WCHA awards rare for Gophers so far this season

The Gophers have a pretty impressive-looking record at 11-3-3, but they haven't really been a dominant team. They have yet to sweep anyone in six WCHA series.

There's always a loss or a tie every conference weekend. So taking a look at the weekly WCHA awards, it is not all that surprising that in 10 weeks they have had only two weekly winners:

* forward Nick Bjugstad, picked to be the the WCHA's player of the year, won the offensive player of the week award on Oct. 16 after the Gophers swept Michigan State

* goalie Adam Wilcox was named the rookie of the week after a win and a tie in Alaska Anchorage in early November

That's it. Four WCHA have earned more than two weekly awards.

So who leads in the awards' category? Guess again. ... It's Minnesota State Mankato. The breakdown:

Minnesota State Mankato 7 (one offensive player of the week, three defensive, three rookie)

North Dakota 4 (three O, one rookie)

Colorado College 3 (two O, one D)

Bemidji State 2 (two D)

Michigan Tech 2 (two rookie)

Minnesota 2 (one O, one rookie)

Nebraska Omaha 2 (one O, one D)

Wisconsin 2 (two D)

Denver 1 (one D)

Alasaka Anchorage 0

* Three players have won weekly WCHA awards twice this season: Bemidji State sophomore goalie Andrew Walsh, the defensive player of the week this week, Minnesota Duluth freshman forward Austin Farley and Minnesota State freshman goalie Stephone Williams.

Jonny Brodzinski of St. Cloud State is the WCHA's rookie of the week. The 6-1, 200-pound right winger who played for Blaine High School, had two goals and an assist as the Huskies swept Colorado College 5-3 and 3-1 last weekend.

He had 10 shots on goals and was a plus-2 in the series.

With the sweep, SCSU took first place in the WCHA by one point over Denver and North Dakota.

Brodzinski had seven goals and four assists for 11 points in 18 games.

OTHER AWARD WINNERS

He had seven shots on goal and was a plus-5 in the series.

Knight is third in the WCHA in scoring with eight goals and 15 assists for 23 points. He has a career-best points streak of 13 games, too.

Sophomore goalie Andrew Walsh of Bemidji State is the defensive player of the week. He was in the nets when the Beavers tied Denver 1-1 and beat the Pioneers 5-1. He had 33 saves in the first game, 24 in the second.

DU was one-fot-11 on the power play in the series.

Walsh, of Dawson Creek, British Columbia, is 4-4-2 with a 2.17 goals-against average and a .929 save percentage.