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An unimpressive 1-4 in five WCHA road outings so far in 2011-12, Colorado College hopes to take advantage of its final opportunity of the current calendar year to improve upon that mark this week.
The No. 7-ranked Tigers, 9-5 overall and 7-5 in conference play, travel to Mankato, Minn., for a two-game WCHA series against last-place Minnesota State University.
Faceoff on the Olympic-size ice sheet at the Verizon Wireless Center (4,832 seating capacity) is 7:37 p.m. CT Friday and 7:07 p.m. CT Saturday as CC tries to earn four points and solidify its position among the league leaders at the season's halfway mark.
MSU will be no pushover, however.
The Mavericks, who are just 2-9-1 in the WCHA, exploded for 9-1 victory last Saturday that completed a non-conference sweep against the University of Alabama-Huntsville and improved their overall record to 5-12-1. They've lit up opposing netminders for 26 goals in their last six outings, good for a per-game average of 4.33, which is better than Colorado College's nation-leading 4.21.
The Tigers, meanwhile, will be without two of their top three scorers – sophomore left wing
Jaden Schwartz and junior right wing
Scott Winkler – who both are out of the country participating in separate events with international ramifications.
Schwartz, who is second on the team with 18 points (5g,13a), already missed last Saturday's 4-3 victory over the University of Alaska Anchorage in order to attend Team Canada's selection camp for the 2012 IIHF Junior World Championship scheduled for Dec. 26 through Jan. 5. If he earns a spot on the roster for the second consecutive year, as expected, he will be gone for CC's four remaining games this month before hopefully returning in time for a Jan. 6-7 series against Cornell University at the World Arena.
Winkler, whose plus-minus rating of +8 is a Colorado College best, has left for Slovenia to play for his native country of Norway at a 2011-12 EuroChallenge competition slated for Dec 13-18. He ranks third among all Tigers with a career-high 16 points (4g,12a) this season after collecting an assist in both games of last week's split with UAA. He is expected to be back for home games against Air Force on Dec. 30 and Union College on New Year's Eve.
Friday's contest marks the 45th all-time encounter between CC and Minnesota State. The Tigers own a 29-14-1 edge in the previous 44. That includes a 12-7-1 ledger in Mankato, where they bounced back for a 1-0 victory early last season after falling 5-4 in their WCHA opener a night earlier. The teams also split a pair of decisions at the World Arena last February.
All seven of Colorado College's away games to date overall, as well as the four losses in league play, have occurred on smaller NHL-size ice surfaces. The Verizon Center's sheet measures 200-by-100 feet, same as the World Arena, where CC is 6-1 this season.
Tiger Bites: Last week was memorable for a pair of former Colorado College standouts – Richard Bachman and Bill Sweatt – who reached milestones in their professional careers. Goaltender Bachman, who earned All-America honors as a freshman in 2007-08 after backstopping the Tigers to a WCHA regular-season title, made his first NHL start for the Dallas Stars on Saturday and made 26 saves in a 2-1 road victory over the Los Angeles Kings. Sweatt, a speedy winger who collected 109 points (46g,63a) for CC from 2006 through 2010, made his NHL debut two nights earlier, skating 11 shifts for the Vancouver Canucks in a 4-3 shootout triumph at Montreal.
