey left to sort it all out. In the case of Clarkson, which took a 5-1 loss to Concordia of Quebec, I took the Golden Knights out of the No. 20 spot and replaced them with UNH, which earned a 7-4 win over RPI, improving the Wildcats to 4-0-1 since a loss to Maine on Nov. 22.
Providence is on a roll. The Friars picked up wins over Northeastern and Dartmouth over the weekend to win the Ledyard Classic at Dartmouth, a tournament Maine won last season. Those victories improved Providence’s win streak to seven. With Maine’s loss to Bentley, it was an easy call to jump the Friars up to No. 5 on my ballot, ahead of the Black Bears. Providence is off until facing city rival Brown on Jan. 7, followed by a home-and-home against Boston College on Jan. 17-18.