NCHC Final Weekend: Playoff Races, Scoring Titles

Posted by: Avash Kalra

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

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