Alberta goalie Sam Brittian committed to Denver. He'll likely join the Pioneers in 2011 when Marc Cheverie graduates, or potentially next season if Cheverie gets an offer to leave for the pros.

His commitment probably doesn't say much for the future of Denver's goaltender Adam Murray. Brittain was a pretty highly-recruited kid and had a lot of options, including some places where he probably would have faced less competition for early playing time. Of course Denver's track record with goalies, and being one of the only programs with a full-time goaltending coach probably helped as well.

The CCHA has issued a one-game suspension to Northern Michigan's Ray Kaunisto for a blindside hit to the head area in a game against Lake Superior last Friday.

Here is the team Canada will take to the World Juniors at the end of the month. Minnesota-Duluth's Dylan Olsen and Harvard's Louis Leblanc both didn't make the final cut, which isn't much of a surprise. They'll be eligible again next year.

The only familiar name with local ties is forward Brandon Kozun, who played for a bit at Shattuck-St. Marys--where, to show you how things change over time, he was a bit overshadowed by two other Canadians in David Toews and Kelsey Tessier.

Canada had a team of their tryout attendees still on the bubble take on a team comprised from a couple of Saskatchewan CIS teams, and the CIS team beat them 4-2.

SB Nation's chief hockey numbers guy Gabe Desjardin took a look at the USHL last week and how the league has grown in quality over the past few years.

It has some interesting graphs, including this one...

...which shows the USHL's production of NHLers going from scant to significant. He also points out that on a per-team basis, the USHL now produces as many NHL players as the CHL.

Canada decided not to clear Patrick Wiercioch to try out for the World Juniors because of his knee injury that he's been playing with in recent weeks. Denver head coach George Gwozdecky wasn't pleased with the decision, and you can't blame him. It's a pretty bush league move by Hockey Canada to have Wiercioch fly up to Canada and have him miss a pretty critical game against Minnesota-Duluth, only to cut him without ever letting him step on the ice.

Meanwhile, for the Americans, tryout attendee Luke Walker returned to the ice, after getting 50 stitches and a plate in his face after getting hit with a puck. He'll still skate at the tryout camp in Grand Forks, but Walker was a longshot to make the team in the first place, and if he's hampered by serious pain that could dimish his ability to play a physical role, it could effectively kill his chances.

Arguably two out of the three top American goalies under the age of 20 faced off against each other this weekend in St. Cloud. That's pretty significant since the World Juniors is a couple weeks away,  and things are starting to look less cut-and-dried than they have for the better part of two years now.

Joe Howe wasn't significantly better than Mike Lee this past weekend. Howe allowed 5 goals on 56 shots(a .911 save percentage) while Lee allowed 8 goals on 71(.887 save percentage). But it continued a trend of Howe putting up solid, consistent numbers, and Lee's numbers declining because of some soft goals.

On the season, Lee's save percentage has dropped to a fairly average .909, while Howe is 10th nationally with a .926 percentage. With goals against average, again, Lee is fairly pedestrian at 2.63 while Howe is 15th nationally at 2.21. Most disturbing for Lee is that all of his good games seem to be against weak teams, except nice performances against Wisconsin and Miami, and all of his bad games seem to come against good teams.

That said, there is a difference in the teams playing in front of each goalie. A big reason why Colorado College has surprised everyone this year is that while their defensemen are unheralded, they've played tremendously solid defensive hockey and don't make a lot of mistakes. Lee doesn't have the best defense in front of him, but his issues are more about giving up soft goals from weird angles than being consistently left out to dry.

It's nothing personal against Lee, but in a short tournament, a hot goalie can carry a team, and one or two soft goals can crush a good team's hopes. At the very least, it's probably worth inviting Howe along to Grand Forks with Lee and Jack Campbell and giving him the opportunity to compete for a spot. Howe may not be the best US goalie, but he could end up being the right goalie.

NTDP forward Tyler Biggs committed to Miami. Biggs is a local kid, though he played hockey in Ontario prior to going to Ann Arbor. Notre Dame was also pretty interested in him, and he drew some interest from Michigan and North Dakota.

Penticton's Derik Johnson committed to Minnesota-Duluth. Derik's father Jim was a standout at UMD before going on to the NHL.

Wenatchee defenseman Kyle Brodie committed to Bemidji. I thought Brodie was one of the top NAHL defenseman at the league's Showcase earlier this year.

And out east, big defenseman Jamie Oleksiak committed to Northeastern. Oleksiak also played in Canada last year, but the late '92 birthdate has been playing for the Chicago Steel this year.

What Was Good

Ferris State-It's getting tough to ignore how good this team has been. It should be interesting because they've been beating up the bottom of the CCHA, but their schedule gets tougher in the second half of the season.

Minnesota State-A sweep at Bemidji moved their record from below .500 to above .500 and from 31st to 23rd in the RPI.

Lake Superior-I thought they'd be pretty brutal this year, but they've swept two weekends in a row for the first time since Scott Borek took them on a sleigh ride to the bottom of the standings. They're fighting for a top four spot in the CCHA, and nobody below them seems to be showing signs of life.

Minnesota-I guess you have to give Don Lucia credit for not sinking so  far as to start losing to the WCHA's two worst programs.

Colorado College-They had a tough road series in St. Cloud and came away with three points.

Wisconsin-Three points at the REA is pretty impressive, even against a beaten up Sioux team.

Michigan State-They managed to not give away points to Bowling Green.

Mike Dorr-After a couple years of toiling and being the butt of some jokes, Dorr became eligible to play for Minnesota State at 4pm on Saturday, and by 9pm was scoring the game-winning goal for the Mavericks. He's the only player in the country scoring at a pace of two points per game.

What Wasn't So Good

Michigan and Notre Dame: Before the season, this looked like a huge series, but much like the entire year, both teams found a way to disappoint on the weekend.

North Dakota-The Sioux are 2-5-2 since Chay Genoway went down against St. Cloud.

St. Cloud-I think it's officially time to start panicking about Mike Lee and the World Juniors.

Northern Michigan-Yikes. Reid Ellingson had been playing so well, but things really flew off the tracks at the Soo.

From the blog of St. Cloud Times beat writer Kevin Allenspach:

Down by three goals at one point in the second period, then trailing by two in the third, Garrett Roe played perhaps the central role in engineering Friday night's 4-4 tie against Colorado College. We'd love to pass on his thoughts about how the Huskies did it, how he snapped a five-game goalless streak and assisted on another goal in the comeback, and what it meant as the Huskies head toward Christmas break. Only there's one problem: Roe has vowed silence to the Times, or at least to me.

Miffed at a story reporting his one-game suspension last month, Roe has said in not so many words that he won't be available for the rest of the season. He declined an interview request Friday night when approached by a university spokesman.

Here is the article that apparently set Roe off. Allenspach sticks to the facts of the story, and I'm sure if he had wanted, he probably could have thrown some rumors or speculation out there, but didn't.

To borrow from Scrubs, Roe has played three years with the Huskies, and three years with the Indiana Ice in the USHL, so we can safely assume that he's more than six years old, and thusly, probably too old act that childish. I think this raises more questions about him than the first article did.

When Dan Sexton left Bowling Green at the end of last year to sign with the Anaheim Ducks, I thought it was great he signed an NHL contract, but at 5'9" 170 lbs., I figured it was still long odds for him to see the NHL.

But thanks to a couple of injuries, Sexton got the call up to Anaheim for the past three games, and at least for one night, is the toast of the NHL. Hopefully that is the first two goals of many.