Maryland Are 14-0 and Ranked No. 1. Tomorrow Night They Walk Into No. 2’s Back Yard.

Polls in October are usually just arguments waiting for a match to settle them. This week the match actually exists.

The Penn Monto/NFHCA Division I coaches poll, out on Tuesday 20 October, has Maryland at No. 1 with a 14-0 record, 219 points and 10 of the 11 first-place votes. Northwestern are No. 2 at 14-1 with 210 points and the other first-place vote. On Thursday night, Maryland go to Northwestern. Lakeside Field, Evanston, 8:00 pm ET on the Big Ten Network. No. 1 at No. 2, both unbeaten in the Big Ten at 5-0.

You don’t need to sell that. It sells itself.

The one disagreement in the numbers

Here’s the fun wrinkle. The coaches say Maryland. The computers don’t. The NCAA’s RPI through 18 October has Northwestern at No. 1 and Maryland at No. 2, the exact reverse of the poll. Northwestern’s only defeat all season was a 2-1 overtime loss at Princeton on 11 October, and Princeton themselves sit eighth in this week’s poll, so it’s hardly a blemish. Northwestern have also won five straight against Maryland, which is the kind of streak that lives in a dressing room.

Maryland’s case is the zero. Fourteen played, fourteen won, and nobody’s found a way through them yet. Perfect records in a conference this deep usually crack somewhere. The question is whether Evanston on a Thursday night is where it happens.

The rest of the top ten

Connecticut (12-1) hold third, Massachusetts (15-1) are fourth, Harvard (12-1) fifth and Iowa (11-2) sixth. Duke, Princeton and North Carolina all climbed a place this week to seventh, eighth and ninth, while Wake Forest paid for a bad week, dropping four spots to tenth. Further down, Virginia jumped four places to 15th and Penn State broke into the poll at 19th.

For our money, Thursday settles the argument the poll can’t. If Maryland win in Evanston, the zero starts looking like a statement rather than a schedule quirk. If Northwestern protect home turf and that streak stretches to six, the coaches will be quietly rewriting next week’s ballot before the weekend’s even done. More women’s hockey sits alongside our world rankings coverage, and the week’s best clips are on the Highlights page.