Weekend Watch: A Battle Of The West, Coach Poised To Make History

Here are some things to watch for this weekend in the USHL.

The two top teams in the Western Conference face off, and a USHL coach is on the brink of making history. Here are some things to look out for this weekend in the league.

The top two teams in the Western Conference face off this weekend as the Lincoln Stars host the Sioux Falls Stampede.

The Stars are red-hot, having won 11 consecutive games. It’s the second-longest win streak in team history, and their 30-11-1 record is tops in the USHL.

The Herd come into Friday’s matchup four points behind Lincoln in the West at 27-10-2-1. It will be a home-and-home series, with Lincoln playing host Friday at the Ice Box before Sioux Falls gets its turn on Saturday at 6:05 Pm.

Lincoln is coming off a home-and-home sweep of the struggling Omaha Lancers last weekend, earning a 6-1 victory before a similarly convincing 7-2 road win.

The Stars got scoring contributions from all three forwards on their fourth line Friday and erupted for three power-play goals on Saturday.

The 11-game winning streak is Lincoln’s longest since a 16-game string that ran from March 1-Apr. 5, 2002.

Two Stars skaters come into the weekend on impressive point streaks. Dashel Oliver currently has the longest active points streak in the USHL, with 21 points (9-12-21) in his last 11 games. During that span, he has recorded six multi-point outings. The Stars are 23-0 when Oliver scores at least one point.

Former Stampede forward Hunter Anderson has collected nine points (2-7-9) over his last eight games. Anderson was acquired from Sioux Falls via trade on Jan. 9 and has points in all but one of his 11 games with Lincoln.

The Herd are on a mini-streak of their own, having won three straight to earn points in each of their last four games. They also swept a home-and-home set with the Fargo Force last weekend.

Sioux Falls has one of the top offenses in the USHL, ranking second in goals scored with 162, putting them 26 behind the Stars. The Stampede are also second to Lincoln in goals allowed (118).

The two teams have played only one other time this season, a 3-2 Stars triumph on the road back on Oct. 5, 2024.

Mark Carlson has coached a lot of games in the USHL since coming to the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders in 1999, 1,475 of them, to be exact.

Now, the only coach the club has ever had is about to make history.

Carlson is on the verge of breaking the USHL record for most regular-season games coached, set by P.K. O’Handley at 1,476. He could tie the record Friday against the Dubuque Fighting Saints and could set a new mark the following night against Waterloo. Ironically, the Black Hawks are one of the teams O’Handley coached.

Carlson has amassed 767 career regular-season victories, second all-time behind O’Handley’s 778. With 21 games left, he could also eclipse that milestone.

The championships and awards have piled up too for Carlson. He won a Clark Cup in 2005 and has collected Anderson Cup titles in 2005, 2011 and 2016. He’s been named USHL Coach of the Year three times: 2005, 2011 and 2016.

Carlson played collegiate hockey at UMass-Lowell from 1990-93 and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 11^th round (215^th overall) of the 1987 NHL Draft. He coached at UMass-Lowell for one season (1995-96) before joining Northeastern from 1996-99.

Here’s to many more games for the Lawrenceville, New Jersey native.

Things couldn’t get much worse for the Omaha Lancers. Or could they?

The Lancers have dropped 23 consecutive games and haven’t won in almost three months. They’ve gone through three different head coaches this season alone and six over the past three seasons.

A group of die-hard fans has even called for team owner Mike Picozzi to sell the team, sporting t-shirts with “We Are Here for the Boys” and “Picozzi, Sell the Team.”

According to reports, the Lancers are pinning their hopes on former Princeton coach Ron Fogarty.

Fogarty spent 10 seasons at Princeton after serving seven years at Adrian College. He also had stints as an assistant at Bowling Green, Clarkson and Colgate.

The Lancers are in Fargo this weekend for a series with the Force. It’s a mighty hard fall from seven-time league champion to rock-bottom. There’s nowhere to go but up, and here’s hoping that whomever the coach is can at least provide some stability for what’s left of the season. Beyond that, it’s up to Picozzi and team leadership to reset the culture by whatever means necessary.