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: Well, Ed, we’re coming off a week where it was difficult to be a top-20 team.
Sure, there were success stories like No. 7 Maine’s road sweep of No. 8 UMass Lowell, and No. 20 Quinnipiac’s three-win week, but there were a lot of bumps and bruises along the way for many of the nation’s best.
The one that stood out to me was No. 2 Boston College’s loss to Merrimack on Friday. The Eagles were playing their first game in 32 days but had the reinforcements of six returning gold medalists returning from World Juniors. And after taking a 2-0 lead in the first period, it seemed like BC was ready to cruise.
Not so fast, though, said Merrimack scoring three times in four minutes in the second and closing the game with the final five goals in a 5-2 win.
This game might be one the Eagles can point back to as a wake-up call when all is said and done. They now realize that there are no nights off and even a couple of mediocre minutes can cost games.
It also underscores the strength of Hockey East, top to bottom. The conference currently has seven teams ranked in the top 13 of the PairWise, five in the top 10. Those numbers feel crazy to me.
Ed: I agree, Jim. But this is certainly a good time to be doing social media and PR for Hockey East! Imagine getting in seven teams to the NCAA tournament in a league that had 10 gold medalists in Ottawa.
The seven teams in Hockey East and the four inside the bubble for the Big Ten make a ton of sense when you look at the biggest contributing factor to where a conference ends up overall in the PairWise and that’s the league’s overall non-conference record. As we write this, the Big Ten is at .742 out of conference and Hockey East is .716. Those numbers won’t change too much with just nine non-conference games remaining in Hockey East (including four for the Beanpot) and the Big Ten with six.
Meanwhile, the NCHC has just two teams inside the bubble – Denver and Western Michigan – and a nonconference winning percentage of .586, including losing records against the Big Ten and Hockey East. And the NCHC’s nonconference schedule is done. Arizona State is right on the cusp at No. 14 as of today.
I’m not too worried about BC’s loss, and you’re right about it being a wake-up call.
As I look at the top teams in the three leagues I mentioned, I can picture a great Frozen Four in St. Louis. Just imagine four teams out of a selection of the current top eight: Michigan State, BC, Maine, Minnesota, Providence, Denver, Western Michigan, and Boston University.
It’s not looking so great for the other three conferences, though. Each is in a position to get just the automatic qualifier in the tournament, and the league that is a surprise to me – given what we expected at the start of the season – is ECAC Hockey.
Jim: I agree about the ECAC. This conference, which in the last 12 years with national championships by Yale, Union and Quinnipiac, took such a major step forward but not seems to be regressing.
We have mentioned in the past that the COVID season and having eight of the 12 league members sit out the season obviously hurt. But more so, I feel like the portal has really crushed the ECAC.
Maybe I feel this way because I call mostly eastern games. But it seems every night in Hockey East, I see a team with at least one – usually multiple – former ECAC players on their rosters.
In a way, you can make similar statements about Atlantic Hockey and the CCHA. Players from those leagues litter rosters throughout Hockey East and the Big Ten. So I guess it shouldn’t surprise us to see the marked separation of NCAA possibilities based on the haves and have nots.
That makes me wonder, though, if adding talent from Major Juniors help this situation. A deeper player pool should be a good thing for competitive balance but even I can admit that might just be a dream? What do you think?
Ed: That’s a great question, and one I’ve actually been doing a bit of thinking about.
We’re already seeing a shift in recruiting for the next couple of seasons. Looking at players announced on various recruiting sites and social media, in the last month about half of the players have come from the OHL, QMJHL or the WHL and most of those would not have been eligible for NCAA hockey until November’s decision.
However, I think this is only the first shoe to drop. We’re seeing a lot of 20-year-olds at the end of their Major Junior eligibility finding the college route in the U.S. as a way to keep playing at a high level that they haven’t had before. In the short term, this seems to be having the most impact on players from the USHL, BCHL, NAHL, and Hockey Canada’s Tier II/Junior A leagues.
This could be good for competitive balance as teams have a bigger and better player pool to choose from. But it could also just mean better players in all leagues but in proportion to how the talent is distributed now.
What happens next is what promises to be more seismic.
Major Juniors will not have any issue with its “overagers” moving on and playing in the NCAA. But wait until a big-name 16- or 17-year-old signs with a top college team. The battle between going the college route or Major Junior, which once was pretty straightforward, and which had at first glance appeared to be settled with allowing Major Junior eligibility, will now become more heated.
Couple all that with D-I losing a team and 30 or so roster spots with the demotion of American International, and a possible roster limit of 26 players, and there could be a bigger player pool chasing as many as 100 fewer opportunities.
Care to peek into your crystal ball on this?
Jim: You said, “But it could also just mean better players in all leagues but in proportion to how the talent is distributed now,” when talking about competitive balance and that’s exactly what I would expect to happen.
The best players – no matter where they come from – still want to go to the best programs. And in recent years we have seen more traditional programs as the prime destination for the top players. That likely won’t change. If anything, some high-end players could be older as they age out of the CHL.
All that said, as a fan of the game, I do look forward to what we anticipate is a large pool of the game’s best players playing college hockey.
In related news, the case of House v. NCAA and its proposed settlement will move to its next phase on Feb. 1 after the public comment period ends. It will be in this phase that we should learn whether the proposed roster limits in college sports (proposed as 26 for Division I hockey), will likely be decided. This will be something that defines college hockey and other sports for a long time to come.
Ed: I’m still trying to understand all the nuances of the settlement. We also have seen reports as we were filing this that a former attorney for the National Basketball Players Association may file an objection to the settlement.
However House v. NCAA turns out going forward, expect to see more regulation of NIL, “salary” caps for universities, most of the money going to football and basketball, and limitations to roster sizes that reportedly even the plaintiffs in the case oppose.
The settlement represents a significant shift toward a more professional model in college sports, but it doesn’t address all labor issues. Athletes remain non-employees without the right to unionize. I’ve seen arguments that the settlement will further widen the gap between Power Five and non-Power Five schools.
There are just so many moving parts, and as an athletic director told me recently, much of what’s reported as rumor doesn’t line up with what they are being told by the NCAA. We’ll just have to keep our eyes on things and report them as they develop.
Jim, if you had told me five years ago that we’d have NIL, Major Junior eligibility, annual transfers with no delays, and all of the other things rumored and reported, I’m not sure I’d have believed you.
Yet, here we are.
