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College Hockey Rankings Round-Up: The Battle for Second

Everyone agrees that Minnesota is #1. But who is #2?

By Chris Dilks
Elsa

There's not much to debate when it comes to the number one ranking this week. Minnesota has no losses and a single tie on the season. They were ranked number one in most every poll last week, and after a bye last weekend, there was little reason to consider moving them down. As a result, they seemed to be the unanimous choice in just about every poll this week.

The real debate came in who deserves the second spot in the poll. Notre Dame and North Dakota were both candidates last week, but suffered losses on the weekend. In most polls, it seemed to come down to a decision between Michigan and St. Cloud State. The Wolverines picked up a pair of home wins against Michigan Tech, though in less than dominating fashion. St. Cloud, meanwhile, was the upstart this week after a very impressive road sweep at North Dakota.

If you missed it yesterday, here are the SBN Power Rankings. I guess we're the only ones impressed by a sweep at North Dakota, because St. Cloud gets the nod over Michigan for the second spot in the polls.

In the USCHO poll, Michigan hangs on to the second spot in the rankings. USCHO's voters weren't all that punishing to Notre Dame, despite losing, and nearly losing, to a Vermont team that isn't even one of the 52.5% of teams that earned a vote in the poll.

USA Today/USA Hockey's poll also went with Michigan in the second spot, and again, still like Notre Dame.

ESPN hockey guy John Buccigross has been putting out a weekly top ten ranking. Here's this week's version:

Clearly somebody left Friday's Providence-Boston U game early. Although as silly as that seems, it appears that most people were a little more punishing to the Friars after their first loss of the year, than the computer rankings were, which are still loving PC's performance against Miami.

Speaking of the computer rankings, we're finally starting to reach the point where the RPI looks somewhat logical. Big Computer doesn't care how badly Lake Superior got blown out by Wisconsin on Saturday night, or what Jim Roque said to Mike Eaves. It is still pretty high on the Lakers.

KRACH, however, still looks pretty goofy. 3-4-1 Bemidji State is currently riding the third toughest schedule in the country to an 8th overall ranking.