The College Hockey Tournament Has All The Madness You've Been Looking For
Icon Sportswire. Getty Images.I'm not what you would consider a certified "Hoops Head" or anything like that, so you'll have to take my ball knowledge with a grain of salt. But I feel like the NCAA Basketball tournament this year has been severely lacking in the signature moments department. Usually I'd expect to see Reags to write 500 blogs this week because of everything going down in the tournament, but he seems to be at his standard 100 blogs per week. To me, that just solidifies the fact that nothing crazy has happened in the tournament at all.
Good news for everyone out there who wants their month of March filled with heartbreaking upsets and exhilarating buzzer beaters, the college hockey tournament has you covered.
For starters--could I interest any of you in a 15-seed taking down a 2-seed in the final seconds of regulation?
Michigan State was the 2nd best team in the country this year, behind only Boston College. They only lost 6 games this year in regulation. But nobody cares about what you did in the regular season. Your entire season boils down to one game. And when you put yourselves on the penalty kill in the final minute of regulation of a tied game, you're going to open up the door for a heartbreak to come barging in.
Stepping through that door was Sullivan Mack. Instant Cornell legend. 10 seconds left in regulation, 30 seconds left on the powerplay to send home Sparty. Tough break for Trey Augustine in net for Michigan State, but at least he has those two back-to-back World Junior golds to fall back on.
While Cornell and Michigan State were 10 seconds away from heading to overtime, two of the games on yesterday's schedule actually made it there. First up we have 10-seed UMass taking down 5-seed Minnesota.
Huge day for Hockey East and the ECAC. Minnesota was up 3-1 heading into the 3rd period before UMass decided to come out like maniacs and score 3 straight. Minnesota got punched in the mouth, but lucky for them they have one of the best goal scorers in the country with Jimmy Snuggerud to bail them out. He scores with just over 3 minutes left in regulation to get the game to overtime.
But the damage was already done. UMass was hot, they were nasty, they were feeling the flow. And just under 5 minutes into overtime, Aydar Suniev scored his 2nd of the night and 20th on the season to send the Minutemen to the 2nd round.
20 minutes of overtime wasn't enough for Minnesota State and Western Michigan. These sick puppies had to go to 2OT, and that's where Grant Slukynsky was the hero to keep 4-seed Western Michigan alive.
There were 4 games yesterday. 2 of them ended in overtime, and another was 10 seconds away from overtime before Cornell delivered the dagger. And the only game that didn't come down to the wire yesterday at least had 42 seconds of pure mayhem with BU and Ohio State trading 3 goals in less than a minute.
2 goals on the day for Cole Eiserman. 4 points on the day for Cole Hutson. And an 8-3 win for the Terriers.
Overall, I'd say that's a pretty decent day 1 of the tournament. 4 more games on the schedule today with BC getting it started at 2pm, UCONN and Quinnipiac at 5pm, Denver vs Providence at 5:30, and Penn State vs Maine at 8:30pm.