Assessing the Hobey Baker and Mike Richter candidates at holiday break

After a brief holiday break, the college hockey season returns to action on Tuesday, Dec. 27, as dozens of teams will vie for conference supremacy and national standing in the furious 10-week remainder of the regular season.

So now is as good a time as any to take a look at the nation's two major awards: The Hobey Baker award presented annually to the top player in college hockey, and the Mike Richter award presented to the nation's most outstanding goaltender.

At this time of year, you can typically fold both awards into one list of candidates because the top two or three goaltenders in the country will at least be somewhere in any reasonable top-10 list for the Hobey Baker.

However, much like last season, it's not really all that easy to differentiate the best seven or eight skaters from a