NFL
By Jason Gulden
Welcome back, NCHC fans. Before we get started, I want to wish anyone in Canada a Happy Thanksgiving, as they celebrate on Monday, October 12th. After 2 weekends, we are off to a great start to the 2026-2027 season. Several teams played their season home openers this past weekend, while others took the road for the first time this season. Let’s take a look back at this past weekend’s games and the new rankings in the USCHO weekly poll.
Thursday Night
In the previous article, we mentioned that Western Michigan was playing its final home opener at Lawson Arena last weekend. They welcomed in-state rival Ferris State to town to begin a home-and-home series. Western opened Lawson Arena for the season with a dominant 6-0 win. Garrett Szydlowski scored the first two goals of the night and his first two of the season. New Western goalie Quentin Miller would earn his first Western victory with a 26-save shutout.
Friday Night
After Thursday night’s game, the scene shifted to Big Rapids, Michigan. Western brought its hot sticks from Kalamazoo, lighting the lamp 5 more times over the weekend to earn a 5-1 win. Western scored 2 goals in the first to cruise to victory.
St. Thomas finally made its NCHC debut when it welcomed Air Force for a weekend series. Unfortunately for the Tommies, their debut didn’t go as they planned, as they fell 5-1 to Air Force. Air Force led 3-0 before Jakub Altrichter scored the Tommies’ first NCHC goal in school history.
St. Cloud State welcomed Michigan Tech to St. Cloud and jumped to a 2-0 lead after the 4:25 mark of the second period. Gavyn Thoreson and Hayden Paupanekis would light the lamp for the Huskies. St. Cloud then gave up 3 consecutive goals, including the game-winner in overtime, to fall 3-2.
North Dakota began its home-and-home series with Bemidji on the road. North Dakota would take the 3-2 win, with 2 goals from NCHC reigning Rookie of the Year Cole Reschny, including the game-winner at the 15:21 mark of the 3rd.
I don’t know what it is with Augustana and giving our league a hard time. They once again beat one of our teams. This time it was Minnesota Duluth. Augustana won the game 4-3 in overtime. Zam Plante scored for Minnesota Duluth at the 18:39 mark of the 3rd period to force overtime before Augustana scored 20 seconds into overtime.
As I said in the 2026-2027 NCHC preview article, news keeps coming out of Arizona State, and they needed to play in front of their home fans for the first time this season. They welcomed Holy Cross to Mullet Arena. The game didn’t see its first goal until the 14:58 mark of the 3rd, when Arizona State’s Daniel Shlaine gave the 5,002 fans in attendance something to cheer about. Unfortunately for the Sun Devils, they gave up 2 goals late in the 3rd in 11 seconds to fall 2-1.
The last Friday night game featured the U.S. Under-18 National Team. They traveled to Ed Robson to take on Colorado College in an exhibition game. Klavs Veinbergs and Tomas Mrsic each scored two goals as the Tigers cruised to a 4-1 win. After the game, the Tigers enjoyed the rest of the weekend off.
Saturday Night
The U.S. Under-18 National Team hopped on a bus and drove 64 miles north on Interstate 25 in Colorado to face the Denver Pioneers. This would be the first time the Pioneers would play in front of their home crowd at Magness Arena since winning the postseason NCHC championship last season. The Pioneers started where they left off and would beat the national team 7-1. Sam Harris and Jack Pridham would each score 2 goals. This was the Pioneers’ only game of the weekend.
Arizona State earned the split with Holy Cross, winning 5-4 in overtime. 5 different Sun Devils scored, with Jack Beck sending 4,412 fans home happy on a very emotional weekend at Mullet Arena.
St. Cloud and Michigan Tech finished their weekend series in St. Cloud with a 5-3 Huskies win. St. Cloud would score 3 goals in the 3rd to secure the win.
The Tommies from St. Thomas earned their first NCHC victory in school history, doubling Air Force 4-2. The Tommies sealed the win with an empty-net goal at 18:15 of the 3rd period off Lucas Van Vliet’s stick.
North Dakota returned to Grand Forks with Bemidji State on Friday and sent the Beavers back to Bemidji with a 4-3 defeat. Will Zellers scored the first two goals before Bemidji tied it at 2. Jack Kernan would score the game-winning goal for the Fighting Hawks at the 16:02 mark of the 3rd.
The final game of the night was Minnesota Duluth and Augustana. For the second night in a row, Augustana gave an NCHC team a fit, tying the Bulldogs 1-1. Ty Hanson scored the Bulldogs’ only goal.
Rankings
After the weekend’s games, USCHO released its new rankings on Monday. Denver remains the nation’s #1-ranked team.
A little preview of the next article. Denver takes on #2 Michigan this coming weekend at Magness Arena. Friday night, Denver will raise their 2025-2026 NCAA Championship Banner to the rafters. We will discuss that more in the next article.
The next NCHC team in the top 20 is North Dakota. They remain at the #4 spot. After sweeping Ferris State, Western Michigan moves up 2 spots to #6. After issues with Augustana over the weekend, Minnesota Duluth drops 4 spots to #9. Colorado College rounds out the NCHC-ranked teams, moving up 3 spots to #12. Other NCHC teams received votes but not enough to crack the top 20: St. Thomas, Omaha, and St. Cloud State.
Closing
We have only 2 more weekends of non-conference play before we hit conference play for 4 weeks leading up to the United States Thanksgiving weekend. Several great matchups are coming up over the next couple of weeks, and both teams could be ranked when they meet.
This coming weekend, we will have three games where both teams are ranked. Keep an eye out for the weekend preview article right here on TeamNBSMedia for a look at those 3 games, plus the other games across the conference and last weekend, where we just recapped players of the week.
Until then, NCHC fans, have a great week, and we will talk to you in the next article this weekend.
