College Hockey post season

Decided to start a new thread on this instead of just letting the specific Gophers one go sideways. There is a number of “local” teams playing this weekend.

Friday
NCHC Semifinals in St Paul
CC vs Denver, 4pm
North Dakota vs St Cloud, 7:30pm

Saturday
CCHA Championship in Mankato
Northern Michigan vs Mankato, 5pm

Big Ten Championship in Mpls
Michigan vs Minnesota, 7pm

NCHC Championship in St Paul
TBD vs TBD after Friday’s semifinals, 7:30pm

Bemidji State, St Thomas, Wisconsin, and Duluth have seen their season’s end already. Its the first time in 7 years that Duluth will not qualify for the NCAA tournament, which was the current longest streak in the country. Colorado College, North Dakota, and Northern Michigan will need to win their conference tournament to qualify for the NCAAs. Minnesota, Denver, Michigan, St Cloud, and Mankato are all currently on the positive side of the qualification bubble.

thanks gimruis!!!!!

Gimruis, is it usually a lock that the top 16 in the pairwise rankings make the tournament?

AK Guy wrote:

Gimruis, is it usually a lock that the top 16 in the pairwise rankings make the tournament?

Yes, however, there are automatic qualifier spots from teams outside the top 16 that could remove spots.

There are no teams inside the top 16 from Atlantic Hockey, so the cut line moves up to 15. Whoever wins that conference tournament will very likely be the lowest ranked team in the NCAA tournament and will face the number 1 overall seed, which is likely to be Minnesota.

Additionally, there are quite a few teams still participating in the two conference tournaments out east that are not in the top 16, so if one of them wins one or both of them, that eliminates two more spots, moving the cut line up to 13. North Dakota, Colorado College, and Northern Michigan are all sitting below 16 so if any of them win their tournament this weekend (that I listed above), that could also move up the cut line.

If you are a team sitting near the bubble (like Mankato at 13), you are cheering for a higher ranked team to win the conference tournaments. Mankato is also still playing, so they can simply avoid any problems by just winning the CCHA Championship too.

Thanks Gim! Here’s the Pairwise Rankings:

http://www.uscho.com/rankings/pairwise-rankings/d-i-men/

Goodbye North Dakota. Your season is now over.

Not very often do you see both Duluth and North Dakota not in the NCAA tournament.

St Cloud vs CC, NCHC Championship at 7:30pm in St Paul

Hect of a game!

How bout them Huskies!!! Great game, SCSU just comes at you in waves. Thanks to the NCHC TV deal w CBS Sports I’ve seen more Huskies games than the Wild.

BigWerm wrote:

How bout them Huskies!!! Great game, SCSU just comes at you in waves. Thanks to the NCHC TV deal w CBS Sports I’ve seen more Huskies games than the Wild.

I watched most of it. Thought it was very entertaining. Not the typical North Dakota team either. They look more like a team of grinders than a team chocked full of draft picks.

gophers play tonight at 7 i believe on the BTN!!!!!1

glenn57 wrote:

gophers play tonight at 7 i believe on the BTN!!!!!1

Yep,

Minnesota, St Cloud, and Mankato all play for a league tournament championship tonight. Maybe all three will claim victory for the state of hockey.

That pitlick goal was nuts!

That one was impressive!

0 for 3 on the off sides challenges for the home team today.

Hard Water Fan wrote:

0 for 3 on the off sides challenges for the home team today.

Lol I was thinking that too. Maybe keep the challenge flag in the sock the next few games for both teams.

What’s your opinion of what Michigan goaly!! He he seams to like to kick the goal off the gaol posts in duress??

The net came off really easy there, didn’t look intentional to me. He still made the save too.

Huskies looked dominant all throughout the tourney. Time to finish it off with a Natty!!!

2 out of 3 ain’t bad. Way to go St Cloud and Mankato.

Kato was down 2-0 late in the third, got a pair of goals in the final 2+ minutes, and then won in OT. Unreal

Gophers coughed the puck up too many times in their defensive end. Sometimes by themselves other times due to Michigan’s aggressive forechecking.

The NCAA tournament bracket will be revealed today at 5:30pm.

Minnesota is the top overall seed and will be playing the lowest ranked qualifying team, Canisus, in Fargo.

St Cloud is the overall number 6 seed. Location and opponent TBD.

Mankato is the overall number 11 seed. Location and opponent TBD.

Games will start on Thursday, March 23.

Gopher’s youth appeared to be a bit of a detriment.

Some strange miscues and even a few solo slips and falls that probably did not get caught on camera.

The top line on the Gophers are two Freshman and a Sophomore. (Wait can we still use those terms ? )

If you are going to lose one game in the next 5 … that would be the one to lose.

gimruis wrote:

The NCAA tournament bracket will be revealed today at 5:30pm.

Minnesota is the top overall seed and will be playing the lowest ranked qualifying team, Canisus, in Fargo.

St Cloud is the overall number 6 seed. Location and opponent TBD.

Mankato is the overall number 11 seed. Location and opponent TBD.

Games will start on Thursday, March 23.

Pretty dumb they stuck #1, 6, 11 and 16 in the same bracket. I assume to try and maximize attendance at Fargo, but sucks there will only be 1 MN team able to reach the Frozen 4. Winning the NCHC Tourney sure didn’t seem to do much for the Huskies seeding.

BigWerm wrote:

Pretty dumb they stuck #1, 6, 11 and 16 in the same bracket. I assume to try and maximize attendance at Fargo, but sucks there will only be 1 MN team able to reach the Frozen 4. Winning the NCHC Tourney sure didn’t seem to do much for the Huskies seeding.

Ya that’s total BS. Definitely the regional of death. Not only is it unfair for the top overall seeded Gophers, it’s unfair for the Huskies being the 6 seed. The attendance is not an issue in Fargo. The green plague has that regional sold out in 15 minutes, even if they missed the tournament.

Par of the allure is playing a team you haven’t seen before. Not the case here, as Mankato, Minnesota, and St Cloud all played each other this season already. The only positive is that at least one team from this state is very likely to reach the frozen four.

Michigan got a complete cake walk regional. They have a very easy path to the frozen four.

Here is the entire bracket with dates, times, location, etc.

Mankato plays St Cloud at 4pm in Fargo on Thursday
Minnesota plays Canisius at 8pm in Fargo on Thursday
The winners will play each other at 5:30pm in Fargo on Saturday

The Frozen Four is in Tampa on April 6 & 8. All games are televised by ESPN networks.

https://www.therinklive.com/mens-college/2023-ncaa-division-i-mens-ice-hockey-bracket

Yeah stick all the MN schools in one region what a joke. That is probably the toughest region out of them all and should be the easiest at least for the Gophers.

Was in Madison yesterday doing a collage visit with my son, we were eating lunch on State street when the Wisconsin Girls hockey team came to celebrate their win over Ohio State. They sure can drink, meet Kristen Simms the gal that scored the only goal. Pretty cool

First game is today at 1pm, Boston University vs Western Michigan.

Mankato plays St Cloud at 4pm, and Canisius plays Minnesota at 8pm, both at Scheels Arena in Fargo.

Minnesota better not go whole “Holy Cross” on the bit against Canisius.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Minnesota better not go whole “Holy Cross” on the bit against Canisius.

Its a mismatch on paper, clearly. But there have been a lot of recent upsets with lower seeds knocking off much higher seeds in the NCAA tournament the past decade or so. The parity is very balanced now. The blue print for a less-skilled team is there. Just play as much defense as possible, slow the game down, and win a low scoring game. There are a lot of TV timeouts in these games. You can’t overlook anyone.

I can assure you that Motzko knows this upset thing very well. He had some very high ranked teams at St Cloud and they lost to much lower seeds in the first game. His teams were excellent in the regular season, but seemed to always fail in the post season.

The other issue with the Gophers, at least lately, is that they’ve only played 2 games this entire month of March because of the Big Ten’s playoff format, having an odd number of teams. And they haven’t played on a smaller NHL sized sheet of ice since Feb 18. Not an ideal amount of game action heading into a one and done format.