Minnesota remains atop the USCHO poll this week but they’re sharing some first place votes with #2 North Dakota and #5 Michigan Tech.  Boston University is tops among Hockey East teams at #3 after beating Boston College and tying UConn this past week.  Lowell is just behind them at #4, jumping a couple spots after taking three points from Northeastern.  BC slides from third all the way to eighth after losing to UConn and BU last week.  The Eagles now have a three game losing streak.  They’ll play Harvard on Tuesday and then travel to Michigan State (who might as well be an affiliate member of Hockey East at this point) before they come to Amherst on the 21st.  Vermont’s sweep of Maine lifts them to #10 in the poll, giving Hockey East four teams in the top ten.  Providence’s split with Merrimack drops them four spots to #16.

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UConn grabbed two of the weekly Hockey East awards after their win over BC and tie against BU.  BU’s Jack Eichel won just his first weekly award of the season despite dominating statistically so far.  Frank Vatrano and Dennis Kravchenko were named Top Performers for their efforts against AIC.  Zack LaRue was recognized in the milestones for his first multi-goal game and “Minuteman Freshman” also got a nod too for his assist.  That dude is great, I’m not sure where we’d be without him.  (I’m guessing they meant Dominic Trento)

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UMass is 11th in the SB Nation Hockey East power rankings.

Vatrano’s four game point streak is mentioned in their weekly Notes and Numbers piece.

Cornell coach Mike Schafer was suspended a game for saying some not so nice things about Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold after losing 1-0 to the Bobcats.  Funny that the guy who seems very concerned about player safety wanted UMass to play on slush last year.

It’s a bye week for the Minutemen but FTT will still be active.  We have two weeks of games to catch up on with our recruits.  And on Wednesday or Thursday I’ll take an early look at how the Minutemen have fared against expectations so far this season.