Here we are in the last weekend of January already! Where has the time gone. We have six weekends of hockey before the first round of the playoffs begin. Where has the time gone?
Last weekend was a fairly standard weekend, with one exception. The Omaha/Sioux game on Friday night. For those of you who didn't see a score, Nebraska-Omaha blasted the Sioux for eight goals in Grand Forks and won the game 8-4. It was an interesting game to watch. For some reason the Sioux could not kill a penalty to save their lives. At one point, the Mavs were 4-for-5 on the PP and had scored a shorthanded goal to boot. Interesting game.
I digress... I went 7-5 last week and picked one score correctly. My record now stands at 106-82, which is an impressive .564 winning percentage. I'll take that every day in this league. We have one non-conference tilt and four league series this weekend.
Non-conference
Huntsville @ Omaha, Friday 9:07, Saturday 8:07
Where to begin. This ought to be a pretty easy series for the Mavs to sweep. Unless Huntsville pulls something magical out of their hat, they'll continue their road winless streak.
Omaha sweeps 4-1, 3-1
Conference
UW @ MTU, Friday/Saturday 6:07
Tech is now winless in their last TWENTY (20) games! It must hurt to be a Michigan Tech fan right now... Anyway, this ought to be a fairly easy sweep for the Badgers, unless they drop the ball of course...
Badgers sweep 5-2, 6-2
UAA @ UMN, Friday/Saturday 7:07
The Gophers had the weekend off last week and the Seawolves found themselves playing at Denver and getting swept in the process. I don't know if it'll be the same story this weekend or not. The Gophers have been such and up and down team all year, it'll be interesting to see which team shows up. Will it be the team that outplayed the Sioux, or will it be the team that lost both games of its own tournament? Only time will tell on this one.
Split. UAA wins Friday 4-3, Gophers win Saturday 3-2
MSUM @ SCSU, Friday/Saturday 7:07
The Mavericks are coming off of being swept at Wisconsin last weekend while the Huskies are riding high on a six game winning streak. Mankato is a beatable team, but you're going to have to work your butt off to do so. They'll outwork you all day long in the offensive zone and throw some goals in the back of the net, but they'll let a lot in the net too. And, for some reason, they are having a horrible WCHA season again. They're 4-11-3 in the WCHA and 6-0-2 in non-conference play. The Huskies, on the other hand, are playing some of their best hockey right now. They've won four league games in a row, but those games have been played against Bemidji and Tech, teams they should be beating anyway. A sweep here would be huge for the Huskies and is much needed to get them back into this thing. If the Huskies sweep and CC and Minny split, the Huskies will find themselves all alone in 6th place. I think the Huskies are playing some of their best hockey right now, so I have to go with the hot team here.
Huskies sweep 4-3, 3-2
UND @ CC, Friday 9:07, Saturday 8:07
This ought to be an interesting series as well. I truly think that this one could go either way. The Sioux are, obviously, the better of the two teams here, but they're not playing great hockey right now as evidenced by two home splits in a row. CC isn't playing great either which is definitely not a good sign for them against this team. I'm thinking that this game is going to come down to special teams. Statistically speaking, the Tigers have the better numbers on both sides, but the Sioux's PK numbers took a dive last week against UNO. This is a tough series to predict, but I have to go with my instincts on this one.
Sioux sweep 4-3, 3-1
