Lighting The Lamp

Playoff Lighting The Lamp! Only 4 of these to go after this one…

Colorado College 8, Boston College 4: Might as well lead off with this one, and might as well climb atop my soapbox right away: I have two separate rants, which tie in with eachother. First, it is pretty ridiculous that a six month regular season in which BC was one of the best 5 or so teams all year ends with them losing in front of god knows how many people 1,200 miles away in which a crappy bounce, a great game from a hot goalie, or in this case a horrible game from one of the best goalies statistically in the country all year can have such an impact on a game that you might as well throw a coin instead of having them play hockey.

Which leads into my second point. I said CC would put up a great fight thanks to being closer to home (although still fairly far), having probably the most talented player in the regional, and coming off a hot weekend. My inbox got pretty flooded and a lot of people told me I was nuts on Twitter for predicting anything other than a BC blowout. Once again basic knowledge of probabilities > getting up on your high horse about a hockey game.

Oh and Jaden Schwartz had 2 goals and an assist and even though he scored his 31st goal of the year Cam Atkinson’s Hobey chances were set ablaze worse than Atlanta in the Civil War.

Minnesota-Duluth 2, Union 0: Yet another case of one and done-itis, Union wins its conference and promptly is victimized by a 32 save shutout from Kenny Reiter, who had 2 shutouts in the regular season, and none with 25+ saves (and one was against Michigan Tech). The nation’s leading power play went 0-9. Kyle Schmidt and Justin Fontaine had the goals.

Michigan 3, Nebraska-Omaha 2: This OT thriller came down to a controversial replay call when the refs ruled that Kevin Lynch’s goal, his second of the game, crossed the line, although replays make it look very close. John Faulkner stopped 34 of 37 Wolverine shots, but Michigan scored three unanswered to avoid the upset.

Yale 2, Air Force 1: The last game also went to overtime, with Chad Ziegler’s 8th of the year winning it. Ryan Rondeau needed to make only 22 saves, and Brian O’Neill had his 19th of the year. This sounds semi cheap being written on a blog, but obviously a big thanks has to go out to the Air Force kids for what they’re going to be doing after they leave the Academy.