Friday Morning Skate

 I can only imagine the excitement about this weekend in a season without COVID:

Minnesota State hosting Bowling Green in a February series. No. 6 vs. No. 8. First place in the WCHA vs. second place. Teams separated by just two points in the league standings.

Minnesota State is allowing 150 people to attend the games — family members of the two teams — but, in any other year, there most certainly would have been 5,000-plus packing the Mankato arena both nights.

Sigh.

The Mavericks (9-2-1, 6-0-0 in WCHA) are coming off their first loss in 10 games, falling in a nonconference game at Bemidji State a week ago. They were a bit short-handed due to injury and didn't start Dryden McKay in goal. They also outshot the Beavers 36-10.

Sounds like they're expected to be healthier this weekend, but we'll have to wait and see the line chart. Senior defenseman Riese Zmolek, who has missed the last three games, participated in MSU's weekly press conference on Wednesday, so that's a good sign, anyway.

It's been a busy week for McKay, who was named (co) national goaltender of the month and WCHA goaltender of the month and landed spots on the Mike Richter Award watch list and the Hobey Baker Award fan ballot (go here to participate in fan voting), the latter of which he was joined by teammates Cade Borchardt and Nathan Smith.

Smith got the Kevin Dudley treatment in this morning's Mankato Free Press. Kevin this week also wrote about McKay's recognition and opined about this weekend's big series. McKay was also the feature of choice from The Rink Live's Jason Feldman.

Bowling Green (16-4-0, 5-1-0), meanwhile, is a team that has been fortunate enough to have played 20 games already. The Falcons swept Michigan Tech last weekend, following a pair of nonconference losses at Bemidji State. Earlier this season, they had a nine-game winning streak. The Falcons are eyeing their first WCHA championship, but there's already some talk of winning a national title. The Falcons are indeed confident, but it might be best not to look past this weekend's big series.

In other WCHA action this weekend, Bemidji State plays at Ferris State, Michigan Tech goes to Alabama Huntsville and Northern Michigan travels to Lakes Superior State (Saturday-Sunday).

We're still waiting for the WCHA to announce its playoff format/venue. The WCHA women announced theirs this week, and the decision has more than ruffled a few feathers. The league voted to have the top four teams only travel to Ridder Arena in Minneapolis for the conference championship. Those teams currently are Minnesota, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Minnesota Duluth. Minnesota State is still alive but would pretty much need to run the table to get in (the Mavericks play at St. Cloud State this weekend and close the season with four straight games against UMD), while Bemidji State and St. Cloud State have been eliminated with six games remaining. Bad timing! Seems like they easily could have included everyone and had a couple of play-in games.