CCHA Recap

Another five CCHA series are in the books, bringing us up to 15 total two-game series played in the conference, and still, Notre Dame's opening weekend sweep of Northern Michigan remains the only 6-point sweep in league play. For comparison, there have been seven sweeps through 15 league series in the WCHA so far this year.

Here's a look at what happened this week in the CCHA.

Boston College 3 Notre Dame1

In the Holy War, which I guess is what we're calling it now, Boston College shut down Notre Dame and rolled off another win. The Eagles were playing at home, and are red hot right now. This would have been a nice one for the CCHA to have though. It's looking like everyone in the conference is going to finish right around .500 in league play, which means everyone is going to look either very good, or very bad in the final computer rankings. Right now, it's not looking so good for the CCHA, with Notre Dame being the only team inside the tournament bubble in the way-too-early Pairwise Rankings.

Lake Superior 4 Ferris State 1

Ferris State 2 Lake Superior 1

Lake Superior's Kevin Murdock continued his great comeback story with another stellar weekend, stopping 73 of 76 shots on the weekend. Unfortunately for him, he only got one goal in support on Saturday night, allowing Ferris State to split the series.

On Friday, Lake Superior's Buddy Robinson scored twice in the final minute of the second period, including a goal with two seconds left, to give Lake Superior a lead heading into the locker room which ended up really changing the complexion of that game.

Michigan 5 Michigan State 1

Michigan State 7 Michigan 2

This was a home-and-home series with each team winning at their home arena. Both games ended up being sellouts. At the constantly shrinking Yost, that now means only 5800 in attendance. Munn Arena, meanwhile, had a full house of 7225, breaking a Munn Arena record that dated back to the days of Ryan Miller.

Michigan finally got the type of performance they were hoping for from Jared Rutledge on Friday night, but that success was short-lived, as he allowed four goals in the first 11 minutes on Saturday night, and was eventually pulled after giving up seven. Also of note, Jacob Trouba picked up a contact-to-the-head game misconduct for the second straight weekend.

Western Michigan 3 Bowling Green 1

Western Michigan 2 Bowling Green 2, WMU wins shootout

Western Michigan had to play without Dan DeKeyser, who was out with a leg injury, but that didn't slow down Western Michigan's defense. They held Bowling Green to just 12 shots on Friday night, including only one in the first period. The Falcons fought back to force a shootout on Saturday, but the Broncos picked up the extra point.

Ohio State 1 Alaska 1, OSU wins shootout

Alaska 3 Ohio State 1

Brady Hjelle helped kill off a five minute major at the end of regulation on Friday, giving his team the opportunity to steal an extra point in the shootout. On Saturday, Ohio State got a five minute power play late in the game with a chance to tie it but couldn't convert.

6'4" freshman defensemen and 3rd round NHL draft pick Colton Parayko has been playing on the power play for the Nanooks and has been putting up decent numbers considering he's not playing in an overly powerful offense.

Miami 5 Northern Michigan 2

Miami 2 Northern Michigan 2, Miami wins shootout

Northern Michigan was close to pulling out a split in this series, but MIami scored the game-tying goal with just under two and a half minutes in regulation on Saturday. There's no big mystery to Miami's success this year. When they get big scoring from Austin Czarnik and Riley Barber like they did on Friday night, they're extremely difficult to beat. When the opposition can keep them quiet, like they were on Saturday, Miami is going to struggle to score goals elsewhere.