New week of meaningless polls: BU #2

The USCHO and USA Today polls came out this afternoon as they do every Monday and the BU Terriers are ranked #2 in the USCHO poll (with the USA Today poll to come out later), which is their highest ranking in the second half of a season since 08-09. The Terriers were the only Hockey East team to earn two wins this weekend and therefore moved up from 6 to 2 in the USCHO poll. The Terriers also moved up to #3 in the Pairwise rankings, which are the rankings the NCAA committee goes by when deciding the field. I am going to take my first stab at what I think the field will look like sometime this week. Here is the rest of the USCHO top 10 and other notable teams

1. Minnesota Duluth 15-4-3 - This team is clearly the best the in the nation and seems destined to for a #1 seed come March.

2. BU 13-6-1- They're looking pretty good eh?

3. BC 14-8-1 - They have been up and down as of late and kinda don't have a goalie. Should probably fix that.

4. Minnesota 16-8-1

5. Ohio State 14-6-3

6. Merrimack 12-4-5 - They're hanging in there despite the injuries which is impressive for a team that is new to the success. The schedule doesn't get any easier in the coming weeks though

7. Notre Dame 13-8-3 -

8 . Western Michigan 12-7-5

9. Cornell 10-4-3

10. Michigan 14-8-4 -Slowly climbing back into the national picture. Get a huge boost from getting Merrill back on D.

14. Lowell- The loss to UVM certainly isn't selling anyone that they are for real

15. Denver 13-8-3

Receiving Votes

Harvard

Northleastern- Still the 3rd/4th best team in Boston after this weekend

BU rallys in 3rd, beats Harvard in OT

The BU Terriers came out flat last night against Harvard over in Cambridge at the Bright Hockey Center and as a result were down 3-1 at the end of one period. They slowly regained their form throughout the game and eventually won 4-3 in OT. The highlight of the game was senior captain Chris Connolly's first 2 goals of the season. Junior forward Ben Rosen tied the game up with less than 3 minutes remaining after Max NiCastro had hit a post and Alex Chiasson had a few near misses. The Terriers scored twice in the third to tie the game and won in OT as sophomore defenseman Garrett Noonan banged home a rebound off a Chris Connolly shot and promptly celebrated by jumping into the glass right by the BU students. It was certainly a sloppy effort by BU through the first 40 minutes but the fight and the heart in this team cannot be questioned as they came from a 2 goal deficit two nights in a row to win games 4-3. BU remains #3 in the pairwise and tied for 1st in Hockey East, who have played one more conference game to date. The Terriers have a home ans home with Providence College next weekend. PC beat BU 5-3 in October handing BU it's first loss of the season.

BU takes over sole possession of 1st place in HE

The BU Terriers took over first place in the Hockey East conference with a 4-3 win over Northeastern tonight at Matthew Arena. The Terriers put themselves in a 2-0 hole after one with some sloppy defensive play at the end of their first but responded with 4 straight goals to take the lead and the game. The Terriers struck first on a shot from the point from sophomore Adam Clendening with a big Yasin Cisse screening NU goalie Chris Rawlings. BU then tied the game on the first of 2 goal from our Hero from Canton Wade Megan who scored off of a great hustle play by Ryan Santana who played one of his best games as a Terrier tonight despite not scoring himself. The Terriers took the lead for good during a 5 minute powerplay on an Evan Rodrigues goal. The goal on the pass from classmate Alexx Privitera was Rodrigues' first collegiate goal. Congrats to the freshman on the achievement and hopefully he can find the net some more in the second half. BU struck again on the powerplay in the third to give themselves a cushion which they would need as Megan struck again, this time on his team leading 5th powerplay goal.

With the win and the BC loss to UMass, BU moves into sole possession of first place in the conference. Merrimack also destroyed Maine and UVM pulled off the shocker taking down Lowell in OT. The win also bumps BU up to #3 nationally in the pairwise which is the only relevant poll out there. The Terriers return to action tomorrow night at Harvard in a preview of the first round of the Beanpot. This game will have huge implications of the pairwise rankings and therefore is a must-win for the Terriers.

Enjoy the first of many videos of BU fans I'll hopefully take with the new flip camera Santa brought me. If we want the team to keep up this level of play, we gotta step up our game as a blog. This video is nothing great but I wanted to test everything out tonight so we can get some good stuff come Beanpot and playoff time.

Cue the Megan music!

This week in Hockey East

Alright well I haven't posted since Monday, and because we have been slacking on putting up our picks each week, I am going to take matters into my own hands this week. I am just going post my own picks and opinions on the games this week along with some other good college hockey articles I've run across this week.

First, there is a single hockey east game tonight with UNH traveling to PC. PC looks to continue their solid play in the second half but have gotten off to a rocky start tying UMass at home and losing the Mayor's Cup(read very very poor man's Beanpot with the two Providence schools) to Brown. They look to get back on track tonight against an UNH team that just can't seem to have anything go right for them. Tonight I'll take PC at home 5-3. I think PC has a decent second half but they still have 2 with BU and BC each and alot of games against the top of the conference remaining.

For the rest of the weekend some games to watch are obviously BU@NU Friday night on NESN. This should be a close contest as usual at Matthews when the two schools show up. It should be a great game and will be even more interesting to see what stunt the NU idiots pull this year. Last year, they not only counted to 10 while Millan was down with an injury(which a NU student recently told me was his favorite chant of all time) but they threw trash on the ice at the BU players once they lost the game. They are just classy classy individuals. It won't be if they do something stupid this weekend it will only be when and how poorly the school will look because of it. For the rest of the games Friday, I'll take Lowell over UVM and BC over UMass. No way the fairies from Newton lose twice at the Zoo in a season.

NU also plays BC at Fenway on Saturday as BC tries to get redemption for losing to BU at Fenway two years ago. Another interesting series will be Maine traveling to Merrimack for two. Merrimack won at Alfond 2-1 on the first weekend of the season but Merrimack has been shaky as of late and Maine is hot off an OT win at Frozen Fenway. Maine is easily the most inconsistent team in the league so I would expect a split here. I'll go with Maine Friday and Merrimack Saturday.

BU and UNH take on EZAC teams Saturday night as BU takes on Harvard at the Bright Center(home of the rink where I got my only game puck from) and Dartmouth plays UNH in Manchester. This should be a good weekend of both conference play and non conference games that will have a large impact on the Pairwise rankings.

Now here are some links that are worth taking a look at...

1. CHN Managing Editor Adam Wodon takes a look at the battle between college hockey and the major junior hockey leagues up in Canada. He basically exposes the major junior teams for the slimeball, used car salesmen that they are. Yeah, paying players off under the table and convincing them that playing against 16 year olds is good for their development is very moral.

2. CHN writer and BU alum(which automatically makes you awesome) Scott McLaughlin released his HE power rankings where BU comes in 2nd. I'll take 2nd for the time being considering we were 4th last week.

3. CHN writer Joe Meloni gives BU a good write-up for their complete game effort vs Merrimack on Friday night.

4. Lastly, the mid-term pre draft rankings came out with a few future Terriers showing up. 2012 foward Matt Lane showing at 133 overall for North American skaters while 2013 forward Robbie Baillargeon comes in at #43.

Around the NFL

So entering the divisional round of the NFL Playoffs, there are a lot of things happening. To begin with, I pray for the offensive coordinators of the Green Bay Packers family and friends. It will be a tough week for the Packers. Entering Lambeau is the Red Hot New York Football Giants who played their best game of the season in a dominating performance over Matt Ryan ( BC SUCKS) and the Atl Falcons. This game is going to be decided on 3 factors: the Giants run game, Packers run game, and the Giants defense. Giants need to hold on to the ball as long as possible to stop the Packers and the Packers need to establish the run the stop the Giants Big Three Pass Rushers. JPP, Tuck, and Osi. Close game, I like the Giants in the upset.

Another game big game is TIM TEBOW vs TOM BRADY, I mean Broncos versus Pats. I like the Pats here in this game cause they will score with just three players, Brady, Gronk, and Hernandez. The only way the Broncos win is if Tim Tebow throws for 316+ yards and the team rushes for over 150 yards but I think the Dark Lord will play over the top help on the left side and make Tim throw to his right, his worst side. If Tebows wins, IF he does, I will be shocked.

Houston played a great game last week and are entering Baltimore on high note. However, I like the Ravens because the defense is still one of the best in the league and they are better home team this year. Houston does have a chance if Yates plays well and Foster runs even better than he did last game. I think the Houston defense will show up so it depends on the Houston offense.

The last game is the 49ers versus the Saints. Toughest game to call, 49ers play great at home and the Saints are bad away from NOLA. Saints can light up the scoreboard and the 49ers play you tight with a top defense. Saints have new found run game and the 49ers have one of the best run stops teams in the league. I am going with the 49ers with a late score to win.

So in recap, Giants vs 49ers in the NFC game and Pats vs Ravens in the AFC game.