NCAA 2022-23

[rolltide]

First big weekend in college hockey as Denver looks to defend their title.

My picks for each conference:
Atlantic = 1. Sacred Heart, 2. AIC (darkhorse = Air Force)
ECAC = 1. Harvard, 2. Quinnipiac (darkhorse = Clarkson)
Hockey East = 1. Northeastern, 2. BU (darkhorse = Uconn)
CCHA = 1. Minnesota St, 2. Bowling Green (darkhorse = Northern Michigan)
Big 10 = 1. Minnesota, 2. Notre Dame (darkhorse = Penn St)
NCHC = 1. Denver, 2. UMD (darkhorse = Omaha)

Highest Percentage of Returning Points: Air Force – 100% Penn State – 93% Yale – 85% Colorado College – 83% Dartmouth – 81% Sacred Heart – 78% Northeastern – 77% St. Lawrence – 77% Boston University – 75% Harvard – 74% North Dakota – 74%

Most seniors: 12 – Canisius 11 – Ohio State 10 – Boston University 9 – Bentley, Brown, Sacred Heart

Most graduates: 7 – Merrimack, Michigan State, Quinnipiac 6 – Bowling Green, North Dakota, Notre Dame 5 – Alaska Anchorage, Canisius, Mercyhurst, Niagara, St. Cloud State

Most freshmen and sophomores: 23 – Alaska 18 – Lindenwood 17 – Army West Point, Brown, Long Island, Michigan, New Hampshire, St. Thomas, Union, Vermont

Fewest freshmen 2 – Lake Superior State 4 – Notre Dame, Ohio State, St. Lawrence 5 – Bowling Green, Canisius, Merrimack, North Dakota, Penn State

Fewest seniors 1 – Alaska Anchorage 2 – Lindenwood 3 – Alaska, Clarkson, Long Island, Maine, Michigan State, Minnesota Duluth, North Dakota

Returning All Americans 2 - Quinnipiac, Northeastern 1- Harvard, Merrimack, Michigan, Minnesota, UMass, Harvard, UConn

Returning All Conference 2- Quinnipaic, Clarkson, Northeastern, Minnesota, Canisius

Colleges with the most draft picks: Harvard – 15 Minnesota – 14 Boston University, Denver, Michigan, North Dakota, Northeastern – 12 Massachusetts, Minnesota Duluth, Providence, Wisconsin – 10

[rolltide]

10/7 bets so far (Heritage) = waiting on other lines at BAS. DK have games up as well

Army West Point -115 (Don't love betting Army on road but RIT are bad)
Mass.-Lowell -145 (Lowell simply better team with great keeper)
Air Force +142 (line makes no sense. Maine are terrible, AFA super experienced and in altitude)
Quinnipiac -115 (a bet against BC)
Arizona State +131 (ASU stacked up on transfers and have 2 games played already losing both close to UMD)
Bowling Green +136 (wrong team favored)
Northern Michigan -140 (maybe a little too juicy but I have No Mich right behind BGSU for 2nd in CCHA and already played 2 games)

waiting on more lines. Northeastern will smoke Vermont, Denver/Notre Dame is a beauty game, Minnesota vs Minnesota State is Frozen 4 preview, Sacred Heart could upset Providence, Uconn should blow away Union, Omaha easy win over Niagara

[rolltide]

NCHC have some serious questions to answer after this week

[Puckluck]

NCHC have some serious questions to answer after this week

You're right there. I'm not certain UMass is THAT good. Think Denver is still games away from finding themselves. Having said that, Magnus Chrona looked awful in net. The Pioneers better hope this weekend was an aberration.

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expecting a big effort from BU today. Got ml +160 and +1.5 -145 at heritage. They were shellshocked in 1P of game 1 and will be ready for the Wolverines tonight. Go Terriers!

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Ivy teams finally get going this weekend. ridiculous these pretentious punks keep playing exhibition games and won't play a full NCAA 34g schedule...anyway looking forward to watching Harvard who are lo-oo-oo-aa-aa-ded

wild numbers through 5-6 games:

1) The Big 10 have 4 of the top 5 and 5 of the top 7 teams in shots per game with all 5 of them avg at least 35 shots.
2) shots allowed per game is stacked with Minnesota teams as #2-3-4-7 are from Minnesota. Western Michigan #1 in country in this category at 21 allowed
3) UMASS are a combined 144.1% when you add their PP% and PK%. Teams strive for 110% so they will regress. The only teams hitting the 110+ mark are Umass, NoDak, Providence, Omaha, and Miami so all Hockey East and NCHC
4) UMASS also lead nation with .970 Save % followed by St Cloud, Miami, Uconn, and Arizona State and then Levi's Northeastern at #6 despite him missing a lot of time already this year due to illness
5) Outside of the silly teams that haven't played yet the only 3 unbeaten teams are St Cloud, UMASS, and Penn St. The only winless teams are Lake State and Army
6) St Cloud are #1 in Krach, RPI, and Pairwise but only #2 in the rankings.

new week starts tonight with a solo matchup on ESPN+ with BC playing UCONN in Storrs

[Puckluck]

ESPN+ is a home run tide. All Hockey East and ECAC games and all NHL games subject to blackout. Don't think there is a better value out there.

Yes those IVY WIMPS. I say it every year.

[rolltide]

odds not up yet but Penn State vs Michigan should be the first 8.5 total I've ever seen posted. Game 1 is tomorrow but nothing on it from draftkings despite having 2 other Big 10 games up

[rolltide]

odds not up yet but Penn State vs Michigan should be the first 8.5 total I've ever seen posted. Game 1 is tomorrow but nothing on it from draftkings despite having 2 other Big 10 games up

the USCHO podcast brought this up this morning and said DraftKings will limit their exposure to high profile games in games where fans reside that DK is legal in both states, like Michigan and PA. They want to limit their exposure in small sports where they don't have good handle on building lines. So will have to wait for heritage later....

[rolltide]

quick ramblings

Merrimack with another shutout win last night. They're as strong defensively as Northeastern was last season, it's crazy. 6 straight wins allowing 7 total goals and tops in Hockey East for shots allowed and goals allowed.

Michigan got whooped last night by Minnesota and should be a bet against tonight. Virus running through squad so only dressing 15 skaters out of 19.

A Bentley vs Army over bet is a must if available. Army allowing 4.1, Bentley 4.3 and both can score. Same with Lindenwood/Wisconsin and Penn St/Michigan St.

Would never have expected UMASS and Notre Dame to be 2 of the 5 worst in country at shots allowed per game. There are 24 teams allowing 30+ shots and somehow both UMASS and Northeastern are 2 of them with BC right behind them in 25th and then UCONN in 26th and New Hampshire in 30th. Hockey East playing no defense outside of Merrimack and Lowell

UMD a huge dog at Western Michigan tonight but not sure I can bet them. They're not doing anything well, losing easily and winning every game 3-2. I was dead wrong about them being 2nd best in NCHC. St Cloud the likely #2 team and get a pair vs CC this weekend who they've beaten up for 10 years. CC hasn't won at home vs SCSU since 2013

Quinnipiac has it rolling right now and just the 1 crazy loss this year (maine!) but will win a pair in Princeton this weekend and be 9-1-2. They've beaten Princeton 6 straight by combined 31-7

[Puckluck]

quick ramblings

Merrimack with another shutout win last night. They're as strong defensively as Northeastern was last season, it's crazy. 6 straight wins allowing 7 total goals and tops in Hockey East for shots allowed and goals allowed.

Michigan got whooped last night by Minnesota and should be a bet against tonight. Virus running through squad so only dressing 15 skaters out of 19.

A Bentley vs Army over bet is a must if available. Army allowing 4.1, Bentley 4.3 and both can score. Same with Lindenwood/Wisconsin and Penn St/Michigan St.

Would never have expected UMASS and Notre Dame to be 2 of the 5 worst in country at shots allowed per game. There are 24 teams allowing 30+ shots and somehow both UMASS and Northeastern are 2 of them with BC right behind them in 25th and then UCONN in 26th and New Hampshire in 30th. Hockey East playing no defense outside of Merrimack and Lowell

UMD a huge dog at Western Michigan tonight but not sure I can bet them. They're not doing anything well, losing easily and winning every game 3-2. I was dead wrong about them being 2nd best in NCHC. St Cloud the likely #2 team and get a pair vs CC this weekend who they've beaten up for 10 years. CC hasn't won at home vs SCSU since 2013

Quinnipiac has it rolling right now and just the 1 crazy loss this year (maine!) but will win a pair in Princeton this weekend and be 9-1-2. They've beaten Princeton 6 straight by combined 31-7

I'm a huge fan of the Warriors and the job Scott Borek has done there this season.

Having said that, keep in mind they haven't played the real top teams in the league yet. UMass is reeling at the moment. BC is down. Maine is down, and UNH is down. They still haven't played UConn, BU, Providence, Northeastern, Lowell. 11 games still with those teams.

[rolltide]

We've reached the Christmas break with next games scheduled in tournaments next week followed by some good non-conf matchups and then conference play resuming on the 1/6-1/7 weekend

The bad: Minnesota State, North Dakota, and Northeastern all sit outside of the Pairwise top 20 despite expectations of Frozen Four. North Dakota and Minnesota State issues can be explained by their bottom-10 save percentage where only Bentley and Air Force are worse than North Dakota. Northeastern though is getting great goaltending (#5 in save %) but team is just badly underperforming despite nearly unanimous expectation of winning Hockey East. They have a Corsi of just 48.7 while Minn State are #1 in Corsi in the country. None can get an at-large selection at this point. Minn-Duluth is a team I thought way too highly of and they're done and dusted at this point.

The good: Hockey East goaltending! UML, UMass, Merrimack are 1-2-3 in Save %, Northeastern is 5th

Surprises: Merrimack, Michigan State, St Cloud ... Merrimack are a defensive machine and nobody would have pegged them for 13 wins this season let alone 13 at the break. Mich State was picked bottom of Big 10 and are #8 in Pairwise while St Cloud was expected to have a down year yet sit 6th on Pairwise

Conference Rank: Big 10 with an unreal .758 out of conference record while the CCHA are a brutal .394 ranking even below the ECAC. NCHC are 11-3-3 vs CCHA, Big 10 are 10-2 vs CCHA.

Pairwise bubble: This will again be heavy in Hockey East as Umass, UML, Providence, BC, and Northeastern all rank between 12-26. Right now CCHA, Atlantic, and ECAC would all have just one tourney team

National Title: Minnesota and Denver are my clear #1 and and #2 teams. After that you have to put Quinnipiac in the conversation and then we'll wait to see how Hockey East shakes out.

Hockey East: I think Boston U is the best team but it's pretty tight with them, Merrimack, Uconn, Providence. After losing to Sacred Heart and only beating LIU in overtime Northeastern doesn't look able to go on a run and both UML and Umass are right there with the top 4 and can certainly make the tourney.

...and then there's Yale who are on pace to score the fewest goals in NCAA history. Right now they have 8 in 10 games. They've been shutout 4x, scored 1 goal in four games, 2 goals in two games. That's it. They will come out of the break to play 4 Hockey East teams so it could get even worse.

My Frozen Three is Minnesota, Quinnipiac, Denver ... the 4th between that group of Hockey East teams, St Cloud, Michigan, or Harvard.

[Puckluck]

We've reached the Christmas break with next games scheduled in tournaments next week followed by some good non-conf matchups and then conference play resuming on the 1/6-1/7 weekend

The bad: Minnesota State, North Dakota, and Northeastern all sit outside of the Pairwise top 20 despite expectations of Frozen Four. North Dakota and Minnesota State issues can be explained by their bottom-10 save percentage where only Bentley and Air Force are worse than North Dakota. Northeastern though is getting great goaltending (#5 in save %) but team is just badly underperforming despite nearly unanimous expectation of winning Hockey East. They have a Corsi of just 48.7 while Minn State are #1 in Corsi in the country. None can get an at-large selection at this point. Minn-Duluth is a team I thought way too highly of and they're done and dusted at this point.

The good: Hockey East goaltending! UML, UMass, Merrimack are 1-2-3 in Save %, Northeastern is 5th

Surprises: Merrimack, Michigan State, St Cloud ... Merrimack are a defensive machine and nobody would have pegged them for 13 wins this season let alone 13 at the break. Mich State was picked bottom of Big 10 and are #8 in Pairwise while St Cloud was expected to have a down year yet sit 6th on Pairwise

Conference Rank: Big 10 with an unreal .758 out of conference record while the CCHA are a brutal .394 ranking even below the ECAC. NCHC are 11-3-3 vs CCHA, Big 10 are 10-2 vs CCHA.

Pairwise bubble: This will again be heavy in Hockey East as Umass, UML, Providence, BC, and Northeastern all rank between 12-26. Right now CCHA, Atlantic, and ECAC would all have just one tourney team

National Title: Minnesota and Denver are my clear #1 and and #2 teams. After that you have to put Quinnipiac in the conversation and then we'll wait to see how Hockey East shakes out.

Hockey East: I think Boston U is the best team but it's pretty tight with them, Merrimack, Uconn, Providence. After losing to Sacred Heart and only beating LIU in overtime Northeastern doesn't look able to go on a run and both UML and Umass are right there with the top 4 and can certainly make the tourney.

...and then there's Yale who are on pace to score the fewest goals in NCAA history. Right now they have 8 in 10 games. They've been shutout 4x, scored 1 goal in four games, 2 goals in two games. That's it. They will come out of the break to play 4 Hockey East teams so it could get even worse.

My Frozen Three is Minnesota, Quinnipiac, Denver ... the 4th between that group of Hockey East teams, St Cloud, Michigan, or Harvard.

Good read Tide. I'll throw my two cents in later.

[rolltide]

Part II - 2H predictions

conference by conference:

Atlantic Hockey - 1 bid league with conference champ going to tourney. Sacred Heart looked the team to beat but then lost 5 straight and now it's clearly RIT and AIC so one of those two will represent the Atlantic

ECAC - 2 bid league with Quinnipiac a definite and then either Harvard or Cornell getting the 2nd spot. Cornell have very few remaining matches to help their Pairwise so they will need to beat Quinnipiac at home and then either BU or Harvard away while sweeping the rest of the schedule. Harvard have a brutal 2H schedule which also gives them a bunch of shots to post huge Pairwise wins...2 vs Quinnipiac, at BU, Northeastern, BC, BU/Northeastern #2, and Cornell...that's 8 games against top 26 teams. I'll say Harvard and Quinnipiac make the tourney and Cornell will be one of the first four out

CCHA - 1 bid league to conference tourney champ. Really bad year in the conference with top teams sitting 18-22-24 in Pairwise and right now Bemidji looks the best of the three as they just swept Minn State away, already swept Mich Tech away, and posted a home win vs St Cloud. Bemidji return from break vs Minnesota then a home/home vs Duluth and then will get home series' against both Minn State and Mich Tech. Unless they go on a heater and then lose in the conference tourney this is a 1 bid league. I'll call it Bemidji for the NCAA's

Independents - 0 bids here. Alaska and Arizona State are pretty decent teams but neither have enough top games remaining to improve from their #27-28 Pairwise

So that's only 4 bids from those 4 conferences meaning the Big 10, Hockey East and NCHC should split the other dozen or 11 at minimum (if Cornell and Harvard both join Quinnipiac from ECAC)

with that dozen:

NCHC = Denver and St Cloud are tourney teams both in top 5 of Pairwise but that might be it. North Dakota and Western Michigan would near mini-miracles to be an at-large. Western would probably need to sweep Denver, split NoDak, and then run the board to get a bid. NoDak get 2 each with Denver, Western, and St Cloud and probably need 5 wins out of 6 and then win nearly every other game. Ideally for NCHC would be stealing a bid in the conference tourney along with Denver and St Cloud for 3 bids but I expect just the pair. If NoDak goalie can start making saves (3rd worst save % in nation!) then it's a 3 bid league which is my hope.

So that leaves 9 or 10 bids for the Big 10 and Hockey East

Big 10 - Minnesota, Penn State, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Michigan are the expected 5 with Notre Dame on the bubble. The Irish have series' against all 5 of those teams plus 4 more left with Wisconsin so they have a ton of chances to improve their Pairwise. But they can't score being held to 2 or less in regulation 9x in last 11. More likely than Notre Dame going on a heater is for Michigan State or Ohio State to collapse and leave the Big 10 as a 4-bid league. Corsi Mich State is just 20th and they just lost 3 of 4 and hanging on due to great goaltending, similar to Merrimack in HE. I'll say Minnesota, Penn St, Ohio State, and Michigan make the final 16 leaving Hockey East with 5 bids or Michigan State hangs in there and is the last team in over Lowell

Hockey East - There's either 8 really good teams or really average teams here but I got 5 of them getting bids. Pairwise would have Merrimack, BU, Umass, and Uconn as sure-things with Lowell and Providence on the bubble and BC not far behind. Northeastern, the preseason pick to win the conference, is a disaster with only one man (Devon Levi) playing as expected. They have too many injuries and would need to win the Beanpot and then probably sweep 3 of 4 series with Uconn, Merrimack, Umass, and UML. So knocking them out we have 7 teams for 5 spots. BC are next most likely to be eliminated but they will have a ton of games against top 15 teams to improve Pairwise including 3 vs Umass, 2 vs BU, and a final weekend vs Uconn. Merrimack appear to be a sure thing as the only weekend trip they have remaining is Vermont. Providence have no room for error as they only have 6 remaining games against likely tourney teams and 4 of them are road games. Lowell in the same spot with no room for error and few games to boost Pairwise so I think Lowell/PC will split a bid. Assuming no tourney surprise I've got BU, Umass, Merrimack, UConn, and then either UML/PC

FInal 16 = RIT, Quinnipiac, Harvard, Denver, St Cloud, Minnesota, Penn St, Ohio St, Michigan, Boston U, Umass, Merrimack, Uconn, Bemidji, North Dakota, and Providence

last 4 out = Michigan St, Cornell, Notre Dame, UML

[rolltide]

when season resumes next week a bunch of teams will be missing their best guys at the World Juniors.... list below

Michigan:

• Luke Hughes, sophomore defenseman | 20 games: 3 goals, 15 assists – 18 points
• Rutger McGroarty, freshman forward | 19 games: 8 goals, 11 assists – 19 points
• Seamus Casey, freshman defenseman | 20 games: 4 goals, 12 assists – 16 points
• Dylan Duke, freshman forward | 20 games: 10 goals, 8 assists – 18 points
• Gavin Brindley, freshman forward | 20 games: 1 goal, 9 assists – 10 points

Minnesota

• Logan Cooley, freshman forward | 19 games: 10 goals, 15 assists – 25 points
• Jimmy Snuggerud, freshman forward | 20 games: 12 goals, 15 assists – 27 points
• Ryan Chesley, freshman defenseman | 20 games: 1 goal, 2 assists – 3 points
• Luke Mittelstadt, freshman defenseman | 20 games: 2 goals, 11 assists – 13 points
• Adam Fantilli, freshman forward | 16 games: 11 goals, 15 assists – 26 points

UMass

• Kenny Connors, freshman forward | 16 games: 7 goals, 10 assists – 17 points
• Ryan Ufko, sophomore defenseman | 16 games: 3 goals, 10 assists – 13 points

Colorado College

• Kaidan Mbereko, freshman goaltender | 16 games: .927 SV% , 2.26 GAA, 3 shutouts – 6-6-1
• Noah Laba, freshman forward | 17 games: 7 goals, 4 assists – 11 points

Boston University

• Lane Hutson, freshman defenseman | 16 games: 7 goals, 11 assists – 18 points

Boston College

• Cutter Gauthier, freshman forward | 13 games: 10 goals, 6 assists – 16 points

Denver

• Sean Behrens, sophomore defenseman | 16 games: 1 goal, 7 assists – 8 points

Miami (Ohio)

• Red Savage, sophomore forward | 16 games: 4 goals, 6 assists – 10 points

Wisconsin

• Charlie Stramel, freshman forward | 18 games: 4 goals, 3 assists – 7 points

Quinnipiac

• Sam Lipkin, freshman forward | 18 games: 5 goals, 14 assists – 19 points

St. Cloud State

• Jack Peart, sophomore defenseman | 18 games: 2 goals, 13 assists – 15 points

Providence

• Jaroslav Chmelar, freshman forward | 18 games: 6 goals, 4 assists – 10 points

Harvard

• Aku Koskenvuo, first-year goaltender | 2 games: .875 SV%, 3.56 GAA – 1-1-0