A slightly edited WCHA news release:
Wisconsin and Denver won holiday tournaments this past weekend.
The Badgers, after a 2-2 overtime tie, downed Yale in a shootout (2-1 in 3 rounds) on Sunday. Denver won the Wells Fargo Denver Cup with a 4-3 victory over Boston College on Saturday.
Winger Michael Davies scored two goals in regulation for Wisconsin and one more in the shootout. Yale outshot the UW 42-22, but Scott Gudmandson came up with a 40 saves. Davies was named the tournament MVP while Gudmandson and defenseman Justin Schultz joined Davies on the all-tourney team.
In other action on Sunday:
* St. Cloud State completed a two-game nonconference sweep over visiting Brown with a 5-3 triumph. Linemates Ben Hanowski (LW, 1-2=3), Drew LeBlanc (C, 1-2=3) and Ryan Lasch (RW, 1-0=1) combined for seven points. LeBlanc netted the game-winner with a power-play goal at 12:13 of the third period.
* North Dakota played to a 3-3 overtime tie against host Notre Dame in the Shillelagh Tournament finale before the Irish won the shootout (2-1 in 5 rounds). The Sioux, who led 3-1 in the second period, received goals from forwards Chris VandeVelde, Brett Hextall and Brett Bruneteau. Hextall and defenseman Jake Marto earned all-tournament team honors.
* Minnesota Duluth lost 5-2 to host Vermont in the Catamount Cup title game. The home team built up a 5-0 lead over Minnesota Duluth. For UMD, centers Travis Oleksuk and Jack Connolly scored third period goals. Named to the all-tourney team was Bulldog forward Justin Fontaine.
* host Minnesota was defeated 4-2 by Northern Michigan in the championship game of the Dodge Holiday Classic. The Gophers are 4-7 at Mariucci Arena this season.
In 18 nonconference games played over the Christmas-New Year's holiday season, WCHA teams went a combined 11-5-2 (.667) to raise the league's 2009-10 mark against outside Div. 1 competition to 35-19-6 for a .636 winning percentage.
At the halfway point of the WCHA's 140-game schedule pre-season MacNaughton Cup-favorite DU (9-3-2 WCHA, 20 points) holds a one-point lead over second place CC (8-3-3 WCHA, 19 points) after 14 games, UW (8-4-2, 18 points) is two points back in third.
UMD (8-5-1, 17 points) is three back in fourth and SCSU (7-5-2, 16 points) is four points back in fifth. Defending league champion North Dakota (6-6-2) is two points back of the top five with 14, UM (6-7-1) is seventh with 13 points, MSU (5-8-1) is eighth with 11, UAA (4-10-0) is ninth with eight, and MTU (2-12-0) is 10th with four.
Looking ahead to this weekend, there are four WCHA series:
* CC at UMD ... Tigers could vault into first with one win, Bulldogs with a sweep.
* MTU at SCSU ... Huskies are 5-1-1 in last seven games, and could close on leaders with sweep.
* MSU at UND ... Sioux have struggled ever since defenseman Chay Genoway went out with a concussion. Mavericks tie U with one win.
* UAA at DU ... Seawolves won once in Denver last season.
* Harvard visits Gophers. Minnesota needs a sweep to get above .500 for first time this season.
