Spittin' Chiclets College Hockey Rankings (Week 22 - Final Week Of Regular Season)

1. St. Cloud State

2. Cornell

3. Denver

4. Notre Dame

5. Ohio State

6. Northeastern

7. Minnesota State

8. Clarkson

9. Michigan

10. Minnesota Duluth

In what was basically the final week of the regular season, we have our final Spittin’ Chiclets college hockey rankings before the conference tournaments start. Before I get to the rankings I just want to say what a crazy year it was in college hockey and I couldn’t have been happier to cover it for barstool. I’m very excited to see what the conference tournaments and the NCAA tournament has in store and will have preview blogs for both.

The #1 ranked team in the country, St. Cloud State, took home the NCHC Penrose Cup on Saturday night taking down #3 Denver. After a 1-1 tie on Friday night, Saturday was essentially winner take all for the Penrose Cup and SCSU came through though with a big 4-2 win. The Huskies will take on Miami of Ohio in the first round of the NCHC tournament but first will play North Dakota this weekend. Denver on the other hand gets back their guy Troy Terry, who put on a show at the Olympics, and is back for the final stretch of the season. Motivated and playing some great hockey, Terry can put Denver on his back for not only a NCHC tourney run but a NCAA tourney run as well.

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#4 Notre Dame wrapped up their regular season with a weekend split with Michigan State. Not really a good look for the team who once went two months without losing a game and was dubbed the best team in the country. Michigan State obviously isn’t a team you want to be losing to heading into the Big10 tourney. Regardless, the Irish will have a week to get their head straight while they enjoy their bye week while the first round of the Big10 tourny is played out. #5 Ohio State on the other hand, will face Michigan State this weekend in the first round of the tournament.

#7 Minnesota State wrapped up their regular season this weekend going 1-0-1 against Bemidji State and with an obvious WCHA regular season title. I have been hard on the Mavs all year. Which is well deserved. The WCHA is not what it used to be, at least this year it isn’t. When you play teams like Alabama Huntsville and Alaska all season, how will they fare against better completion in the NCAA tourney? I think the WCHA playoffs will be a cake walk for the Mavs and unfortunately, I don’t know if that is a good thing.

Minnesota Duluth makes their return to the top-10 this week coming in at #10. UMD is a team that everyone has told me to keep an eye on all year, but their record really was never good enough to get them into the top-10. But realistically all that is thrown out the door at this point, its tournament time and the Bulldogs seem to play everyone really hard. At 18-13-3 on the year it’s kind of crazy to think that a team that lost that many games has an actual shot at a title run, but after winning 4 straight, UMD is playing some great hockey and who knows, they could actually make a run at this thing, but the only way that’s happening is with a NCHC tournament championship.

Goal of the week:

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Pretty crazy goal here from Tristan Keck of Omaha. Flips it up to himself to go around the defenseman and takes it in alone to go five hole. Absolutely gorgeous.

Save of the week:

Denver’s Tanner Jaillet is a stud. Kid makes insane saves week in and week out but this one was unworldly. He keeps making saves like this it’ll be real tough to take down Denver come playoff time.