Your Monday Evening Power Rankings

School	Ryan Maloney	Derek Dunning	Andrew Rohlin	Consensus
St. Scholastica	1	1	1	1
Plattsburgh	2	2	2	2
Wis-Superior	3	3	3	3
St. Norbert	4	4	4	4
Manhattanville	6	8	5	5
Middlebury	8	5	7	6
Elmira	9	6	6	7
Wis-Stout	7	9	10	8
Adrian	5	7	15	9
Hobart	11	10	8	10
Oswego	13	14	9	11
Curry	15	15	13	12
Wis-Eau Claire	-	13	11	13
Wis-Stevens Point	-	12	14	14
Norwich	10	-	-	15
Hamline	-	11	-	16
New England	-	-	12	17
Trinity	12	-	-	17
Nichols	14	-	-	19

Maloney:
CSS taking the top spot should surprise no one. They didn't just defeat a talented Superior club, they dismantled them. AJ Tucker made the Yelowjackets look silly with four goals and a helper. He's found the twine in three straight and Steve Bounds has a 1.00 GAA since getting beat four times in one period by Oswego State. Should be a great match-up this Friday when Stout invades Mars.

Plattsburgh dropped a shocker up in Saratoga Springs last Tuesday, snapping a 14-game unbeaten streak with a 5-3 loss to Skidmore. Even worse for the Cards, they had a nine day layoff to think about it. Bryan Hince faced 40 shots and let in four before a Thoroughbred empty netter sealed the deal. That marked just the fourth time in 41 games that Hince allowed four tallies. Fredonia will be the first to see whether Plattsburgh is slumping or experienced a one-night only letdown. Steele Hall Ice Arena is the stage for the 2007 SUNYAC Championship rematch on Friday.

Superior lands at #3 following the 7-2 drubbing at the hands of your new #1. The Jackets' record still sits at an impressive 15-2-1. Seventh place River Falls comes into Wessman on a two-game slide. Good opportunity for Superior to embark on another long string of W's heading into the regular season finale against the Saints.

Sr. Norbert appears to be rebounding nicely from a shocking loss to St. Thomas on Jan. 9. A tough weekend road trip will help show what the Green Knights are made of. Eau Claire and Stevens Point will be looking to close the gap in the NCHA standings to position themselves for a home ice game in the tourney.

Adrian rounds out my top 5. Same argument as always, you can only beat schools who are willing to schedule you. If they run the table they should absolutely be in the dance. That being said, could the West actually get five teams into the NCAA tournament this season? Given the strength of the NCHA alone, I wouldn't be opposed to it.

Dunning:
St. Scholastica takes over the top spot after drubbing Superior 7-2 mixed with Plattsburgh's first loss to Skidmore. Plattsburgh and Superior subsequently both drop down a spot with their losses.

No changes between spots 4-12. No losses for anyone in that group. Middlebury tied Williams and Stevens Point tied Eau Claire but no reason for anyone to move up or down.

Spots 13-15 continue to be a rotating carousel for me each week because no one wants to stay there as they lose everytime i rank them. River Falls quickly played their way out of my top 15 when they dropped both of their games this weekend. NEC had a horrendous week going 1-2 including a loss to PLYMOUTH STATE?! The Pilgrims are this week's Stout as they lost to Concordia last week.

Oswego finally makes an appearance again this week in the power rankings. The Lakers are 11-5-1 and wont play again until next weekend with Cortland coming to the Campus Center. It will be their first game in 18 days. The Lakers will look to continue their hot start to 2009 as they're a perfect 3-0 so far.

Curry rounds out the top 15 this week. I thought about Trinity and Norwich for this spot but I went with the Colonels instead. They've beaten Middlebury this year and are coming off a big come from behind victory on the road against Utica on Thursday.

Rohlin:

I will keep this brief being the new guy (editor's note: "HA!") and just address some of the more “controversial” points in my rankings. First off, it is clear to me that the 2 best conferences in D-III are the NCHA and ECAC-W. Teams from those conferences make up 70% of my top 10. To give you an insight into my madness, know that I used the strength of schedule rankings provided by the Krach because I think that is an important indicator of how good a team is; not only how good you are, but how good your opponents are.

Ranking St. Scholastica #1 starts the controversy right off the bat I suppose. However, with Plattsburgh losing to Skidmore and CSS beating the #2 ranked team in the nation, I give the Saints the nod for the top spot. Being 5-2 in the NCHA is a pretty big feat and they haven’t lost since the 21^st of November.

I have Manhattanville pretty high as well. But they are 10-2-2, have beaten both Elmira and Hobart, and haven’t lost since the 8^th of November, 2^nd longest streak in D-III. So they round out my top 5.

I suppose Middlebury is probably too low, but I couldn’t justify putting them above 7. They haven’t beaten an elite team this year in my opinion. Sure beating St. Thomas and Norwich are good wins, but both of those teams are performing below expectations.

Say what you will, but I have Oswego 9th. Some may say that is too high, however I have a feeling that whenever Oswego is not performing up to expectations, they are ranked too high for people’s liking. However, they have put together some strong showings since losing to Plattsburgh. I think if this team gets solid goaltending and plays up to their potential every night they can make some serious noise in the second half. However, if they don’t beat Plattsburgh at least once, they don’t have a shot at the NCAAs.

I like Curry’s record and the fact they’ve beaten Middlebury and tied M’ville. NEC is ranked above them since they’ve beaten Curry twice even though they’ve stumbled a bit as of late.

Finally I have Adrian and Neumann rounding out the poll. Neumann gets a piece of the pie because they have the second toughest SOS this year and are the only team to beat Adrian – everyone’s beloved underdog. They are also second in points in the 2^nd toughest division in D-III and have not lost to Manhattanville in 3 games this year (2 wins, 1 tie). They tie with Adrian and the only reason I even ranked Adrian is because they have the longest winning streak in the nation and thrashed Neumann in their rematch on Nov. 2^nd.

When your SOS is 52 out of 71 teams, it doesn’t matter as much how badly you beat teams. I realize it’s not their fault that no one is scheduling them and I’m not saying they’re a bad team. I just don’t think they’re as good as people are saying they are since they play in the worst conference in D-III and have only beaten 1 non-conference opponent that is over .500. I will be very interested to see how they fare against the U.S. team. Perhaps that game will be able to prove me wrong. Either way, I’m looking forward to a very exciting spring semester of hockey.