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.
Dan: It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been able to jump back into this space with anyone, but I’m glad that I picked this week for my return.
Why, you might ask? Well, it’s because I can take a victory lap around last week’s USCHO Edge column and podcast and, more specifically, the Michigan-Wisconsin game. If you take a look at the picks, only one intrepid reporter chose Wisconsin to win at home… (holds thumbs out) and it was THIS GUY.
I’d like to think I knew something there, but truthfully, I outlined why I picked Wisconsin on the podcast. I don’t need to go back over that.
What I DO need to go over is exactly where I’m starting this week with you, Mr. Connelly: the upsets.
It felt like there were a good chunk of them this week, and outside of Wisconsin’s win over Michigan, we saw some teams really step up to the plate to shock college hockey out of its post-Thanksgiving slumber.
Between Wisconsin, Colgate’s win over Harvard, Merrimack stepping up to the plate and beating Connecticut (which I wouldn’t consider an upset), and even Colorado College’s win over Minnesota Duluth, what stuck out to you among this weekend’s results?
Jim: Honestly, I think you missed the biggest upset of the weekend, which was Ferris State’s two-game sweep of Minnesota State. And while many of these results impacted the PairWise, I’m not sure if any team feels like the Mavericks did this past week.
Talking PairWise, I’m finally comfortable talking about the ranking system that determines the at-large bids for the national tournament as every team, most importantly the Ivies, have cleared the 10-game mark of their season.
Looking at the current PairWise, there are a number of teams that I believe had extremely high expectations that had a lot of work to do to climb the rankings. Minnesota State is one, but Northeastern (25th), North Dakota (22nd) and Cornell (t-19th) all have a lot of work ahead of them.
Do you have some concerns or observations when looking at the current PairWise?
Dan: I’ve been waiting for a few years to see teams reach out for the proverbial brass ring, and this year finally feels like it’s happening. It’s almost like the sports gods heard my cry for help from about a month ago in this very space, but when we look at the Pairwise Rankings as of this week, things are very, very different from what we’d expect.
We still have teams like Minnesota and Denver carrying most of the water weight atop the rankings, but Quinnipiac is in the No. 2 spot as the team with the least amount of losses among elite level contenders. Boston University, finally, is back, and Connecticut, who I thought was the best team in the country a few weeks ago, is holding strong in eighth. Merrimack – MERRIMACK?! – is sixth. And none of this is a fluke.
Take those Warriors, who are 11-4 on the season with a 7-2 record in Hockey East. They beat Clarkson to start the year and later beat Colgate, a team that just swept Harvard and Dartmouth and are replacing the Golden Knights in that vaunted top tier of four teams in ECAC. The UConn loss on Tuesday was the first time they’d dropped a game since late October, and they’ve been dominant in beating teams that they honestly, at this point, should be beating (sorry, Maine, Sacred Heart and Holy Cross). Merrimack is for real, and though there’s a lot of hockey remaining, I think they’re my biggest pleasant surprise this year.
So apologies to all the good folks in North Andover when the roof collapses on their season because I said that. I really do apologize for the inevitable jinx and hex I just put on you. Like Bruno in “Encanto,” I just knocked on wood, threw salt over my shoulder, and crossed my fingers (that reference, by the way, definitely shows how I have a child at home).
More seriously, I do think that Hockey East as a whole is really driving much of the way I’m viewing the Pairwise Rankings. Yes, Northeastern is outside the bubble, but the rest of the league, at least this year, caught up to the Huskies. Providence has done a great job of not losing hockey games, and the divide between the upper tier and the lower tier in the league means that those top teams should be able to push one another to heights as long as they don’t all suddenly start losing every game. Outside of that, I’m pleasantly surprised by Harvard’s emergence into the next bubble, though I think it’s going to take some work to get into the tournament because the bottom part of ECAC is dragging the rest of the league’s coefficient down.
What say you here? Is Hockey East a league that we can objectively look at this year as the cream of the nation? I know that the Big Ten probably has something to say about it, but it does appear at a surface level that the league has reclaimed some of its spark.
Jim: Hockey East has put itself in a wonderful position, certainly. But the thought of the league getting six teams into the NCAA tournament is still difficult.
Look at the current positions. As you mentioned, Merrimack is sixth but that is the top Hockey East team. There are too many teams in the bottom of the top 16, which means the second half of the season will cannibalize some of these bubble teams.
In my opinion, the league in the best shape is the Big Ten. Five of the seven teams would make the tournament today and even if a few teams crush others out, four of seven is still more than half the league. The elevated non-conference winning percentage makes this pretty understandable, but still it is shocking to see more than 70 percent of the league in NCAA position.
Dan: That’s a fair assessment, and conversely, while I don’t think its glory days are over, we’re seeing the aftereffects of the past few years finally cycle through the NCHC, which outside of Denver and St. Cloud is staring at having nobody in the top part of the college hockey world.
It’s a stark contrast to me how that’s happened, but remember that it’s all relative. If the Big Ten and Hockey East monopolize those spots right now, then every other league gets pushed down. But even with a thinning out or a regression to a mean, NCHC is the one league that is struggling.
Throughout all of this, I’m actually intrigued at how teams will break into the second half. We’ve seen teams explode after Christmas and catch fire, and leagues now lacking those extra at-large bids may take on a different tenor. It’s what we’ve seen in Atlantic Hockey for years.
But one last point and question from me. I’ve largely eschewed talking about the AHA for some time this year, but it’s clear that the league already has a breakaway pack that’ll be difficult to catch. But that’s also been the case for a few years now with AIC running the show.
For a league built around parity, is this throwing back to the days when Air Force and RIT, when it was a two-horse race with a churning and chaotic undercard?
Jim: For me, the most difficult part of looking at the AHA standings isn’t a runaway pack. With three points on the line every game, I feel like you’re still going to have a crazy run for teams battling for a first-round home-ice spot.
And while the top feels a little crazy right now, I’m more shocked by the bottom. I had high expectations for Bentley and Air Force, two schools that are struggling. Canisius has wins against Ferris State (which just swept Minnesota State) and Rensselaer (a decent ECAC team) but hasn’t performed well in league.
Sometimes league play becomes the ultimate cannibalization moments in a season. Not just in Atlantic Hockey but in all leagues. If your league’s out-of-conference winning percentage is strong (i.e. B1G, Hockey East and NCHC), maybe you don’t worry. But in leagues where out-of-conference play has been a struggle, a touch league slate kills some many NCAA dreams.
