Monday, October 26, 2020

UND Tops Preseason Poll

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

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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.