It was the most exciting first round we’ve had since the tournament expanded to 11 teams. Stonehill was blown out 7-1 by Cornell, but managed to score the program’s first ever NCAA goal. Penn State took SLU to overtime scoreless before surrendering a goal late to give the Saints their first NCAA tournament win since 2007.

St. Lawrence had a good screen set up in front of the Penn State netminder with two forwards giving about a 1-2 foot buffer before the goaltender. One of the SLU forwards was shoved into the crease, but managed to avoid making contact with the goaltender that could have negated the goal. Props to the SLU skating coach for that one.

Poor Penn State, who has been knocked out in overtime two years in a row now. The Nittany Lions looked like they were on the cusp of being a solid top-ten team until Kiara Zanon transferred to Ohio State. They’re still searching for their first NCAA win and the CHA’s first NCAA win since 2014. Yep, it’s been a decade.

And then the UConn – UMD game.

The Huskies and Bulldogs went to two overtimes with UMD holding a decent, but not dominant advantage in shots. UConn appeared to score the game winner late in the second overtime, but the play was reviewed and the goal disallowed for offsides. Despite there allegedly being blue line cameras in the 63 year old, 800 seat ice rink OSU makes their women play in and host a nationally televised game, we never got a review where we could see the puck and the offsides player at the same time. I don’t know where the cameras were situated, but we’re led to believe that the ref right in front of the play missed / was screened from what cameras ultimately captured.

This doesn’t even get into that reviewing offsides in hockey is asinine. Aside from instances where the puck carrier or the offsides player scores immediately, there’s no reason to review offsides. You’re reviewing a thing that led to a thing that led to a thing that led to a thing that led to a goal. Did it matter? Who knows. If we got into reviewing every possible infraction that could have had an impact games will be 9 hours long. In this case there was one pass and 5-6 puck touches before the shot and goal. UMD had the opportunity to recover the puck from the puck carrier and failed.

But that wasn’t all. UMD’s eventual “winner” came on a play that is at best controversial and at worst dead wrong. A UMD forward skated backwards into UConn goaltender Tia Chan making small but notable contact before sliding to the stick side. As a shot was coming in from the point, a UConn defender shoved that forward into the crease. That forward swung her stick at Chan, striking her in the back, and then immediately existed the crease. It looks like she makes contact with Chan’s stick-side leg pad as she exits to the top of the crease rather than to the open space stick side.

Per NCAA rules (b, first paragraph) the play should have been blown dead for the UMD forward entering the crease before being shoved. Section b, third paragraph absolves the attacking player if they are pushed into the crease, but doesn’t provide any guidelines as to how much the forward is allowed to barrel into the goaltender under the guise of being shoved or whether they need to avoid intentional contact with the goaltender after being shoved.

If the UConn defender doesn’t shove the UMD forward, she probably clears the rebound so the UConn coaching staff should be asking themselves a lot of questions after that one.

#1 Ohio State vs. #8 Minnesota Duluth

3/16,  4 PM ET

If you watch Survivor, UMD is kind of like the Boston Rob of college hockey. They were really good once, but that was a long time ago. It seems like they’re here every year, but they never win, and are running on mostly reputation at this point.

UMD continually has good goaltending so they’ve always got a chance to spring an upset, but it’s a tough road when you can’t manage 20 shots on goal and haven’t scored a goal on your opponent since Shannon Miller was coach. (267:24 of play, or 155 calendar days come gametime)

This game will be played at Ohio State’s garbage OSU Ice Rink which was built in 1961, seats 800, and has a single center-ice camera that looks like it’s about 5 rows up. The broadcast picture quality looks like Sasquatch footage, and the locker rooms are in the basement. (I did not make that up though it might just be the visitors.) OSU’s Schottenstein Center where the men play seats 18,000+, was built in 1998 and was available this weekend per their online schedule.

The OSU AD tells me they have the Schottenstein Center reserved for next year if they host another regional.

Yay.

Ohio State answers the question, what if you made the whole team out of transfers? The Buckeyes have on their team players who were at one point:

  • BC’s best forward (Hannah Bilka)
  • Penn State’s best forward (Kiara Zanon)
  • BC’s best defender (Cayla Barnes)
  • BC’s best defender a different season (Hadley Hartmetz)
  • A top pair defender from Clarkson (Lauren Bernard, OH native)
  • A 2nd pair defender from Clarkson (Steph Markowski)
  • Minnesota State’s best forward (Kelsey King)
  • Quinnipiac’s best forward (Olivia Mobley)
  • A top line forward from Wisconsin (Mackenna Webster)

I think player mobility is a good thing, and the extra year of eligibility due to COVID was bound to produce some oddness. Players found themselves with an extra year to play hockey in a year when they originally imagined themselves going to grad school and / or turning pro.

Still, it’s a bit off-putting how many high-profile players have left up and coming programs to go play at Ohio State.

At least we can cross “wanted world-class facilities” off the list of reasons.

#2 Wisconsin vs. #7 St. Lawrence

3/16, 2 PM CT

I don’t know what to make of the SLU – Ohio State series where the Saints lost 11-0 and 5-1. They were only down 1-0 after the first in game 1 and then gave up 7 second-period goals. The SLU goaltending and defense kinda did that sometimes, but that series was in late November, well into the year so it’s not like they were still finding their skates.

They followed that up with a 1-0 OT loss to Harvard and a 6-5 win over Dartmouth, though the Big Green’s final goal was with .1 second left so the game wasn’t ever really in doubt. I don’t know if they were in a funk or just looking forward to the break with those being their final series before the end of the year.

Despite starting 2024 with a sweep at the hands of Cornell and Colgate the Saints are 15-4-0 including their first round win over Penn State in the second half of the season. Within that are revenge wins over Cornell and Colgate along with wins over Clarkson, Quinnipiac, and Princeton.

Playoff hockey is especially cruel to the Saints, who rely on shooting and an elite power play. With clutch and grab hockey reigning and refs loath to call penalties, their offense suffers as we saw against Penn State. If Wisconsin has carte blanche to do whatever they want, and they often do having the 4th fewest PIM per game, this could be a rough one for St. Lawrence.

St. Lawrence Wisconsin
Pct .737 .868
+/-/g +1.0 +3.6
G Rel +13.89% +26.14%
PP% 28.69% 29.82%
PK 87.93% 93.48%
SF/g 30.9 40.0
SA/g 28.7 21.0
Sht% 10.1% 12.8%
Sv% .926 .926
Rel S% +5.79% +15.41%

#3 Colgate vs. #6 Cornell

3/16, 3 PM ET

We have a rematch of the ECAC semifinal and a game between ECAC travel partners as Cornell had little trouble in dispatching Stonehill in the first round.

This is a bad matchup for Cornell as they just don’t seem to play Colgate all that well. This is perhaps because the teams are stylistically similar, good possession teams with elite shooting, but Colgate is just better at both.

Cornell has been playing well of late, especially in net, but that was of little help to them against Colgate in their ECAC semi matchup. Perhaps the Big Red will get a bump from forward Izzy Daniel making the Patty Kazmaier finalists.

I think Cornell’s biggest shot to spring the upset is if its shooters come in especially hot. They had games this season where they just seemed to find every corner and they’ll need all of that to advance to the Frozen Four.

Colgate Cornell
Pct .829 .773
+/-/g +3.3 +1.8
G Rel +32.52% +21.67%
PP% 35.94% 19.80%
PK 95.10% 91.84%
SF/g 39.3 31.4
SA/g 22.0 23.5
Sht% 11.7% 11.4%
Sv% .944 .924
Rel S% +15.46% +9.25%

#4 Clarkson vs. #5 Minnesota

3/16, 2 PM ET

Clarkson hasn’t won an NCAA tournament game since their last title in 2018. Minnesota has one win since 2019 and no titles since 2016. The Gophers have recently become third fiddle in the WCHA behind Wisconsin and Ohio State and Clarkson hasn’t been able to challenge Colgate in a playoff game in a while.

Both these teams have serious questions about whether their deficiencies will prevent them from going far in this tournament. Clarkson brings the nation’s best defense, but had a soft out of conference schedule, and has seen their scoring go cold at times. They’re great on special teams, but those units get less work in the playoffs.

Minnesota, meanwhile, has their leakiest defense in years, both in keeping pucks out of the net and in preventing shots. The Gophers average per game shots tally was 31.4-26.5, light years behind Ohio State (43.8-19.2), Wisconsin (40.0-21.0), Colgate (39.3-22.0), and even Clarkson (35.0-21.7). Their offense was good, but not world-beating, much of the production coming from Abbey Murphy. Murphy was probably the best forward in the WCHA and is 12 points above the nearest Gopher.

Clarkson’s top scorers are two defenders, Nicole Gosling and Haley Winn. With Alexie Guay, Keira Hurry, and Sara Swiderski rounding out the defense they have five defenders who would be on half the country’s top pair, and all of the country’s second pair or higher.

The most intriguing matchup might be the nation’s best power play against its best penalty kill, if the refs ever let us see it.

Clarkson Minnesota
Pct .868 .737
+/-/g +2.1 +1.3
G Rel +25.49% +15.62%
PP% 27.20% 36.00%
PK 94.55% 94.74%
SF/g 35.0 31.4
SA/g 21.7 26.5
Sht% 9.3% 10.6%
Sv% .948 .924
Rel S% +11.43% +6.23%