The NCHC wraps up its regular season this weekend while the other five conferences start their conference tournaments. Here’s a look at the storylines for this weekend in terms of playoff positioning, and the scoring titles up for grabs.

First, here are the current NCHC standings:

NCHC
		Conference							Overall
		GP	W-L-T	SOW	PTS	GF-GA			GP	W-L-T	GF-GA
1	St. Cloud State	22	15-4-3	1	49	87-54			32	21-6-5	122-78
2	Denver	22	11-6-5	4	42	67-47			32	17-8-7	104-67
3	Minnesota-Duluth	22	12-10-0		36	74-51			34	18-13-3	109-75
4	North Dakota	22	8-9-5	2	31	66-62			34	14-11-9	98-82
5	Nebraska-Omaha	22	9-12-1		28	70-92			32	16-14-2	113-121
	Western Michigan	22	9-12-1		28	73-90			32	14-16-2	106-118
	Colorado College	22	7-11-4	3	28	59-76			32	13-14-5	90-103
8	Miami	22	6-13-3	1	22	56-80			32	11-17-4	89-108

 

St. Cloud State has wrapped up the Penrose Cup as the NCHC regular season champion and will therefore be the No. 1 seed in the NCHC tournament. The Huskies will likely host Miami in the NCHC quarterfinals (a best-of-three series) next weekend.

As far as I can tell, the only way this doesn’t happen — based on the NCHC tiebreaker scenarios — is if Miami sweeps Denver on the road this weekend (winning in regulation or the first overtime) AND Western Michigan does the same to Colorado College AND Minnesota-Duluth does the same to Nebraska-Omaha. That would leave Miami, CC, and Omaha in a three-way tie for last place with 28 points, and CC would finish as the 8th seed based on having fewer regular season conference wins than Miami. But again… three weekend sweeps with no games going to overtime, including a Miami sweep of Denver… is probably not going to happen. So you can all but pencil in a trip for the RedHawks to St. Cloud next weekend.

Denver will be the No. 2 seed and their second round opponent is to be determined by this weekend’s games. And Minnesota-Duluth will host a first round playoff series, too, likely as the third seed, but can drop to fourth if — for example — the Bulldogs get swept by Omaha AND North Dakota (a team win only two wins in its last 11 games) sweeps St. Cloud State.

Of course, the real intrigue comes down to which team ends up with the final home-ice spot for the NCHC quarterfinals — North Dakota, CC, Western Michigan, or Omaha. The fact that CC could technically finish with a home-ice spot OR finish last in the conference shows how wild the NCHC has been this season. As you can see from the standings above, North Dakota controls its own destiny, but hosting the No. 1 team in the country will be a big challenge. Expect the aforementioned tiebreakers to come into play to ultimately determine playoff seeding. There’s no easy matchup in the league, but teams are certainly going to want to avoid finishing seventh — which would mean a trip to the reigning national champions, Denver.

And lastly. this weekend for North Dakota and Omaha is huge on the national stage as well, with each team squarely inside the NCAA Pairwise bubble at the moment.

SCORING TITLES

Heading into the weekend, Denver’s Henrik Borgstrom leads the conference with 30 points in NCHC play, but CC’s Nick Halloran and Omaha’s David Pope (who leads the conference with 14 goals scored, 11 of which have come on the power play) are certainly within striking distance for the scoring title:

Point Scoring					GP	PPG	G-A-P
1	Henrik Borgström	Denver	SO	F	22	1.36	13-17-30
2	Nick Halloran	Colorado College	SO	F	22	1.32	13-16-29
3	David Pope	Omaha	SR	F	21	1.29	14-13-27
4	Mikey Eyssimont	St. Cloud State	JR	F	22	1.18	11-15-26
	Dylan Gambrell	Denver	JR	F	22	1.18	8-18-26

With only 5 points in six games in February, Borgstrom — compared to his previous pace — has slowed down a bit. The Pioneers host Miami this weekend. In the last game between the two, Borgstrom led the way with a goal and two assists. Halloran, meanwhile, has scored a goal in five of his last seven games.

In terms of defensemen scoring, UMD’s Scott Perunovich leads the way heading into the final weekend:

Defenseman Scoring					GP	PPG	G-A-P
1	Scott Perunovich	Minnesota Duluth	FR	D	22	1.00	7-15-22
2	Christian Wolanin	North Dakota	JR	D	22	0.91	5-15-20
	Jimmy Schuldt	St. Cloud State	JR	D	22	0.91	2-18-20
4	Corey Schueneman	Western Michigan	JR	D	21	0.81	4-13-17
5	Louie Belpedio	Miami	SR	D	22	0.73	5-11-16

Perunovich also likely has the rookie scoring title wrapped up, holding a six point lead over St. Cloud State’s duo of Easton Brodzinski and Blake Lizotte:

Freshman Scoring				GP	PPG	G-A-P
1	Scott Perunovich	Minnesota Duluth	D	22	1.00	7-15-22
2	Easton Brodzinski	St. Cloud State	F	21	0.76	10- 6-16
	Blake Lizotte	St. Cloud State	F	21	0.76	6-10-1

Lastly, the race for the goals-against average and save-percentage leaders is a two-man race between Denver senior Tanner Jaillet and St. Cloud State freshman David Hrenak (who you can pencil into the league’s all-rookie team for this season):

Save Percentage (Minimum 33% of Team Minutes Played)				Saves	GA	Save %
1	Tanner Jaillet	Denver	SR	526	39	.931
2	Dávid Hrenák	St. Cloud State	FR	306	23	.930

Goals Against Average (Minimum 33% of Team Minutes Played)				Minutes	GA	GAA
1	Tanner Jaillet	Denver	SR	1272:09	39	1.84
2	Dávid Hrenák	St. Cloud State	FR	740:11	23	1.86

Wednesday, February 28th, 2018 - 3:04 pm | Blogs, NCHC, Notes, Thoughts, Ramblings