One More Weekend Until Christmas (Break) | Week #11 Preview

You better play this week’s Pick ‘Em, because this is (technically) your last chance to earn points in 2025.

Pressed for time? Click here to skip to the Pick ‘Em.

There were a few results last weekend that no one, or at least very few people had, so there is some decent movement in the Pick ‘Em leaderboard.

Foppa’s Foot’s lead shrank and Jason Bryant vaulted into the Top 3.

• 1st - Foppa’s Foot (40 points)

• 2nd - Me (38 points)

• t-3rd - JB, Tyler The Sea, Wallaby (34 points)

Check out the full leaderboard here.

7:00 PM ET on Thursday in Washington DC (Monument Sports +)

An exciting addition to Army-Navy weekend, the Capital Hockey Classic is a double-header at Capital One Arena this Thursday.

First, the Army and Navy men’s club teams will duke it out for an unofficial victory star, and afterward Army’s varsity men's team will play against Penn State (Navy does not have varsity hockey).

This game is a mismatch in terms of pedigree and it probably won’t matter when the pairwise is run come tourney time - but I don’t care, this rocks.

You’re going to hear a lot about the military academies this week because of “America’s Game” on Saturday, but I want to reiterate how impressive what they do in Division I athletics is.

The recruiting restrictions the coaches need to work under, the athletic and academic rigor that these athletes face… it’s something else entirely. I’m really excited to be a part of celebrating this on Thursday and Saturday, I and hope you all will tune in and do the same.

Against what the #s might indicate, I am going to predict that Army will win this game. The crowd will be in their favor, and it would be really special to give coach Brian Riley a win on (what is likely) one of the final big stages of his career, as he announced his retirement at the end of this season.

7:00 PM ET on Friday in Hanover (ESPN+)

Both of the programs in the state of New Hampshire look like they may be experiencing something of a renaissance.

I covered both team’s games in last week’s preview, so I won’t go on too long as many of you are repeat readers, but this game has serious implications. It’s very early, but hypothetically… if there was only one bid thief this year, they’d each qualify for the NCAA tournament.

The underlying #s indicate that only one of them will seriously be in the conversation at the end of the season (hint: the one without any red on their side), but non-conference games like this matter a lot for getting there.

Dartmouth is 0-3-1 in their last 4, so stopping this skid before their two-week Christmas break is paramount, and UNH has won all 3 of their games in a somewhat convincing fashion since their tight loss at home against Maine. One team can prove the poor streak was an aberration, the other can prove they’re legit.

Match-up to watch: how does Dartmouth limit UNH in transition?

The Wildcats, especially in their Top 6, are a fast team entering the zone and forechecking, which will test this Dartmouth defensive group.

Watching how their team lined up against the best transition team they’ve played so far, Boston College, it seems like they run a mix of a 1-2-2 with man coverage and a 2-3 focused on defending the blue line.

When BC had a jump on Dartmouth and the Big Green were coming back at the same time as the Eagles attack, Dartmouth would show a 1-2-2 look.

When Dartmouth was back ahead of BC and was able to set up, you’d see more of a park-the-bus approach.

As you can see in the clip above, skilled forwards do a pretty good job at taking space when you give it to them with a passing neutral zone forecheck, but my question is: does UNH have enough skill to take advantage of this space? Ryan Conmy sure does, but I’m curious about the rest of their attack.

If not, then they’re going to have to win more pucks on the boards or connect on passing plays in the zone. I would bet on UNH being able to do both, given they have a 51.27% Puck Battle Win Rate and have impressed me with their play once they establish possession beyond the blue line.

My pick is UNH takes the win and goes into the Christmas break happy.

8:00 PM ET on Friday and 7:00 PM ET on Saturday in Grand Forks (NCHC.tv)

Husky fans got some really bad news recently when it was reported that star goalie Isak Posch is out long-term.

They may have some good news in Gavin Enright, a graduate transfer from Bemidji State who stopped 27 shots in a 5-2 win over Omaha last week.

One might be alarmed by Posch’s absence and what the advanced stats imply. SCSU has a Team GSAx of 1.3, which is indicative of great goaltending, and the other advanced metrics are unimpressive. This is where it’s important to give context as to who SCSU has played. They have had a buzzsaw schedule so far, including Boston College, Michigan, and Colorado College. These national rank #s will naturally go lower when a team has a schedule this hard.

No goalie can replace Posch (who had a .938 Sv%), but hopefully Enright and James Gray can keep the Huskies in the national tournament conversation. Not an easy task in the NCHC, but the hope is that the solid roster and bench staff will make it work.

NoDak has also been bitten by the injury bug this year, having seen very little of star senior Cameron Berg and playing without other key players such as Louis Jamnerik for much of the year.

This hasn’t produced “bad” results, but things certainly aren’t going as planned for the Fighting Hawks. They’re on the outside looking in with the pairwise, and their “quality losses” to Cornell and Denver seem more dubious as each of those teams struggled as November went on.

If North Dakota wants to right the ship and avoid life on the tournament bubble, this is going to be an important series for them to get at least a win out of, as beating the #8 Pairwise team can do good things for you at any time of year.

My prediction: North Dakota and SCSU split. I don’t have much clarity as to who (if anyone) will be coming off the injured list for UND, but their offense has a strong pedigree and will be able to punish the Husky goalies if given the chance.

Side note: WJC fans should keep an eye on Austin Burnevik and EJ Emery, who will both be at Team USA selection camps.

8:30 PM ET on Friday and 6:00 PM ET on Saturday in Minneapolis (B1G+)

Michigan State fans might have been cheering for the Gophers last week while they whooped on Michigan to the tune of an 8-0 aggregate score, but this week these 2 B1G giants are going head-to-head.

Both teams are bonafide national title contenders who are putting up great numbers on offense and defense, but they’re getting there somewhat differently.

For the Gophers: they’re shooting the lights out, with an offense led by a handful of stars like Jimmy Snuggerud, Matthew Wood, and Connor Kurth. They have 5 players producing over 1 P/GP - this is the same as Boston College’s historic offense last year!

They’re an elite rush offense team, and they have the talent to turn any possession into an extremely dangerous opportunity. It doesn’t hurt that their defense is elite as well, with players like Ryan Chesley and Sam Rinzel holding things down in both phases of the game.

For the Spartans: depth is the name of the game. They only have one player above 1 P/GP (Isaac Howard), and only one player playing more than 20 minutes of TOI per game (Maxim Strbak).

I actually see them as very similar to their nemesis Michigan in terms of play style, but with the added bonus of playing in front of returning Mike Richter Award nominee Trey Augustine.

They have the right mix of skill and grit to make them dangerous on the rush and off of quick attacks from successful forecheck, which they get a lot of. The Gophers shut down a similar offense last week vs Michigan, but

Player to watch: NTDP product Shane Vansaghi. In all of the clips I watched when trying to get a feel for how MSU’s offense has been playing, if he was on the ice he caught my eye. The draft-eligible forward is great with the puck and uses his 6’2” 200+ pound frame to create space for himself.

He was silenced against the Badgers, but in November the freshman had 7 points in 5 games. Another solid depth piece for a team that was already full of them.

Fingers crossed he ends up in Tampa like his teammate Ike Howard!

I think this will end up being a split, and we’ll have to wait for the B1G championship game (or the NCAA tournament…) to see who wins this season series.

Minnesota’s strength of high-end offense is counteracted by Trey Augustine’s status as one of the best goalies in the NCAA, and the two teams match up quite evenly everywhere else.

9:00 PM ET on Friday and Saturday in Colorado Springs and Denver (NCHC.tv)

This rivalry began to come back to life when Colorado College beat Denver in the NCHC playoffs to deny them the conference title, and now it’s officially a marquee match-up in college hockey again.

Colorado College has a chance to pour some salt the entire salt shaker into Denver’s wounds, as the Pioneers have struggled since their series against North Dakota. They’re on a 4 game streak without a regulation win, including a sweep at home to the hands of NCHC newcomer Arizona State.

It’s not as if this past month has been an unfettered disaster for the reigning national champions. They’ve either had the advantage or kept an even xG differential in all 4 of the games since their win streak came to an end, and have maintained a top position in the country for most key metrics.

One player’s season probably captures the energy around the team as well as any words could: Jack Devine, who despite leading the nation in points with 25 tallies, has just 1 goal and is shooting 2.6%. The Pioneers are elite, but it might look like there’s trouble in the Rockies just because things aren’t going their way at all right now.

The Tigers are going to need to make sure these bounces continue to not go the Pioneer’s way because if Denver produces as they can, it’ll be hard for the good, but not elite CC offense to keep up.

Denver has the tools to be very dangerous in the offensive zone, especially with Zeev Buium’s elite vision from the blue line, so how can they counter this?

Watching some possessions from the Providence series, the Tigers would often have all 5 of their players below the hash marks or tops of the circles, even if it wasn’t needed at a present moment to get an advantage in a puck battle or something of that nature.

Denver is far too skilled for the Tigers to surrender this space and let their high-end talent set up in the top of the zone. Check out this play from the Pioneers’ opening series vs Northeastern, where by the time the Husky wings moved up, the play was broken and Zeev Buium’s elite vision set up this pretty tic-tac-toe.

To be clear: I think CC has the skill on defense to shut this non-stop attack down, especially because Kaiden Mbereko is the last line of defense. They just might need to take a different approach on defense than they have against other teams.

Like lots of rivalry series, I think it’s really hard for teams to win on the road, so I am going to predict that this splits with each team winning their respective home game. This is a very evenly matched rivalry this year, although Denver has more firepower.

Videos sourced from InStat