OXFORD, Ohio – It was a fitting end to a dreadful January for Miami.

Kristian Blumenschein blasted home a one-timer from the high slot on a 5-on-3 with 3:12 left in regulation, lifting Colorado College to a 3-2 win over the RedHawks at Cady Arena on Saturday.

MU led, 2-1 entering the third period.

Miami head coach Enrico Blasi (photo by Cathy Lachmann/BoB).

Miami (9-13-4) finished January 0-7-1 and is winless in its last 12 (0-8-4). The RedHawks have lost six games in a row.

The game ended with MU coach Enrico Blasi drawing a game misconduct for confronting the officials after the game.

That bench penalty could carry a suspension.

RECAP: Colorado College (10-12-3) took the lead just 3:54 into the game when Trey Bradley kicked a pass back to a wide-open Ben Israel in the high slot, and Israel trapped it, wound up and wired it over the glove of Miami goalie Jordan Uhelski.

The RedHawks tied it when Scott Corbett carried the puck across the blue line on the right wing, dragged it to the top of the faceoff circle and wristed it inside the far post with 1:50 left in the opening stanza.

Miami took the lead, 2-1 when Derek Daschke snuck a wrist shot through traffic on the power play with 7:35 left in the second period.

But the Tigers tied it 86 seconds into the final frame when Alex Berardinelli emerged from along the boards with the puck, slid a pass through the slot to a wide-open Cole McCaskill, who snuck in on the back door for a tap-in goal.

The RedHawks’ Casey Gilling was whistled for interference to give Colorado College the decisive power play. Miami went down two men when Andrew Sinard kicked a CC skater’s stick as he reached for it.

Blumenschein ripped his shot over the glove of Uhelski off a feed from Mason Bergh to put CC ahead.

Following the goal, Blasi grabbed a Miami stick and wound up to throw it on the ice but instead shattered it on the boards.

After the game Blasi and referee Scott Bokal jawed at each other at the Miami blue line, sticking their fingers in each other’s faces.

STATS: Daschke scored for the second time in five games, and Corbett snapped a seven-game scoreless streak.

— Gilling picked up an assist, giving him points in consecutive games.

— Miami did win 62 percent of its faceoffs (31 of 50) after struggling mightily in that area much of this month.

— Now the bad: The RedHawks slipped to 1-21-6 the past three seasons when pursuing their 10th win.

— Miami is 1-11-2 in January the past two seasons.

— The RedHawks took the lead and held it for 8:01. It was the first time MU had led at any point in seven games.

THOUGHTS: The Call.

The penalty on Sinard was crucial, and it nearly gave Blasi a coronary.

Miami’s Andrew Sinard (photo by Cathy Lachmann/BoB).

So a quick summary:

* With the score tied at two, Sinard was whistled for interference at 15:17 of the third period, setting up a 1:23 two-man advantage.

He didn’t do the “distinct kicking motion”, the term hockey throws around when pucks hit skates and result in goals, but made no attempt to avoid the stick.

* Did he do it deliberately? Unclear. He was heading to the bench and maybe he didn’t see it. If someone held a gun to my head and made me pick a side, I’d say he probably knocked it away on purpose. Technically that’s a penalty.

However, the bar is almost always higher when putting a team down two skaters, which results in a goal against a substantial percentage of the time.

* Also, these officials had called a total of two penalties on Friday – one to each team – and just three each prior to Gilling and Sinard’s minors.

* Blasi was also outraged that the officials didn’t make the proverbial make-up call when Grant Hutton was bumped seconds before the goal, but there wasn’t much contact there.

* Were Blasi’s antics following the goal on the bench and also after the game, rehearsed? Knowing him, probably not. It was more likely a frustrated coach losing his mind after a winnable game slipped away.

But even if it was, I think it’s a good thing he lit them up. This team seriously underachieved this month and someone or something needed to fire Miami’s players up.

Especially with a series at St. Cloud looming next weekend.

* For the record, the last time Blasi was kicked out of a game was Feb. 13, 2010 in a 10-2 rout at Bowling Green that also featured one of the team’s most memorable skirmishes.

* The Call – and resulting goal – was a huge part of the game, no doubt, but there are plenty of other questions about how this game flipped from a win to the ‘L’ column.

How did Miami end up with four shots in the third period against a team that had allowed 24 goals in its previous seven games?

Why is Gilling taking an interference call an area code away from the play to initiate that power play?

Why did the entire team flood the left wing in the second minute of that final frame, allowing a wide-open McCaskill an uncontested tap-in to tie it?

Why didn’t Phil Knies bust it on the left wing earlier in the 3-on-5 when Miami had a 2-on-1 to create a better scoring chance?

Miami’s Scott Corbett (photo by Cathy Lachmann/BoB).

It was a hard way to lose, no doubt, but there were many other factors that went into this loss than merely a controversial interference call.

— What a crazy shift for Scott Corbett in the second period. He nearly scored, held off several Colorado College defenders along the boards and had the puck roll off his stick for a 2-on-1 the other way before obliterating a Tigers skater at center ice and drawing a retaliation penalty.

That power play culminated in Daschke’s goal, and Corbett scored the other one in the first period.

— It’s probably a little less than 50/50 that Blasi is suspended, and if he is it would likely just be for a game, but any announcement would likely be made on Monday.

GRADES

FORWARDS: C-. A little more life than Friday but not enough. The creativity of Gordie Green and Karch Bachman has been completely stymied by defenses for weeks and Miami isn’t deep enough up front to have its top scorers held off the scoresheet for long periods of time. Corbett figured in both goals (although he didn’t get a point for the second one), and Gilling and Jonathan Gruden earned assists. Gruden’s father, NY Islanders assistant John Gruden, was in attendance because of the All-Star break.

DEFENSEMEN: C. This corps did clean up its play substantially over Friday but is still allowing too many quality chances. No one picked up the trailer on the second CC goal (Bray Crowder and River Rymsha were on the ice) and the Tigers ended up with at least 10 shots in each period.

GOALTENDING: B. The first goal snuck through traffic, the second was a slam dunk and the third was a rip from the high slot. Maybe Uhelski could’ve stopped the first or last, but he made a radical save on a 2-on-1 (Corbett’s shift, see above) and stopped 31 shots overall and was outstanding at controlling his rebounds.

LINEUP CHANGES: Just one among skaters: F Carter Johnson was back on the ice, replacing Zach LaValle.

LaValle had played the previous three games and Johnson had sat the prior two.

Uhelski started for the third time in five games and relieved Ryan Larkin in the other two.

He has been the back-up most of this season but is the hotter of the tandem right now, so it will be interesting to see how much he plays the final 10 games of the regular season.

Co-captain Josh Melnick remains week-to-week with a lower body injury, as he missed his sixth straight game. There’s a very good chance he returns next weekend.

Chaz Switzer was in the stands wearing a boot and fellow D-man Grant Frederic is also out with a lower-bod injury.

SCHEDULE: Miami heads to No. 1 St. Cloud State next weekend. Its other remaining road contests are against No. 4 Denver and No. 5 Minnesota-Duluth.

The four home games left on the RedHawks’ schedule are vs. Nebraska-Omaha in two weeks and No. 13 Western Michigan to wrap up the regular season.

STANDINGS: Colorado College entered the weekend needing all six points to pass Miami for sixth place in the conference standings, and the Tigers swept them all.

At 3-9-2, the RedHawks are currently seventh in the NCHC, just one point ahead of last-place Omaha.

Miami has dropped to No. 35 in the PairWise and are now a major longshot for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

FINAL THOUGHTS: The question becomes: If Miami can’t beat Colorado College – playing its eighth and ninth straight road games – in its own rink, how many more wins will the RedHawks get?

Their six remaining road games are brutal. Omaha is beatable but Western Michigan is ranked No. 13 and swept the RedHawks in Kalamazoo.

Those seven and eight seeds are death sentences, with best-of-3s at St. Cloud State and Minnesota-Duluth in those teams’ rinks, so Miami really needs to figure out a way to earn enough points to get out of this hole.

The disturbing thing is we’ve gone from wow, this team could fight for home ice and an NCAA berth to, OK, curb expectations because this is still a pieced-together team to for the love of God, Miami just got manhandled at home by the last-place team in the league — all in a span of 22 days.

And now we’re questioning this team’s compete level, something that was never an issue in calendar year 2018.

So what happened? Miami was going so well against St. Cloud, when the RedHawks tied the Huskies twice at Cady Arena to cap off the first half of the season.

The loss of one of the captains is huge, no doubt, but that doesn’t explain not showing up for Game 1 of this series and blowing Game 2 in the third period against a CC team that had two previous conference wins.

Hopefully the RedHawks’ coaching staff has the answer and solution, because it’s hard to be optimistic about Miami’s chances next weekend when the team is 0-8-4 in its last 12 and is visiting the top-ranked team in Division I.

And at this point the RedHawks’ odds of advancing to the Frozen Faceoff and beyond for the first time in four years are looking equally bleak.

OXFORD, Ohio – With the last place team coming to town this weekend, Miami had an excellent chance to snap its 10-game winless streak.

Instead the RedHawks suffered their worst loss of the season by goal margin, 6-1 against Colorado College at Cady Arena on Friday.

The Tigers (9-12-3) scored three times in a span of 5:14 in the first period, and by the 10-minute mark of the second frame Miami was down five.

The RedHawks are 0-7-4 in their last 11 games with their last win coming vs. Colorado College on Nov. 17.

RECAP: Colorado College opened the scoring midway through the first period when Brian Williams backhanded a rebound home off a shot from Erik Middendorf, who had cut to the side of the net uncontested.

Just 2:14 later, the Tigers scored on a 2-on-1 as Trevor Gooch centered a pass to Alex Berardinelli, who skated in alone and roofed one to the glove side.

With 4:54 left in the opening stanza, Miami goalie Ryan Larkin made a save but the puck was loose under him and teammate Derek Daschke poked it out of the crease. Troy Conzo grabbed it, shot it off a body and seized the rebound, which he fired into the net.

Intermission didn’t stop the bleeding for the RedHawks. At the 41-second mark of the middle frame, Trey Bradley emerged from a boards battle with the puck, skated behind the net and backhanded it into the cage to make it 4-0.

That ended Larkin’s night, as Jordan Uhelski replaced him between the pipes.

Miami’s Grant Hutton (photo by Cathy Lachmann/BoB).

Williams buried a slap shot inside the far post from the top of the faceoff circle on a 3-on-2 created by a bad Miami line change midway through the second period.

The RedHawks (9-12-4) scored their first goal in over 160 minutes when Grant Hutton stopped, wound up and ripped a slap shot that found the bottom of the net on the stick side from the blue line with 8:52 remaining in the second period.

Colorado College sealed it when Christiano Versich buried a drop pass from Middendorf in the slot in the closing minutes.

STATS: Hutton snapped a 13-game goal drought. It was the 27th goal of his career, unofficially tying him for third on the all-time Miami defenseman scoring list with Andy Greene and Joe Cook. Dan Boyle and Kevin Beaton are the only RedHawks/skins blueliners with more tallies.

— Casey Gilling picked up the primary assist and also broke out of a funk by recording his first point in seven games and his first assist in 12.

Miami’s Jordan Uhelski (photo by Cathy Lachmann/BoB).

— Brian Hawkinson notched the other helper. He has a point in each of the last three games in which Miami was not shut out.

— Larkin was pulled for the second straight start and has allowed eight goals on 34 shots in that span. Uhelski has played in four consecutive games and is 95 of 103 for a save percentage of .922.

— A positive? Despite all seven goals being scored at even strength, Phil Knies somehow went plus-1.

— Another positive: Miami was 30-23 on faceoffs, an area in which the RedHawks have struggled mightily in recent weeks.

— A random one: Only two penalties were called all game, resulting in one power play for each team. The last time a Miami game saw two or fewer man-advantage opportunities was Jan. 18, 2013 at Wisconsin.

In that game, the Badgers scored on their chance and won, 1-0.

THOUGHTS: Paying fans should really demand a refund for this game.

Colorado College, dead last in the NCHC, was playing its eighth consecutive road game, and Miami made the Tigers look like the Washington Capitals.

During the first six games of this winless stretch, Miami played pretty well in each game and certainly had intensity every night.

The RedHawks lost a pair of one-goal decisions on the road vs. a quality Western Michigan team, and then last week they were totally outmatched by Minnesota-Duluth, one of the top teams in Division I.

Colorado College was a tired cellar dweller going on the road and beating the bejesus out of a higher-skilled team.

Miami was completely lifeless and fell behind 5-0. Hutton’s goal energized the RedHawks momentarily, but the damage had been done.

MU Version 2018-19 is not a team built to erase a five-goal deficit.

— What in the deuce was going on with Miami’s defensemen?

Usually-dependable Rourke Russell was a turnover machine. Bray Crowder inexplicably skated to the boards on a 2-on-1, essentially allowing a breakaway goal that made it 2-0. Players were out of position all night. No one picked up Tigers cutting to the net.

Miami’s River Rymsha (photo by Cathy Lachmann/BoB).

Andrew Sinard was a rare bright spot among this corps if for no other reason because he plays cautiously and makes safe passes. He used his long reach to knock pucks away from opponents several times and is earning more ice time as a result of that and injuries to other defensemen.

— River Rymsha had an interesting night. He had played some wing this season but was the starting center in this one. He went 3-1 on faceoffs.

Rymsha also was hurt, as he came off holding his shoulder. Based on the optics it appeared he would miss significant time, but he returned and looked 100 percent the balance of the game.

GRADES

FORWARDS: D-. The absence of Josh Melnick is having a crippling effect on this corps, which has not found the net in three games. Even Miami’s best most skilled forwards are struggling: Karch Bachman was minus-4, Jonathan Gruden minus-3, Gordie Green minus-3.

DEFENSEMEN: F. Hutton’s goal bumped their grade from a ‘G-’. Their woes were documented above: Bad decisions, bad positioning, turnovers, flat-footedness. It was easily the worst effort of the season by the blueliners.

GOALTENDING: C-. The first goal came off a point-blank shot that resulted in a rebound, so that can’t be blamed on Larkin. The second was a breakaway and a quality snipe. However, Larkin couldn’t control an innocuous shot on the third goal and was unable to get across to stop a wraparound on the fourth. Uhelski probably should’ve had the fifth one and the sixth was on an uncontested shot from the slot.

LINEUP CHANGES: Hutton was back after sitting last Saturday and forward Noah Jordan sat scratched. Rymsha shifted to forward and Zach LaValle was the extra skater, dressing for the third straight game.

Melnick missed his fifth consecutive contest.

FINAL THOUGHTS: It was an all-around bad night at the rink.

There’s simply no excuse for falling behind 5-0 by the midpoint of the second period against a team that had won one of its last seven games.

At home.

The last team Miami beat was this Tigers team. But that was over two months ago in Colorado Springs, and this game showed how far the RedHawks have slipped since then.

Like Miami, Colorado College is looking for its first win of 2019.

The Tigers are 0-3-1 early this calendar year with all four games coming at home.

CC is currently last in the NCHC with just eight conference points.

BoB takes a look at the upcoming series between these teams:

WHO: Colorado College (8-12-3) at Miami RedHawks (9-11-4).

WHERE: Cady Arena (3,642), Oxford, Ohio.

WHEN: Friday – 7:35 p.m.; Saturday – 7:05 p.m.

COLORADO COLLEGE RADIO: KRDO-FM (105.5), Colorado Springs, Colo.

MIAMI RADIO: WKBV-AM (1490), Richmond, Ind.

NOTES: Colorado College is last in the NCHC but the Tigers have always given Miami fits, as the RedHawks are 1-3-1 in their last five meetings.

CC averages three goals a game despite not having a skater over 17 points.

Thirteen Tigers have found the net at least three times, and Westin Michaud leads the team in points with 17.

CC’s top five points producers are forwards, with four being seniors and the other a junior.

Michaud has scored eight goals, and Trey Bradley is tops among Tigers skaters in goals (9) and second in points (16).

Mason Bergh has five goals and 10 assists, Trevor Gooch eight markers and five helpers and Nick Halloran has posted four goals and nine helpers for 13 points.

Halloran is the lone junior among this corps – the rest are all seniors.

Junior Alex Berardinelli is another major threat on a Tigers team that scores 3.00 goals per game. Berardinelli has scored seven times including twice shorthanded.

Colorado College has scored 69 times this season, but only three of its tallies have come from defensemen.

Freshman Bryan Yoon is 1-12-13 and easily leads this corps in points.

Zach Berzolla, Andrew Farny and Kristian Blumenschein are 0-6-6, 0-6-6 and 0-5-5 in 23 games each, respectively, and Ben Israel, Cole McCaskill and Alex Pernitsky have logged the remainder of the defensemen minutes for the Tigers.

Junior Alex Leclerc has logged over 90 percent of the team’s minutes in net, going 8-11-3 with a 2.73 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage.

This wraps up a ridiculous nine-game road trip for the Tigers, who are 1-5-1 in their current stretch away from World Arena.

Miami’s Josh Melnick (photo by Cathy Lachmann/BoB).

Colorado College’s last three games have all gone to overtime, and the Tigers lost two, both at North Dakota.

The Tigers had a game against Denver postponed last weekend because of weather.

Miami is 0-6-4 in its last 10 games and has not scored in 141:26.

Captain Josh Melnick has missed the last four games with a lower body injury and is questionable to return this weekend.