First Place Attainable

This is the weekend that UMD has the opportunity to take over 1st place alone in the WCHA. A sweep or near sweep over MSUM would put UMD alone on top. Denver is currently two points ahead of the 2nd place Bulldogs and Denver is off this weekend.

Score to Win. I know, if you don’t score, you don’t win. But with UMD it is a tale of how much scoring occurs. When UMD scores 3 or more goals, they are 14-0-1 and when less than three are scored, the Bulldogs are 0-7-0. So the whole team has to keep pushing forward, not relying on the previously mentioned big 4 (Fontaine, JConnolly, MConnolly, and Bordson). And that has been happening over the last games. As long as the whole team knows that they are all needed to win, it doesn’t seem to matter what the opponent does to try to shut down the MConnolly-JConnolly-Fontaine line.

That being said, the Bulldogs do seem to struggle on the road. 4-3-1 is the current road record going to Mankato this weekend. If the Bulldogs are to keep contending for the a top three spot in the WCHA, and even for the McNaughton Cup, road wins will have to be a part of that. Mankato may be a great place to pick up two road wins.

The Roads Traveled to Mankato. The Mavericks are coming off being swept at North Dakota last weekend as UMD was sweeping Colorado College in Duluth. Who does that favor? Is MSUM out to turn it around and take advantage of home ice or will heads be hanging low? Is UMD rolling and inertia will carry them through Mankato or will they look past MSUM? Both good questions, but this is the WCHA and teams do come out and play the games to a high level. But what also has to be noted is that UMD has not pieced together four wins in row this season and MSUM has not had four straight loses yet this season. If the Bulldogs are going to take advantage of the 8th place team in the WCHA, those streaks have to be broken.

Who’s in the Net? It will be interesting to see if UMD has found their #1 goalie in Kenny Reiter. I would expect to see him in net tonight and likely again Saturday. He is on fire and Coach Sandelin has ridden his hot goalies in the past.

A Bulldog Sweep is Great, but… A UMD sweep would mean first place in the WCHA as Denver is idle this weekend. A UMD sweep would definitely help their rankings nationally, except maybe in the Pairwise (PWR). Currently MSUM is a TUC helping UMD’s PWR. Two loses at the hands of UMD will likely take them out of the TUC. If that happens, UMD would want MSUM to get more wins, at least enough to keep them in the TUC.

Around the WCHA:

Wisconsin at Colorado College: A telling tale of tow teams highly regarded in the WCHA and nationally. CC is on a little slide after a trip to Duluth broken their unbeaten road record. Wisconsin is on a tear and many national writers and observers are talking that the badgers are the team to beat in the WCHA. After a Badger near sweep (3 points) early in the season, this Colorado Springs series looks like a split.


North Dakota at Minnesota: Another rematch of an early season series. The earlier results were a Sioux near sweep. This time North Dakota will better that with a sweep over a Gopher team that is still trying to find who will stand up and take the lead to make this group of NHL draftees a team. Think back to the NY Ranger’s attempts to make mega-star teams that missed the playoffs because they couldn’t come together. The Gophers are starting to fit that mold.


Alaska-Anchorage at Michigan Tech: The 9th place at the 10th place team. If Tech can play the way they do against Northern Michigan, or UMD for that matter, they will take a sweep. Likely this will be a split.


Saint Cloud State at Quinnipiac: This will be a good road test for the Huskies. If the WCHA non-conference record is the trend, this would be a 3 to 4 point SCSU weekend. The long travel could be reminiscent to NCAA tournament travel. SCSU has never won a Division I NCAA tournament game, so this may be a challenge. Not knowing much about Quinnipiac, I will sit back and watch the scores come in.

Vote for Hobey

The voting for the Hobey Baker award has begun and this year the Bulldogs have three players who could be candidates. Currently the voting is for the fans to narrow the selection down to a group to 10 players. This first phase will run through March 7th. Phase two will follow consisting of voting on the best from the group of 10 which will begin on March 19th. The final three finalists will be selected on April 1st and the winner awarded on April 9th.
The three UMD players on the ballot for the first round are Jack Connolly, Justin Fountaine and Rob Bordson. All three are having a great season so get out and vote to get them through to the next round.

Sweep Completed, Rankings on the Rise

In a show of force and talent, the UMD Bulldogs powered through the Colorado College Tigers Saturday night 4-1 to complete the sweep in Duluth. The scoring started for the second straight night by Kyle Schmidt with plenty of JConnolly, MConnolly, and Fontaine mixed into the scoring sheet.

The fact that the top line for UMD is producing points in the newly started second half of the WCHA season is very promising. The addition of other Bulldog players taking the opportunity of opposing teams paying so much attention to the top line has aided in the great success of Schmidt, Rob Bordson, and Travis Oleksuk.

Kenny Reiter has solidified the goalie situation with three strong games in row in which he started in net. Granted his defense in front of him has been improving greatly, Reiter still does have to make the plays and he has been.

Next the Bulldogs take this upward bound team on the road to Mankato for a key test. This road trip against the bottom-half dwelling Mavericks will be telling if the Bulldogs will continue to push for #1 in the WCHA and the McNaughton Cup. As of now, they are alone in second two points behind Denver. A sweep against Mankato would make leaps and bounds towards the cup.

Rankings. The USCHO poll released today places UMD at #10 up from #13 last week. The Inside College Hockey Power Rankings has UMD up six spots to #8. From INCH:

Let's dub the Bulldogs' forward trio of Mike Connolly, Jack Connolly, and Justin Fontaine the FCC Line. They can't be regulated, combining for six goals and seven assists in the weekend sweep of Colorado College.

With success comes expectations. Many are starting to expect a lot from this seaon’s Bulldogs.

Keep it Rolling as a Streak is Broken

No preview was written this week as I was battling the traditional winter cold this week, but did not miss the call of this big match of Minnesota – Duluth against Colorado College.

A great effort by the UMD Bulldogs at the DECC snaps the season-long, undefeated road record for Colorado College in a convincing way 5-2. After a stalemate in the first, 1 goal and 10 shots on goal for each team, the Bulldogs started the period that has killed them for most of the season, the second stanza. The Bulldogs may have turned a new leaf in taking the second period 3-0 over the Tigers.

As usual the Big 4 hit the tally sheet with Fontaine 2-0-2, JConnolly 0-2-2, MConnolly 1-2-3, and Bordson with 0-2-2. And as the Bulldogs have become very good at is adding scoring from the other lines with Drew Atkins and Kyle Schmidt tallying goals on the night.

Proving me wrong yet again was Kenny Reiter in the net. Another strong game may have tipped the scales in his favor as the #1 guy. We will wait until tomorrow night to see if a rotation is in play.

Now it is up to the Bulldogs to take care of business and finish the effort and take CC again tomorrow night. First road loss, why not make it two? And in the meantime further solidify the second place standing in the WCHA that UMD claimed tonight.

Uncertain Returns

With a disappointing loss to the host Vermont Catamounts in the Catamount Cup Finals the UMD Bulldogs keep at least two streaks alive, and neither of them are good.

UMD still has yet to win a game when they score 2 or fewer goals. So on continues the march of trying to solve the schemes other teams are putting up against the high scoring Bulldogs. Additionally, this is the second non-conference TUC team that UMD has lost to making them 0-2 for the season in that obscure category?

What is TUC? It is the first mention of it this season, so a definition is in order. TUC = Teams Under Consideration for the NCAA tournament. TUC is a comparison tool used in the PWR rankings that ultimately choose the 16 team NCAA field. As UMD picks up nice TUC wins against North Dakota, Denver, CC, and UMTC (they move in and out of the TUC) they could have really helped their stats with wins against Northern Michigan and Vermont.

Another opportunity to earn wins against CC are in order this weekend in another series at the DECC.

Trend or Mirage? After I came out and said that we need a number one goalie to emerge and that I thought it would be Hjelle, I was definitely proved wrong. In the Catamount Cup, Reiter proved to be the better of the tandem, and not by a small margin. It will be interesting to see what the performances of last weekend leads the coach to do this pivotal weekend.

UMD Brings Cold Blast to Mercyhurst

UMD came out and showed why they are a contending team in the WCHA Saturday night in the first round of the Catamount Cup in Burlington, Vermont. With strong defensive play and balanced scoring, the Bulldogs gave the cold shoulder to ACHL co-leader Mercyhurst 6-0.

Six different Bulldogs scored the six goals with Justin Fontaine leading the point getters with 3. Four other Bulldogs notched 2 points.

Some rustiness was evident early in the game given both teams were coming off of three week breaks, but UMD showed its fire power with three second period goals. The second period goals are important for UMD because of their documented troubles in the middle period thus far in the season.

Kenny Reiter posted the first shutout of the season for the Bulldogs stopping all 26 shots by the Lakers.

“Kenny’s performance and the fact that we got rolling in the second period, a period we haven’t done well in this season, made the difference in the game,” said Scott Sandelin, coach of the Bulldogs. “It was a good way to start the New Year.”

Tonight the team keeps playing for the Catamount Cup taking on host Vermont at 6:00pm CST.

Catamount Cup

Taking on Mercyhurst in the first round of the Catamount Cup seems like the easy way to the championship. The Lakers, an ACHL team that is at .500 (9-9-2) playing a high flying offense in the UMD Bulldogs, may be the closest to that hated cliché of a “trap game” that UMD will see this year. It can be deceiving as the Lakers are unbeaten in their last 8 games coming into the tourney. It is a matchup that should, and will in our opinion, swing the way of the Bulldogs without too much trouble.

The “holy grail” in this set-up is the possibility of playing the Catamounts in the championship. We at the HighHorse look forward to that challenge and besting Vermont to catapult UMD towards another NCAA berth.

What ever way it goes this weekend, expect great things from the Connolly-Connolly-Fontaine line and just enjoy the action.