Category: Men’s Hockey

Look back

I should have done this last week, but the end of the season is a good time to look back at the first end of season prediction. With 8 games remaining, I predicted the following:

UND went on to win 7 of its last 8 and landed at #5 in the PWR.

As for last week’s forecast, landing at 5 or 6 were the most likely outcomes for winning the series in 3.

Look forward

This one is a little boring. Unlike last season when the forecast surprisingly revealed that UND could land anywhere from #3 to #13, this year the possibilities are exactly what a human using the You Are The Committee tool would deduce: UND can land anywhere from #3 to #6. Winning it all is required to climb to #3 and would ensure a finish no lower than #5, otherwise #4 to #6 is possible.

The only interesting, though not surprising, thing to note is that UND is likely to finish slightly higher if they lose the play-in than if they win the play-in but go on to lose two. Of course, at this point in the season the absolute ranking is a lot less important than the bracket implications, for which you have to check out some other resources…

Other resources

• PWR Forum thread – already contains lots of discussion about exactly what needs to happen for UND to achieve each ranking
• You Are the Committee – Run your own PWR scenarios

This one’s a little different because each team could play 2 or 3 games.

Due to limitations of the simulator, I assume that every series other than UND/Minnesota will finish in two games. So, the extremes of these predictions are about right, but the frequency distributions in the middle could be a little off.

Without further ado…


Overall Analysis

• If UND sweeps, the Sioux could finish the weekend #3 (2% chance).
• Even if UND were to get swept, the Sioux would be positioned for a pretty much guaranteed NCAA tournament berth if the season ended this weekend (>99% chance of being 11th or higher)
• Leaving this weekend a #1 seed is: 45% chance if the Sioux sweep, a 7% chance if the Sioux win in 3

Crazy Stuff

• If swept, the Sioux could still leave the weekend with a 1 seed. In one scenario out of a million, UND gets swept and finishes #4
• If swept, the Sioux have an equal chance (one scenario out of a million) to leave the weekend #13 and in peril of missing the NCAA tournament

Of course, whether UND advances or not, there will be more games played after this weekend that will continue to move PWR a bit.

That’s all for this post, but there’s always more PWR discussion in the PWR thread.

This weekend’s games will mark the 15th and 16th meetings between the two teams in the past three seasons. In addition to the normal league schedule, the two teams met at the Great Lakes Invitational in December 2008 and faced each other in the league playoffs each of the past two seasons. In the previous 14 games, North Dakota is 10-3-1 against Michigan Tech and has outscored the Huskies 49-21. Sixteen games in three seasons is believed to be the most against one opponent in that span.

In the past five contests between the schools, the Fighting Sioux have been even more dominant, winning all five and scoring 22 goals while allowing 7.

After opening 2010 with a record of 4-5-2, UND has reeled off five straight victories and secured home ice for the first round of the WCHA playoffs. Michigan Tech has clinched the title of “having to travel to Denver to face the #1 Pioneers and win two games to extend their season”. Two weeks ago, DU swept the visiting Huskies, 5-2 and 5-3.

Michigan Tech has been in a freefall for two years. After collecting 18 victories in 2006-07 and 14 in 07-08, the Huskies have posted a record of 11-51-8 over the past two seasons.

North Dakota can still finish as high as third place in the WCHA, as UND holds the tiebreaker over 3rd place St. Cloud State and 4th place Minnesota-Duluth. Coming into this weekend, the Fighting Sioux trail UMD by two points and SCSU by four points in the standings. Duluth is at Anchorage this weekend, while St. Cloud State travels to Mankato for a pair with the Mavericks.

Michigan Tech Team Profile

Head Coach: (Jamie Russell, 7th season at MTU, 66-163-33, .315)
National Ranking: NR/NR
PairWise Ranking: NR
This Season: 5-26-1, 4-22-0 WCHA (10th)
Last Season: 6-25-7 overall, 2-19-7 WCHA (10th)
Team Offense: 2.12 goals scored/game
Team Defense: 4.19 goals allowed/game
Power Play: 15.6% (22 of 141)
Penalty Kill: 69.1% (121 of 175)
Key Players: Sophomore F Brett Olson (18-12-30), Senior F Malcolm Gwilliam (12-14-26), Junior F Jordan Baker (8-9-17), Freshman D Steven Seigo (4-15-19), Freshman G Kevin Genoe (4-17-1, 3.48 GAA, .904 SV%)

North Dakota Team Profile

Head Coach: Dave Hakstol (6th season at UND, 148-82-24, .630)
National Ranking: #7/#7
PairWise Ranking: t-6th
This Season: 18-11-5, 31-10-3 WCHA (5th)
Last Season: 24-15-4 overall (NCAA Northeast Regional semifinalist), 17-7-4 WCHA (1st)
Team Offense: 3.15 goals scored/game
Team Defense: 2.18 goals allowed/game
Power Play: 21.3% (39 of 183)
Penalty Kill: 87.4% (152 of 174)
Key Players: Sophomore F Jason Gregoire (15-12-27), Senior F Chris VandeVelde (13-18-31), Freshman F Danny Kristo (12-15-27), Junior F Evan Trupp (5-22-27), Junior D Derrick LaPoint (2-12-14), Sophomore G Brad Eidsness (17-8-4, 2.21 GAA, .910 SV%, 1 SO)

By The Numbers

Last Meeting: November 7, 2009 (Houghton, MI). UND defeated the Huskies 4-1 behind two goals from junior Evan Trupp. Trupp also had a goal in Friday’s 4-2 Sioux victory.

Last Meeting in Grand Forks: March 14, 2009. North Dakota held on for a 4-3 victory and a sweep of the WCHA first-round playoff series. It would turn out to be UND’s last victory of the 2008-09 season, as the Fighting Sioux lost both games at the WCHA Final Five (to Minnesota-Duluth and Wisconsin) and dropped their NCAA tournament opener to New Hampshire in overtime.

Most Important Meeting: The Sioux and Huskies have never met in the NCAA tournament, so I will go with the most important meeting that never was: in 1965, the Sioux lost to Boston College, 4-3, one game short of the national championship game, where they would have faced the Michigan Tech Huskies, who won the second of their three titles by defeating the Eagles. UND settled for third place that season, downing Brown University, 9-5. North Dakota went 13-3-0 in the regular season in 1964-65, with two of those three losses coming at the hands of Michigan Tech.

All-time Series: UND leads the all-time series, 138-90-9 (.599), including a 77-33-4 (.693) record in Grand Forks. The teams first met in 1948.

Last Ten: UND has posted a 7-2-1 (.750) record in the last ten games between the teams.

Game News and Notes

For the third consecutive week, two Fighting Sioux were honored as WCHA Players of the Week. This time around, freshman forward Corban Knight was chosen as the league’s top rookie (his third such honor this season) and sophomore goaltender Brad Eidsness earned Defensive Player honors for the second consecutive week. UND’s power play converts at 26.3 percent when Brett Hextall is in the lineup and just 6.5 percent when he does not play. Michigan Tech freshman goaltender Kevin Genoe made 58 saves last Friday night against Wisconsin. Despite the effort, MTU lost 5-2. North Dakota junior forward Matt Frattin has picked up eight points (5 goals, 3 assists) in his last five games, and has scored five goals and five assists in eleven career games against Michigan Tech. UND will honor its three seniors on the ice prior to Saturday’s game. Chay Genoway, Darcy Zajac, and Chris Vandevelde make up this year’s senior class. Our two children, Alex and Ashley, will ride the Zamboni during the first intermission on Friday night.

The Prediction

All signs point to a North Dakota sweep. Michigan Tech will need to play five on five to to keep it close and have a chance in the third period. If it’s a battle of special teams, the score could get ugly early. North Dakota 5-2, 4-2.

It’s that time of year, the season is winding down, and the number of remaining possible outcomes is declining dramatically, such that the PWR is becoming much more predictable. PWR aficionados know that in coming weeks the “You are the Committee” calculators (which allow you to punch in game outcomes and give you back the resultant PWR) will be coming online, so keep an eye out for those.

Last year I assumed this column would quite serving a purpose at that point, but quickly realized that the simulator is actually pretty good at finding the most extreme cases (e.g. UND could still finish #3 with this set of highly improbably outcomes), so this probably isn’t the end of these posts quite yet…

On to business…

Review last week

UND is #6 in PWR having one two. Referring to last week’s forecast, another solid hit.

The main event

This forecast has, by far, the tallest spikes of the season. PWR isn’t moving much this weekend.

How can UND end the weekend at #4

A bonus section… I analyzed those outcomes in which UND ends the weekend as #4, and hence would be slotted as a #1 seed. The following game outcomes were present in every such scenario. For the economists out there, these are necessary but not sufficient conditions (i.e. these outcomes alone won’t guarantee a #4 ranking, but the absence of these outcomes pretty much guarantees UND won’t have a #4 ranking):

UND must sweep Tech
Mankato needs at least 1 point vs SCSU
UNH needs at least 1 point vs BC

Other games to watch

These outcomes seem to help the Sioux in the widest variety of scenarios (that is, not just those in which UND sweeps and is fighting for a #4 ranking):

Mankato sweeping SCSU
Denver sweeping CC
Maine sweeping Mass
Alabama-Huntsville sweeping Bemidji St
UNH sweeping BC

I won’t try to figure out why each of those games matters here, but such discussions often crop up in the PWR Rankings forum thread

In most seasons during the Hakstol era, there is a midpoint (typically around the start of the new year) when his Fighting Sioux squad begins to get on a roll and pile up wins.

No one knew what to make of this season’s 7-1-1 start, a stretch during which UND was outscoring opponents 3.67-1.56 goals per game.

Everyone knows what happened to Chay Genoway on Friday the 13th of November, 2009. For the sake of this article, we’ll call that midpoint #1. Over the next nine games (up until January 1st and an interesting comparison to the nine games Genoway was in the lineup), UND struggled to a 2-5-2 mark, losing all five games by one goal and playing dead even hockey, scoring 25 goals and allowing 25 goals.

January 1, 2010. Midpoint #2. Since the calendar turned, North Dakota is 7-5-2 and is outscoring opponents 3.07-2.21 goals per game. Most importantly, Brett Hextall’s return has reignited the power play and UND has rattled off three straight victories, outscoring St. Cloud State and Minnesota-Duluth 18-4.

The biggest differences over the past 14 games have been solid defensive play and the goaltending of Brad Eidsness. A comfort level has developed on the back end which allows some of the more offensive-minded blueliners (Derrick Lapoint, Jake Marto, and Ben Blood) to play more effectively in the attacking zone.

Colorado College and North Dakota come into the weekend tied for 5th place in the WCHA, and this weekend’s action might well determine who claims the fifth and final home ice spot in the first round of the league playoffs.

Colorado College Team Profile

Head Coach: Scott Owens (11th season at CC, 256-145-38, .626)
National Rankings: #13/#12
PairWise Ranking: 17th
This Season: 17-12-3 Overall, 11-10-3 WCHA (t-5th)
Last Season: 16-12-10 Overall, 12-9-7 WCHA (t-3rd)
Team Offense: 3.34 goals scored/game
Team Defense: 2.78 goals allowed/game
Power Play: 22.9% (41 of 179)
Penalty Kill: 82.6% (123 of 149)
Key Players: Senior F Bill Sweatt (14-15-29), Senior F Mike Testwuide (18-9-27), Freshman F Rylan Schwartz (6-20-26), Senior D Nate Prosser (3-21-24), Freshman G Joe Howe (15-11-3, 2.74 GAA, .908 SV%, 3 SO)

North Dakota Team Profile

Head Coach: Dave Hakstol (6th season at UND, 146-82-24, .627)
National Ranking: #8/#8
PairWise Ranking: 8th
This Season: 16-11-5, 11-10-3 WCHA (t-5th)
Last Season: 24-15-4 overall (NCAA Northeast Regional semifinalist), 17-7-4 WCHA (1st)
Team Offense: 3.16 goals scored/game
Team Defense: 2.19 goals allowed/game
Power Play: 21.0% (37 of 176)
Penalty Kill: 86.6% (142 of 164)
Key Players: Sophomore F Jason Gregoire (15-12-27), Senior F Chris VandeVelde (12-18-30), Freshman F Danny Kristo (10-15-25), Junior F Evan Trupp (5-19-24), Junior D Derrick LaPoint (2-12-14), Sophomore G Brad Eidsness (15-8-4, 2.22 GAA, .909 SV%, 1 SO)

By The Numbers

Last Meeting: March 1, 2009 (Grand Forks, ND). North Dakota moved into first place in the WCHA with a thrilling 4-3 overtime victory over the visiting Tigers. The Fighting Sioux killed 1:50 of penalty time in the extra frame before Darcy Zajac netted the game winner with 90 seconds remaining. UND and CC battled to a 4-4 tie in Friday’s opener.

Last Meeting in Colorado Springs: November 8, 2008. Tiger forward Eric Walsky scored four goals as CC upended visiting North Dakota 7-4. UND won the series opener 3-1 a night earlier.

Most Important Meeting: March 27, 1997. UND defeated Colorado College, 6-2, in the Frozen Four Semifinals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Two nights later, North Dakota downed Boston University, 6-4, to claim its sixth NCAA Championship. North Dakota and Colorado College also met in the 2001 East Regional (Worcester, Mass.), with UND prevailing, 4-1.

All-time Series: UND leads the all-time series, 132-75-10 (.631), although the Tigers hold a 55-45-4 (.548) edge in games played in Colorado Springs. The teams first met in 1948.

Last Ten: North Dakota is 6-3-1 (.650) in the last ten meetings between the teams.

Game News and Notes

Colorado College has not lost this season when leading after one period of play (10-0-2), and have won only twice when trailing after the opening twenty minutes (2-9-0). The WCHA honored a pair of North Dakota sophomores after last weekend, as forward Brett Hextall (four points) and goaltender Brad Eidsness (53 saves on 56 shots) were named Offensive and Defensive players of the week. UND’s power play converts at 26.6 percent when Brett Hextall is in the lineup and just 6.5 percent when he does not play.

The Prediction

This series has split written all over it, but if North Dakota continues to score at a breakneck pace, they could squeeze three points out of the weekend. Friday’s first period is key for both teams, and will forecast how the rest of the weekend will play out. North Dakota 4-2, Colorado College 4-3.

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions.

Review of last week’s forecast

The Feb. 22 forecast predicted that with a sweep the Sioux would most likely be 7th or 8th (a 25-30% chance of each). The Sioux are currently #8 in PWR.

Look at next week

This is actually a pretty interesting chart. The split and sweep scenarios have very tall spikes, meaning there’s a pretty narrow range in which UND is likely to fall in those scenarios. If UND gets swept, however, the Sioux are just as likely to be #10 as #16 — it really depends what else happens around the league.

Games to watch

Here are the non-Sioux games that could have the most influence on UND’s PWR after this weekend. The very different shapes of the UND PWR curves this week might affect how you interpret this list — since there is much higher variance on the swept curve, games that most affect the Sioux if UND gets swept probably dominate this list.

AA over Alaska (sweep helps 1.6, split 1.16)
Princeton/Quinnipiac over Yale (sweep helps .99, one win .54)
Merrimack over Maine (sweep helps .79)
Northeastern over UNH (sweep helps .55)

Two week (end of regular season) forecast

With only four games remaining in the regular season, this forecast demonstrates just how volatile PWR is. UND stands a modest chance (~5%) of finishing the regular season with a 1-seed PWR ranking (#3 or #4) with two sweeps. On the back side, getting swept out would almost certainly knock UND out of the field, with only a ~5% chance of finishing #16 or higher.

More likely scenarios lead to more middling outcomes, though winning 2 or more leaves UND quite likely to be in the tournament field as of the end of the regular season. Then, of course, the WCHA tournament should provide similar opportunity to rise or fall.

Though these days we usually focus on the PairWise rankings, because they determine who makes the NCAA tournament, SiouxSports.com’s toolset was actually originally launched with a surprisingly complicated program that calculate the possible final WCHA standings.

As the Sioux are in the somewhat unusual position of fighting for home ice in the conference tournament and worried about making the NCAA tournament, it felt like time to dust it off. Here’s how the WCHA race looks as of today.

If North Dakota has an edge in this series, it’s this: the last time Duluth traveled to Ralph Engelstad Arena to take on the Fighting Sioux was November 24, 2007. The Bulldogs have 15 players on the roster who have never played in Grand Forks.

The Bulldogs have hit a bit of a rough patch lately, winning just twice in their last six games. UMD was swept in a home-and-home with Bemidji State and posted consecutive splits against Wisconsin and Michigan Tech. Duluth was idle last weekend.

North Dakota is coming off of its best 120 minute performance of the season. Despite splitting with the Huskies in St. Cloud, UND carried the play offensively and physically throughout the weekend. If the Green and White hope to improve their position for the NCAAs, they will need to play that brand of hockey from here on out.

Minnesota-Duluth Team Profile

Head Coach: Scott Sandelin (10th season at UMD, 162-184-46, .472)
This Season:  18-11-1 Overall, 14-7-1 WCHA (t-3rd)
National Rankings: #6/#6
PairWise Ranking: t-9th
Team Offense: 3.33 goals scored/game
Team Defense: 2.70 goals allowed/game
Power Play: 22.2% (41 of 185)
Penalty Kill: 80.4% (127 of 158)
Last Season: 22-13-8 Overall (NCAA West Regional Finalist), 10-11-7 WCHA
Key Players: Sophomore F Jack Connolly (16-23-39), Junior F Justin Fontaine (17-19-36), Junior F Rob Bordson (8-26-34), Sophomore F Mike Connolly (11-20-31), Sophomore D Brady Lamb (8-7-15), Junior G Kenny Reiter (10-6-0, 2.22 GAA, .917 SV%, 2 SO)

North Dakota Team Profile

Head Coach: Dave Hakstol (6th season at UND, 144-82-24, .624)
National Ranking: #11/#11
PairWise Ranking: t-13th
This Season: 14-11-5, 9-10-3 WCHA (6th)
Last Season: 24-15-4 overall (NCAA Northeast Regional semifinalist), 17-7-4 WCHA (1st)
Team Offense: 3.03 goals scored/game
Team Defense: 2.23 goals allowed/game
Power Play: 20.9% (34 of 163)
Penalty Kill: 86.3% (132 of 153)
Key Players: Sophomore F Jason Gregoire (13-11-24), Senior F Chris VandeVelde (11-16-27), Freshman F Danny Kristo (9-14-23), Junior F Evan Trupp (5-18-23), Junior D Derrick LaPoint (2-11-13), Sophomore G Brad Eidsness (13-8-4, 2.28 GAA, .905 SV%, 1 SO)

By The Numbers

Last Meeting: December 5, 2009 (Duluth, MN). The Bulldogs got a controversial tying goal from Travis Oleksuk with just over thirty seconds remaining in regulation to force overtime, and completed the comeback just 12 seconds into the extra session to defeat North Dakota 3-2. The Fighting Sioux won Friday’s opener, 4-2.

Last Meeting in Grand Forks: November 24, 2007. After defeating Duluth 8-3 on Friday night, UMD’s Drew Akins scored an improbable 80 foot goal for the game winner on Saturday. It was Duluth’s first win in Grand Forks in eleven attempts.

Most Important Meeting: March 22, 1984 (Lake Placid, NY) Minnesota-Duluth and North Dakota met in the national semifinal game, with the Bulldogs defeating the Fighting Sioux 2-1 in overtime to advance to the championship. UND went on to defeat Michigan State 6-5 (OT) for third place, while Duluth fell to Bowling Green 5-4 in four overtimes, the longest championship game ever played.

All-time Series: UND leads the all-time series, 126-70-8 (.637), including a 72-30-2 (.702) record in games played in Grand Forks

Last Ten: North Dakota is 5-4-1 (.550) in the last ten games between the teams.

Game News and Notes

Sioux forwards Chris Vandevelde and Corban Knight were honored by the WCHA for their play last weekend against St. Cloud State. Vandevelde notched two goals and four assists on the weekend and was named co-offensive player of the week, and Knight earned Rookie of the Week honors for his four point effort (one goal, three assists). The Bulldogs have three of the top ten scorers in the league in Connolly, Fontaine, and Bordson. UND will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of its 2000 championship on Saturday night. Members of that team will be available for autographs and Saturday’s game program will feature a pull-out poster of the team.

The Prediction

If North Dakota can put together more series like last weekend’s games in St. Cloud, the wins will start to pile up. I’m not ready to give the Sioux a home sweep just yet, but it’s not out of the question. UND 3-2, 3-3 tie.

Thank you for reading. I welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions.

Look back at last week’s forecast

Looking back at the PWR forecast for Feb. 15, the Sioux split and landed right in the meaty part of the prediction for a split, a drop of 2 places to #13 in today’s PWR.

Prediction of UND’s PWR after this weekend

After the excitement of last week’s forecast, in which UND’s PWR was unnaturally high such that a split made a fall in ranking very likely, this week’s forecast is a bit more boring. In fact, it looks a lot like last week’s. From #13, UND is likely to rise a couple spots with a sweep, fall a couple spots getting swept, and stay about where they are if they split.

Games to watch

Minnesota over Colorado College (sweep helps UND 1.2)
Mass.-Lowell over Maine (sweep helps UND 1.1, single win helps .76)
Miami over Nebraska-Omaha (sweep helps UND .87)
Vermont over New Hampshire (sweep helps UND .84)
Merrimack over Massachusetts (sweep helps UND .78, single win helps .63)
St. Lawrence/Clarkson over Yale (sweep helps UND .78, single win helps .61)

Look ahead to end of regular season

UND remains in the driver’s seat. To finish the regular season in a tournament-likely position (e.g. #13 in PWR or better) would require winning 4 of the remaining 6.