Each week during the season, we look at the big events and big games around Division I men’s college hockey in Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
Jim: I don’t remember, Ed, a weekend as crazy as this past one was.
A Hockey East regular season that went down to the last seconds, a co-championship in the NCHC when North Dakota was less than a minute away from owning the Penrose Trophy (and the top seed in the playoffs) to themselves. And six game threes in playoff series with three teams rallying from two goals down to win in the deciding games. Crazy!
I want to start, though, with the PairWise, which has shown such vulnerability, especially this last week. Teams made some slight moves up, but the biggest moves were in the wrong direction.
Defending national champion Massachusetts was swept by Boston College, costing them the regular-season title in Hockey East. More so, it dropped the Minutemen, at one point, to as low as 14th in the PairWise. By the end of the weekend, they rose back to 12th, mostly because of Ohio State dropping their best-of-three Big Ten quarterfinal series to Penn State.
That has placed the Buckeyes is a precarious situation. Ohio State has no more games before Selection Sunday and must sit in wait squarely on the PairWise bubble at 15th.
It wasn’t too long ago – February 7 according to my notes, that Ohio State was greater than 99 percent to make the NCAA field. Now the Buckeyes chances are less than 40 percent.
I guess this really defines my point that 99.9 percent does not equal 100 percent when it comes to predicting the PairWise. But certainly an unenviable situation for OSU.
Ed: That’s got to be the toughest position for a team to be in: knowing that you still have an outside chance to make the tournament, but having to keep practicing. Every time you hit the ice, you’re remembering what put you in that position.
Still, there are scenarios that will get the Buckeyes in, and they’ll want to root for teams above them in the PairWise to win so as not to see the cutoff line move above them. There will be a lot of fans watching the PairWise as final scores come in when conference championships are decided on March 19 as decimal points determine whether it’s postseason or golf season.
As you noted, the series loss by Ohio State did help out three Hockey East teams in the PairWise. That conference’s playoffs will determine whether there are more than three eastern teams in the NCAA tournament. Right now it looks like four or five could make it, and six is still possible.
We could see two teams from ECAC Hockey, but it likely will only happen if Quinnipiac is not the league champion. Clarkson could sneak in as an at-large, but things have to fall the right way. And Atlantic Hockey is only going to get its tournament champion into the NCAAs.
What about Hockey East? Can we still see three or possibly four teams from the league make it in?
Jim: I don’t see any chance for Hockey East to get four teams into the NCAA field, but three looks feasible the longer I study the numbers.
Let’s put UMass in – they can only lose one more time – but like I said earlier they still aren’t 100 percent and I try to never anoint a team as in if they aren’t 100 percent (that cutline right now is at nine – Notre Dame – with Notre Dame around 99 percent and UMass around 98 percent).
For this exercise, count UMass as in. If UMass Lowell AND Northeastern get past the quarterfinals, they both jump above 90 percent, chances I like barring teams below the cutline winning their conference tournaments.
If Northeastern or UMass Lowell lose, there is still a path for three teams from Hockey East to get in and that includes a team below the cutline winning the tournament.
So that does beg the question, “Why not four?” Well, a fourth team that comes from below the cutline would knock out a Hockey East team, in my opinion.
And they said there wouldn’t be math.
With everyone league now in their conference tournaments, do you see any major upsets on the horizon? I think the biggest possible upset could come from Penn State. The Nittany Lions already picked off Ohio State, as we mentioned. Now they’ll face Minnesota, which didn’t play this past weekend.
There is something to be said for earning some playoff confidence, which Penn State now has. Is it enough to battle Minnesota’s talent? Tough to say, but we know that the Penn State offense can generate. Get good goaltending and you never know in a single-game scenario.
See some other teams ripe for an upset?
Ed: Let’s stick with the Big Ten. It’s a little hard to call it an upset if Notre Dame were to beat Michigan, especially because the Fighting Irish are 4-0 against the Wolverines this season, including twice in OT at Yost. But I really like Notre Dame’s depth, maturity, and goaltending.
Boston College’s sweep of UMass caught everyone’s attention last weekend. In Hockey East’s single-elimination tournament, it wouldn’t surprise me to see the Eagles get at least to the conference semifinals. So I guess anyone facing BC is ripe for an upset.
I’ll add one more that most college hockey fans aren’t paying that much attention to: American International. The four-time Atlantic Hockey champions host Bentley this weekend in a three-game series. The Falcons advanced to this round with a two-game sweep at Niagara and are playing up to the level we saw when they were in second place in the league only a few weeks ago. AIC has shown some vulnerabilities in February.
I’d also keep an eye on a couple of other close matchups that probably don’t rise beyond mild upset, but the Omaha at Western Michigan NCHC series and the single-game semifinal sending Bemidji to Michigan Tech are certainly not beyond the reach of the lower seeds.
I’d like to shift gears a bit. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like the discussion about the Hobey Baker Award has been a bit quiet this year. Perhaps it’s because the storylines on the ice have been so great or because everyone is so happy to be back essentially to normal. Who do you have your eye on for the Hobey?
Jim: You’re correct that Hobey discussions have been a bit quiet, but I also feel that may be related to the fact that no one player is running away with things. We don’t have a Cole Caufield or a Jack Eichel on the ice this year. Instead, we have a lot of players putting forth great but maybe not worldly performances.
I think Bobby Brink from Denver is a frontrunner at this point, potting 53 points already in just 34 games. That’s seven clear of any other player in the nation.
To that list, you can also add Aidan McDonough from Northeastern, the hero for the Huskies who won the regular-season championship with 9.5 seconds remaining on Saturday. He has 23 goals and 36 points in 35 games. Decent numbers, though not earth-shattering.
Honestly, I feel like – and I’m aware it isn’t likely – but we really should be talking about a goaltender to win the Hobey this season. Since the creation of the Richter Award in 2014, I feel like goalies are now in a category of non-consideration, if that’s even possible given how little consideration goaltenders have gotten in the history of the award. But this year feels like the year of the goaltender.
Yaniv Perets at Quinnipiac is going to break the all-time mark for goals against average and needs one shutout to tie Greg Gardiner’s all-time mark for shutouts in a season. Devon Levi at Northeastern has played 29 games this season and has made 839 saves (average of 29 saves per game). He now has 10 shutouts.
Both of those goaltenders should be the top two favorites for the award, but I’m still not sure how you convince the Hobey committee of that.
Do you agree?
Ed: I completely agree. Before the Richter award, we always used to talk about a goalie needing Ryan Miller numbers to be considered a Hobey Baker winner. Minnesota State’s Dryden McKay was close to those numbers last season but missed the Hobey and, in my opinion, was robbed of the Richter.
However, I would be surprised to see both Perets and Levi as finalists. They say “Hobey loves goals,” but I don’t think he likes goalies quite so much.
Ryan Miller numbers? Miller in his sophomore season had a .950 save percentage, a 1.32 goals-against average and 10 shutouts in 40 games in 2000-01. Perets has a .956 save percentage, a .82 goals against, and those 11 shutouts have come in 25 games. Meanwhile, Levi has a .953 save percentage and a 1.45 goals against.
And McKay this season? His nine shutouts, .932 save percentage, and 1.28 goals against are not too shabby either.
Perets, Levi, and McKay would be my pick for this year’s Mike Richter Award finalists. And it would not surprise me to see the Quinnipiac sophomore as a finalist for the Hobey, too.
