Monday, October 26, 2020

UND Tops Preseason Poll

Fighting Hawks claim 28 of 50 first-place votes in USCHO.com Poll.


UND Tops Preseason Poll
Six of North Dakota’s top seven scorers return, including junior Jacob Bernard-Docker (Photo by Russ Hons).

North Dakota is the preseason favorite to claim top honors when the national champion is crowned in Pittsburgh next spring, according to the 50 voters in the USCHO.com Poll.

The Fighting Hawks claimed 28 of the 50 first-place votes for a strong hold on the top spot in the preseason rankings, released Monday. Boston College, Minnesota Duluth, Minnesota State and Denver round out the top five.

The top 10 in the poll are the same 10 schools that finished last season in the top 10, just in a different order. Cornell, which was first at the end of the 2019-20 season, stands sixth in the preseason poll.

Two teams that were unranked at the end of last year find themselves in the top 20: No. 17 Providence and No. 20 Notre Dame.

In total, 38 of the 61 Division I programs received votes in the poll.

USCHO.com Division I Men’s Pre-Season Poll
October 26, 2020
 Rank Team (First Place) 2019-20 Record Pts. Last Year
1 North Dakota (28) 26- 5-4 780 2
2 Boston College ( 4) 24- 8-2 710 4
3 Minnesota Duluth ( 3) 22-10-2 638 5
4 Minnesota State ( 1) 31- 5-2 635 3
5 Denver 21- 9-6 620 6
6 Cornell ( 4) 23- 2-4 602 1
7 Massachusetts 21-11-2 467 9
8 Clarkson 23- 8-3 421 7
9 Penn State 20-10-4 400 8
10 Ohio State 20-11-5 363 10
11 UMass Lowell 18-10-6 357 12
12 Michigan 18-14-4 328 17
13 Quinnipiac 21-11-2 280 14
14 Minnesota 16-14-7 266 18
15 Arizona State 22-11-3 241 13
16 Bemidji State 22-10-5 237 11
17 Providence 16-12-6 148 NR
18 Western Michigan 18-13-5 143 16
19 Northeastern 18-13-3 128 19
20 Notre Dame 15-15-7 126 NR
Others receiving votes: Boston University 89, Bowling Green 89, Maine 76, St. Cloud 64, Wisconsin 59, Northern Michigan 28, AIC 23, Harvard 22, Michigan Tech 12, Connecticut 10, Omaha 9, Sacred Heart 9, Rensselaer 7, RIT 7, New Hampshire 2, Robert Morris 2, Bentley 1, Brown 1.