Crunch Time Arrives as College Hockey Season Hits Stretch Run: Bracketology

As college hockey heads into the final few weeks of the regular season decisive games are looming larger and the opportunities to improve one's standing are becoming fewer in terms of teams trying to secure spots in the 2026 NCAA Tournament.

In short, crunch time has arrived, with the pretenders beginning to fall off and the true contenders stepping up. We learned a year ago that team from way down its league standings can still make a run to the Frozen Four this late in a season, but remember that even when Penn State got hot at the end of 2024-25 it still only barely squeezed into the NCAA Tournament.

Specifically, this time a year ago, Penn State pulled off a key home tie and overtime win against then-No. 9 Ohio State to help spark the Nittany Lions through a 13-game stretch in which they took just two losses. They still finished fifth in the Big Ten standings, only to sweep then-No. 11 Michigan (6-5, 5-2) to reach the Big Ten tournament semifinals.

Before the series against the Buckeyes, Penn State was 10-10-2. About two months later, it earned the final at-large spot in the NCAA Tournament as the No. 13 seed with a 20-13-4 record.

Is there another Penn State this season? Maybe. That's why we've been so focussed on Hockey East because teams like Boston University, Boston College and Providence have the kind of talent that no one will want to face when push comes to shove (reminder, the predicted order of finish in the preseason was BU, Providence, UConn, Maine and BC).

With that in mind, and before we get into our latest NCAA Tournament bracket projections, here's a quick look at the six conferences in which the league tournament champion receives an automatic bid, and the teams currently atop the league standings.

AHA: Bentley. With a conference record of 11-2-3, it has an eight-point cushion in the regular-season standings. Even so, at this point it seems pretty safe to say that the tournament champion will be getting the only spot in the tournament.

Big Ten: No. 1 Michigan is out in front, but can the Wolverines hold on, and how might they navigate through the conference tournament? Michigan State, Penn State and Wisconsin are all on their heels, giving the conference a likely four-team NCAA Tournament contingent.

CCHA: St. Thomas has moved into the conference lead, albeit barely over Augustana and Michigan Tech, with Minnesota State still looming. Could the conference land a second team in the NCAA Tournament, or maybe even a third?

ECAC: Five teams are in the mix for the league title, but strength of schedule is beginning to catch up with the Ivy League schools, Princeton especially. Quinnipiac has a narrow lead over Dartmouth, and Cornell is currently on the right side of the bubble, only not by much. A lot will have to go right for the league to secure three spots.

Hockey East: Connecticut is still atop the conference that no one can figure out, but Providence is coming off back-to-back sweeps of Maine and Boston College. Depending on how things play out, the league could scrap its way to to as many as four bids, but could also just end up with one.

NCHC: Can we go ahead put it down for four tournament spots now? North Dakota has a firm lead in the standings, but UMD and Western Michigan are right with it in the National Collegiate Percentage (NPI) Index, which will be used to select the at-large teams and seedings for the NCAA Tournament. Denver is also in the top 10. Arizona State and St. Cloud State still have a shot, but things are stacked against them.

For our purposes we're going with the first-place as being the automatic qualifier, with Bentley, Michigan, St. Thomas, Quinnipiac, Connecticut and North Dakota. How many of them have the best NPI ranking in their conference? Two: Bentley and Michigan, so there's still the potential for a lot of movement over the next few weeks.

The NPI has the current division leaders at No. 30, 1, 13, 9, 19 and 3 respectfully.

We round out the field for the 16-team field that will make up the 2026 Division I Men's Ice Hockey Championship, with 10 at-large teams, in order: Michigan State, Minnesota Duluth, Western Michigan, Penn State, Wisconsin, Dartmouth, Denver, Cornell, Providence and Augustana.

The first four teams out: Boston College, Boston University, St. Cloud State and Michigan Tech.

Based on NPI, the teams are ranked in order, and we put them in groups of four to reflect the seeding tiers, which aren't supposed to be broken. In a pure bracket the matchups would be 1 vs. 16, 2 vs. 15 , etc.

1 Michigan
2 Michigan State
3 North Dakota
4 Minnesota Duluth

5 Western Michigan
6 Penn State
7 Wisconsin
8 Dartmouth

9 Quinnipiac
10 Denver
11 Cornell
12 Providence

13 St. Thomas
14 Augustana
15 Connecticut
16 Bentley

The host sites: The host teams have to be placed in in their regional if they make the tournament, but right now Denver would be the only host in the field. Also, North Dakota is the host school of Frozen Four in Las Vegas, April 9-11, not the Sioux Falls Region.

• Albany, N.Y. (Union)
• Loveland, Colo. (Denver)
• Sioux Falls, S.D. (Omaha)
• Worcester, Mass. (Holy Cross)

We place the top-tier teams in regionals based on location, with Michigan landing in its closest venue, Albany. Host Denver's bracket goes to Loveland, and we go ahead and place UND in Sioux Falls to improve attendance. Augustana being in the same regional is a nice bonus.

The straight brackets would look as follows:

Albany: 1. Michigan; 8. Dartmouth; 9 Quinnipiac; 16. Bentley
Worcester: 4. Minnesota Duluth; 5. Western Michigan; 12. Providence; 13. St. Thomas
Sioux Falls : 3. NorthDakota; 6. Penn State; 11. Cornell; 14. Augustana
Loveland: 2. Michigan State, 7. Wisconsin; 10. Denver; 15. Connecticut

First-round conference matchups need to be avoided, and amazingly there's only one, Dartmouth and Quinnipiac. It would be nice to get Cornell playing in nearby Albany, but it's not a viable single-switch alternative in the third tier as the Big Red is also from the ECAC.

So the shift has to happen in the second tier, specifically with Dartmouth. In this situation, the committee might be tempted to move Penn State to Albany, but Wisconsin preserves the bracket better. At least Quinnipiac is only a couple-hour drive.

Finally, we look at the attendance factor and look to see if there are any quick changes that might provide a boost. There isn't a team out of Boston in this scenario, or Massachusetts outside of Bentley, in the the projected bracket so we definitely don't want to move one of the closest teams, Providence, out of Worcester.

However, Connecticut could slide over as Worcester is only about an hour from the Huskies' campus.

Consequently, here are the pairings:

Albany: Michigan vs. Bentley; Wisconsin vs. Quinnipiac
Worcester: Minnesota Duluth vs. Connecticut; Western Michigan vs. Providence
Sioux Falls : NorthDakota vs. Augustana; Penn State vs. Cornell
Loveland: Michigan State, vs. St. Thomas; Dartmouth vs. Denver

Do we like this bracket? It came together pretty quickly, but not really. There are three major reasons why:

1) Dartmouth goes from playing fairly close to home as a second-tier team to having to travel nearly 2,000 miles face Denver in Loveland.

2) Penn State vs. Cornell in South Dakota, when attendance could be a significant issue in both Eastern venues. It just feels wrong.

3) Two regionals in which the top two teams are from the same conference. That's a secondary concern, but with seven of the top eight teams from the Big Ten and NCHC, that may be unavoidable this year.

SEE ALSO: The Previous Bracketology