Campus Ice: Western Michigan at Yost is the NPI against the voters

The voters say Michigan is the best team in the country. The NPI says it's Western Michigan. On Friday night they're in the same building, and I'd pay the Yost price just to watch two goalies argue about it.

That's the weekend. One game, not a series, because that's how the schedule fell, and it's the only night where both No. 1 arguments are on the ice at the same time.

Weekend slate

1. Western Michigan at Michigan, Friday, 7 p.m. ET, Yost. Michigan is 6-0 and scoring six goals a game, 36 in six. The Broncos are 4-0 and have outscored people 21-2, the only scoring margin in the country better than Michigan's.

The poll has Michigan first with 47 first-place votes. The NPI has Western Michigan first at 62.70 and Michigan fourth. Somebody's wrong, and for now it's probably the math. Game page.

2. North Dakota at Minnesota, tonight and Friday, Mariucci. North Dakota is 4-0 and beat Bentley 5-0 twice without looking up. Minnesota is 0-3-1 after a 7-1 loss and a 2-2 tie in Duluth, and the Gophers need one of these. I don't think they get it. Thursday, Friday.

3. Michigan State at New Hampshire, Friday and Saturday, the Whittemore Center. The No. 2 team in the poll goes to Durham, where UNH just swept Colgate on the road behind Michael Simpson's 1.00 goals-against weekend and his first career shutout. The Spartans are 3-0 and have barely been pushed. This is the push. Friday, Saturday.

4. Providence and UMass Lowell, home-and-home, Friday at Tsongas and Saturday at Schneider. The last undefeated team in Hockey East against a River Hawks group that just lost two to Arizona State. Friday, Saturday.

The Hockey East weekend

It starts tonight, not Friday. BU is in Storrs at 7, and UConn comes back to Agganis on Saturday. That series tells us whether the Terriers' rebuilt blue line is fixed.

BU split in Burlington, a 2-1 loss and then a 2-1 overtime win because Ryder Ritchie tied it with 56 seconds left and won it 56 seconds into the extra period.

Mikhail Yegorov made 46 saves over the two nights, and Vermont blocked 25 shots on Saturday to BU's five, which tells you who was living in whose end.

UConn beat Colorado College in overtime on two Ethan Gardula goals, then gave up five the next night. Yegorov is the best goalie in this series, so I'll take BU, 4 points to 3. Tonight, Saturday.

Providence is 3-0 and the only Hockey East team without a loss. Logan Sawyer had the first goal and the overtime winner at Union, and Jack Parsons is at .966 through two starts.

Lowell's Dalyn Wakely has back-to-back three-point weekends and won 18 of 31 draws against Arizona State, so the Friars have to win the middle of the ice to win the weekend. They will. Friars sweep.

The nonconference games matter more this week, because those are the ones the NPI remembers in March. Michigan State at UNH, BC at Denver on banner-hangover weekend, Merrimack at Notre Dame and Colgate at Maine both nights, and Clarkson at Vermont on Friday before the return trip to Potsdam on Sunday.

Merrimack put 12 goals on Minnesota State and walked into the poll at No. 20, with Northeastern at 17. A sweep in South Bend makes the Warriors a top-15 team by Monday.

Three of the league's four weekly awards went to goalies: Vermont's Jacob Oster stopped 56 of 59 against BU, Simpson took the goalie award, and Northeastern freshman Sam Caulfield made 34 saves at UMass in his first college start.

Rivalry file

Michigan leads it 78-38-10 across 126 meetings, most of them from three decades together in the CCHA, 1981 to 2013. The last two home-and-homes, in 2024 and 2025, were splits.

Friday is also Michigan's 30th anniversary night for the 1996 national title. Western Michigan brings its own banner: the Broncos won it all in 2025, and Michigan just swept Denver, the team that won it in 2026.

NPI watch

The NPI this early is a strength-of-schedule number wearing a results costume. Western Michigan is first because its opponents rate better than Bowling Green and Alaska Anchorage, who handed Michigan four of its six wins. Union is second at 2-1-0, which tells you how much weight any of it deserves before Thanksgiving.

The number that matters Friday is simpler: Michigan is 15-14-3 all time against No. 1 teams.

The goalies

This is the matchup. Jack Ivankovic stopped 60 of 64 in Denver, eight of them during two five-on-threes on Saturday, and has started every game at .933.

Quentin Miller spent his freshman year at Denver, went 12-10-2 at .916, transferred to Kalamazoo, and is 4-0-0 with a 0.50 goals-against and a .976 save percentage. He's behind the best defensive start in the country, and he's also stopping the puck.

One of these two gets beaten by a bounce, the way Asher Barnett beat Denver off the end glass. Jayden Perron has a goal in every Michigan game and a 12-game point streak, and Michael Hage leads the country with 11 assists, so the bounce is likelier to come at Miller's end. Michigan 3-2.

One more Bronco. Tim Washe captained that 2025 title team, and in Anaheim he's averaging 15.3 minutes a night through nine games with two goals and two assists, per NHL data. That's what this program sends up now, and it's why Pat Ferschweiler's room won't flinch at Yost.

Kessler's call: Michigan wins, and the NPI keeps the Broncos first on Monday anyway, because a one-goal road loss to the No. 1 team costs almost nothing in that formula. The voters will see it the other way. Both will be right.