This weekend, the season-long leader of the CCHA visits Ann Arbor.
Instead of the familiar teams from Sault Ste. Marie and East Lansing, the Michigan hockey team must contend with a new competitor.
The opponent is not a traditional CCHA power, but a team that has been subpar for the past few seasons - Miami (Ohio).
Miami (13-4-0 CCHA, 19-7-0 overall) has joined last season's co-champions, Michigan and Lake Superior, atop the conference standings as each team has compiled 26 points entering this weekend's action.
And it is games against the conference leaders which will go a long way toward determining where this season's champion will hail from.
With games tonight and tomorrow at 7 p.m., Michigan (12-1-2, 21-1-3) will challenge Miami at Yost Ice Arena, which will, for the first time this season, be the site of a "big-game weekend."
Before the season, this series may have been viewed as a mediocre tune-up for Michigan before the CCHA stretch run to follow. Not anymore - the stretch run begins tonight.
The Redskins were pegged as the CCHA's seventh-place team in the preseason coaches' poll. But that was based on past mediocre seasons - 28-37-10 since 1994-95.
Did Miami coach Mark Mazzoleni feel slighted?
"I thought it was a fair pick, because we hadn't played any games yet," he said. "(But) I knew we had a better team (than the pick). I felt that if we could solidify our goaltending, we'd be a much improved team."
Goaltending has not been a problem.
Junior Trevor Prior, last season's inexperienced netminder, has established himself as one half of the league's top tandem - a duo which has been the key to Miami's success. In his 18 contests this season, he has a 2.55 goals-against average and leads the CCHA with a .900 save percentage.
Prior is joined in the net by fellow junior Adam Lord, a refugee from the disbanded Illinois-Chicago program. Lord has held opponents to 3.32 goals in his 10 games.
The goalies' rotation in and out of the net has kept opponents off-guard and unbalanced all season long.
And Mazzoleni is not making any guarantees for tonight either.
"I'm leaning towards splitting them this weekend," he said. "Because the quality of shots they're going to face, they've each got to focus on a game."
After last season's 10-22-4 record, average expectations have been replaced by big results thus far for Miami.
"When you finish in seventh place and haven't done a hell of a lot, no one owes you anything," Mazzoleni said. "Even though we took some lumps last year, we were playing a lot of freshmen and sophomores, which gave them a lot of on-ice experience."
Now, those players are sophomores and juniors and make up the core of the Miami roster.
The offensive firepower comes from sophomore forward Randy Robitaille, who leads the CCHA in scoring for league games, and junior Tim Leahy, who has recorded seven game-winning goals.
"We have some kids who can definitely play," Mazzoleni said. "(In the past), we had to work really hard to get the puck to the net. Whereas now we have some guys who can step up and snap off (a shot) from 25 feet. Tim is one of those kids."
Mazzoleni had compiled a subpar 22-25-10 conference record in two seasons behind the Miami bench, and there was no reason to think this season would be any different. But with a record of rebuilding behind him, it was inevitable that Mazzoleni would build a winner.
From 1988-90, Mazzoleni's Wisconsin-Stevens Point team won the Division III national title each season.
But Michigan is hardly a Division III team, and Mazzoleni knows it.
"The (Michigan) team may be one of the best teams I've ever seen in college hockey," Mazzoleni said. "When you put that with the tremendous support and enthusiasm that is generated in Yost Arena, I think that team goes to another level."
With first place on the line, Michigan may need that crowd to defeat the unknown team from Oxford.
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Michigan put the moves on Miami (Ohio) last season. Things might be different this time against the surprise of the CCHA.