The 2012 Frozen Four

Tampa is hosting the 65th Frozen Four. This year's Frozen Four looks like it will have some really good final games. Here are reports on the 4 teams in the Frozen Four, Union, Ferris State, Boston College, and Minnesota. 


Union Dutchman


This is the Dutchman's 1st ever appearance in the Frozen Four. They are in the ECAC and also won their 1st ECAC Tournament in Atlantic City this year. The team is captioned by D Nolan Julseth-White. F Jeremy Welsh scored a team-leading 27 goals and 16 assists. Senior F Kelly Zajac leads the team in 34 assists. G Troy Grosenick has a great save percentage at .936 and a .783 win percentage. They have the best defensive team.  They gave up an average of 1.67 goals per game. Union beat Michigan State 3-1 in the 1st round and U Mass-Lowell 4-2 in the next. 


Ferris State Bulldogs


Ferris State had the best regular season in their conference, the CCHA. The Bulldogs head coach is Bob Daniels. He has coached Ferris for 20 years. This is his 2nd time leading a team to the Tournament. The team is led by Senior C Jordie Johnston who had 20 goals and 16 assists this season. Fellow Senior and Co-Captain, D Chad Billins had 22 goals. Ferris State defeated Denver and Cornell, both by the same score of 2-1, in the 1st 2 rounds of the tourney. 


Boston College Eagles

Chris Kreider
http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/sptusnhlexperts/A_KREIDER06PC_12_.jpg

The Eagles are on 17 game winning streak and are ranked number 1 in the USCHO Poll. They were a number 1 seed in the tournament and were champs in the Hockey East tournament for the 3rd straight year. They have best record in the Division 1 with 31-10-1 and the 2nd winningest coach in college hockey history, Jerry York. Parker Milner has a great goalie winning percentage of .844. Chris Kreider has 23 goals and 21 assists which adds up to 44 points. Johnny Gaudreau has 20 goals and 22 assists. BC shutout their 2 opponents they faced in the tournament to this point, 2-0 vs Air Force and 4-0 against Minnesota-Duluth.


Minnesota Golden Gophers


The Golden Gophers are led by Don Lucia, who is in the top 10 in career wins by a college hockey head coach. They have a two really good sophomore forwards, Erik Haula (20 goals, 28 assists) and Nick Bjugstad (25 goals, 17 assists). D Nate Schmidt may only have 3 goals, but he has 38 assists on the year. They have the best goals per game average with 3.67. Minnesota blew out the opposition in their 2 games to this point in the tournament. They beat Boston University 7-3 and North Dakota 5-2.


All of these teams have a chance to win. Boston College is the favorite but that doesn't mean anything. Union is a team that I think can make a run at the championship because of their good D. If we are looking at patterns in deciding the winner, Minnesota, last years champs have a good chance to win it all. Another pattern can be found in Ferris State's nickname and school colors, the bulldogs and red and yellow which are the same as last year's winners, Minnesota-Duluth. But, check out the games between Union and Ferris State and BC and Minnesota.