The New York Rangers have 12 prospects playing in North America of which ten play at the NCAA level. If the season ended on Saturday evening, only four would see their teams earning invites to the NCAA tournament. Unless their teams collapse, the two prospects playing in the Canadian juniors will at the very least play one playoff round.

To be fair all ten NCAA prospects will see their teams play in their conference tournament but it is hard to see any of those six remaining prospects advancing very far. This might be the saddest of years from the Ranger prospects in over a decade.

The offensive talent is just not there outside of Gabe Perreault as too many are having unproductive years. And the Rangers are going to start seeing those trades of draft picks start to bite them as they aren’t going to be able to restock the prospect pipeline thanks to dealing all those first, second, and third round picks.

Gabe Perreault, Drew Fortescue and their top-ranked Boston College Eagles are just about guaranteed an NCAA invite. They are sitting on top of the Pairwise ranking and more importantly are only one of two teams that have a quality win bonus number that is higher than .0100.

Boston College has it Hockey East tournament in it’s own hands with just five games remaining in the conference schedule and none of the five games is against a team with a winning record.

Saturday, Boston College bounced back from losing Friday evening with a 4-1 win over 16th-ranked UMass in Hockey East play. They swarmed all over UMass in the first two periods jumping out to a 3-0 lead before finishing with the 4-1 win.

Perreault made it six straight games with at least one point when he assisted on Andre Gasseau’s second period goal which also was the game winning goal. He earned the primary assist for his 27th assist and 39th overall point.

Perreault remains the leading scorer among the Rangers prospects at 12-27-39 but he dropped to second on Boston College while remaining seventh overall in the NCAAs and second in assists.

The bad news for the rest of college hockey is that it was exactly this time last year when Perreault went 6-8-14 over his final eight games going from 13-23-36 to finish 19-41-60. Think we will see a repeat this year?

Teammate Drew Fortescue was scoreless on two shots as he is still looking for his first goal of the season. He has surpassed his freshman numbers (4-4-8) with a 0-9-9 but no goals is not saying a lot.

Ty Henricks and his fourth-ranked Western Michigan Broncos are fifth overall in the Pairwise rankings as they took control their own destiny as the leaders of the NCHC conference thanks to a five point lead and two games in hand.

Their NCHC conference standing will most likely be decided next week when they travel to the dessert and face Arizona State, the team behind them in the standings. In the meantime, Western Michigan finished off a weekend sweep of Nebraska-Omaha 6-1 for their fourth straight win.

Henricks had a primary assist on the Broncos fourth goal of the game as they jumped out to that 4-0 lead and cruised from there. Henricks going 0-1-1 on one shot with a +2 improved his freshman season totals to 3-5-8.

Remember Henricks has been on the fourth line as the left wing for most of the season so it will be another year before we start to see more out of him.

The third team that is almost a given for the NCAA tournament is Brody Lamb and his third ranked Minnesota Golden Gophers of the Big 10. Now Minnesota lost both games to  12th-ranked Michigan (once in overtime, the other in the shootout) but they remain in third place in the Big Ten with an eight point lead over Michigan with just four games remaining.

Saturday saw they play to a 2-2 overtime tie while dropping the shootout portion 1-0. Brody Lamb saw his goal less streak reach 11 games which is a major disappointment as at one point he could have written how much for a Rangers signing bonus.

Now not so sure and it is not like Minnesota isn’t trying to break the slump. Lamb has been all over the lineup with this weekend’s series saw Lamb on the right wing on the first line.

But you are not going to score anything if you don’t take any shots and that is exactly what Lamb did, not a shot on goal.

Before we get to the Mike and the Mechanics “All I need is a miracle” portion of the article, we interrupt the article for a game report on Raoul Boilard and his Baie-Comeau Drakkar of the QMJHL. The Drakkar took on the  Rouyn-Noranda Huskies for the second straight night and earned 6-2 win for their third straight win.

Boilard last season was 22-40-62 +27 in 68 games for the season, this season after going scoreless in his 41st game of the season, Boilard is 10-24-34 -12 on the season. His team is sitting in fourth place of the Western Conference and they are thisclose to clinching as playoff spot and to be honest these guys got a chance to win the Western Conference having just swept the team ahead of them in the standings.

E. J. Emery may not have much offense but we know for sure that he has a bit of a temper. Let’s get the game part out of the way as Emery and his 17th-ranked North Dakota Fighting Hawks defeated sixth-ranked Denver on the road 3-1 in NCHC play.

The game was low-lighted by at the end of the game all 11 players on the ice received roughing minors and misconducts (North Dakota was shorthanded which is why only five players got penalties). Emery had a total of 16 PIMS for the game.

North Dakota after the win sits in a tie for 18th in the Pairwise which is not a good spot to be in. There are six automatic qualifiers then the next best 10 teams. Right now if Holy Cross was the automatic qualifiers from the Atlantic Conference, that would knock out the team sitting at 16 which currently is Penn State.

North Dakota is in fourth place in the NCHC so a deep run or winning it outright is what they need.  In their case it is possible.

Hank Kempf was scoreless as his Cornell Big Red defeated Yale 5-3 in ECAC play. Kempf and Co. are not used to being in this spot with a 11-8-6 (7-6-4-1 ECAC) record and sitting at 20th in the pairwise.

Cornell’s only hope is winning the ECAC Tournament (which they have in the past) and given that their long time coach is retiring after this season this is their motivation. Their best hope is to win their last four games and move up as high in the ECAC standings as possible.

Jackson Dorrington and his Northeastern Huskies lost to UMass-Lowell 3-1 in Hockey East action. The loss drops Northeastern to the 10th seed of the Hockey East playoffs so they are in a world of trouble.

Even if they get past the seventh seed, they would face one of the top two seeds and they do not stand a chance. Jackson Dorrington has a much better chance of signing an ATO and joining the Hartford Wolfpack.

Zakary Karpa and his Harvard Crimson after being shut out by Clarkson 6-0 in ECAC play is sitting as the seventh seed in the ECAC tournament. They would need a miracle to escape the first round but they just lack the talent to win the tournament.

Karpa is a senior but his track record doesn’t show that he is AHL worthy. His best hope is for the Rangers to release his draft rights and allow him to sigh with an ECHL team (hello Worcester).

Did Not Play

Noah Laba missed last night’s game against Miami (Ohio) as he was injured during the second period of Friday’s game in the second and never came out for the third. This is the second time Laba’s been injured this season.

Colorado College has one way to the NCAA tournament which is to win the NCHC tournament. The Tigers are sitting in 33rd of the current Pairwise and this season sorry to say has been a disaster.

Pretty sure if Chris Drury shows up on Noah Laba’s doorstep this season, the kid will be on the airplane before the ink is dry on the contract.