Well the voters have finally had enough and UMass no longer finds itself in the USCHO rankings for the first time since before Halloween.  In fact UMass is only receiving 7 total points.  Denver is your new top ranked team this week.

The Pioneers jump up to the top spot in the USA Today poll as well.

As mentioned over the weekend, UMass is no longer a team under consideration for the pairwise rankings.  Unfortunately Hockey East would only have two teams in if today was selection Sunday.

According to playoffstatus.com, UMass only has a 5% chance of making the tourney.

Amazingly UMass came into this month tied for second place in Hockey East.  Just three weeks later it’s mathematically impossible for them to even finish higher than 3rd.

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Not surprisingly, no UMass player was anywhere near the Hockey East awards this week.  The weekly release does detail some of the awful statistics UMass is putting up currently.  One that stands out is that the team is somehow 2-4 this season when they have 40 or more shots on net.

Joe Cannata was named defensive player of the week.  How’s this for a stat.  Since the beginning of the calendar year the goaltender that goes up against UMass has a 50/50 chance of winning  HEA Defensive POTW honors.  That’s right, of the eight of those they’ve given in that time four were UMass opponents (and one of the times it wasn’t it was won by Paul Dainton).  UMass is making goaltenders look very good right now.