Elite Prospects NCAA hockey Mid-October Power Rankings

This article is presented by Everything College Hockey.

After just a few weeks of the college season, we're seeing some surprising results. RPI leads the nation in goals per game. Three goalies already have a pair of shutouts. UMass Lowell has a special teams net of 146. The ECAC is above .500 out of conference.

But also, y'know, Denver, BC, and BU are still the best teams in the country, the NCHC and Hockey East look great, and a lot of the preseason awards favorites are delivering. So the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Let's discuss some hot topics: 

Maybe the biggest disparity this week is Western Michigan, which Ryan had fifth and Sean had 15th. What did or didn't you see to justify your rankings?

SS: For me it's more of a look at their schedule so far. Ferris State isn't good, neither is Bowling Green (and I'm a proud BGSU alum). It's also not a great NTDP U-18 team this season, and Western Michigan beat them in exhibition play. Add in an exhibition against York, and I'm effectively still waiting for Western to play a real game. Luckily they play Boston College this weekend, so that should clarify some things.

RL: Acknowledging the soft schedule to date, I generally feel like we shouldn't take credit away if the better team doesn't just win, but smashes their opponents' skulls in. Western certainly did that, winning their three non-exhibitions a combined 16-4, and outshooting those opponents 115-72. It's not about winning those games, it's about dominating them, and they have. Still some questions for now, but they're doing everything they should so far.

It seemed like we both had questions about Maine coming into the season, so what have you seen in these two weeks to boost your belief in them?

RL: Losing Bradly Nadeau over the summer led me to wonder how his brother Josh — and the team as a whole — would adjust without their big offensive engine. Instead of running a huge percentage of the goals through their top line, they've just distributed it throughout the lineup. Nine different Black Bears have scored so far this season, led by Taylor Makar and Nolan Renwick, who had three each. In goal, I'd like to see a little more of Albin Boija as the sole No. 1 goalie (he was splitting time last year), but soft-sweeping Quinnipiac is a nice start.

SS: Personally the weekend sweep against Quinnipiac showed me some things. I particularly was impressed by the second game, which Maine won 6-5 in overtime. Yes, it took a late goal to force OT, but Maine was the better team, controlled the play and looked pretty dominant to me outside of some tough goaltending in that one.

Who's one team you're keeping an eye on that could move into the top 10 of your rankings?

RL: I think there's a real chance that Colorado College ends the season top-5 in the country. There's a lot of reason to believe their offense can take a step, mostly that they barely missed the NCAA tournament last season and have room to get even better goaltending than they did last year. More offense should be coming for them, too. Obviously that's a tough conference but the Tigers seem poised to break out.

SS: I'll go back to Western Michigan here, yes I picked apart their schedule before, but if they go out this weekend against Boston College and prove something against that type of opponent I'll have them much higher in the future. 

Any big matchups you're keeping an eye on in the next week or two?

SS: Aside from Western-BC, which I've talked about in 3 questions now, But I'm really looking forward to Boston University vs. North Dakota this weekend. 

RL: I'm gonna be at Matthews Arena for Maine-Northeastern on Friday, and the hosts are a team that I could see being either top-10 in the country or like 32nd in the Pairwise by the end of the season. Lots of potential outcomes, which is always fun. I'll also be at Western-BC on Saturday but Sean can't stop talking about that one!!!!! So in the interest of mixing it up, I would love to see Wisconsin — off to an abysmal start 1-3 start with zero regulation wins — right the ship… at Denver? Uh oh.