Hockey Bracketology Features Big Changes at Top, Bottom of Projected Field: Puck Drop

It's not where you start, but where you finish, right? That seems to be a popular sentiment in North Dakota these days as the Fighting Hawks won the NCHC regular-season title and seem to be anything but satisfied.

As the college hockey regular season wrapped up as a whole this past weekend, the sport saw three different teams at No. 1 in the National Collegiate Percentage (NPI) Index in as many days. Michigan, which was off minus an exhibition game, held the stop spot until Michigan State blew out Minnesota on Thursday night to claim the Big Ten title. However, when the Spartans tied in the series finale, and UND took care of business in the NCHC quarterfinals against Omaha, the Fighting Hawks moved up and MSU dropped down to No. 3.

It's North Dakota's first time at the top this season after being picked No. 11 in the preseason USCHO.com poll. The only teams to be voted No. 1 in those rankings in 2025-26 have been Michigan (11 times), Michigan State (eight), Western Michigan (twice), Boston University (once). UND's turn could be at hand Monday when the latest rankings are released, but all three teams got first-place votes last week.

So why is North Dakota No. 1 now? It's been remarkably consistent, and hasn't lost a series all season. At 27-8-1, half of its losses have been in overtime. Since Nov. 15, the Fighting Hawks have only lost once in regulation, 3-2 to Denver nearly two months ago on Jan. 17, and have been charging up the rankings since.

The team at the top is not our only significant change from last week's bracketology, with two new additions on the bottom end. Here'e our update, just two weeks shy of the selection show:

Step 1: The automatic bids

For our purposes we use the top-seeded teams in each conference tournament, which all topped their respective league standings: Bentley (AHA), Michigan State (Big Ten), Minnesota State (CCHA), Quinnipiac (ECAC), Providence (Hockey East), and North Dakota (NCHC). In reality it will be the winner of each conference tournament.

Step 2: The at-large bids

The next 10 teams in NPI fill out the 16-team field. Those that finish in the top 10 can't be knocked out of the tournament, which currently includes Michigan, Western Michigan, Denver, Minnesota Duluth, Cornell and Dartmouth. At this point these teams are probably all locks to make the tournament.

That's 12 teams. The final four are Penn State, Wisconsin, Augustana and Massachusetts.

The first four out: St Thomas, Connecticut, Boston College and Michigan Tech. Among them, the team with the best chance to make the tournament as an at-large is Connecticut if it can make a significant run in the Hockey East playoffs.

Step 3: Seedings

The 16 teams are listed in order per NPI rankings.

1 North Dakota
2 Michigan
3 Michigan State
4 Western Michigan
5 Denver
6 Providence
7 Quinnipiac
8 Minnesota Duluth
9 Cornell
10 Dartmouth
11 Penn State
12 Wisconsin
13 Augustana
14 Massachusetts
15 Minnesota State
16 Bentley

The teams are subsequently placed in tiers, which is important because with any adjustments they can't be moved out of their tier.

Tier 1: North Dakota, Michigan, Michigan State, Western Michigan
Tier 2: Denver, Providence, Quinnipiac, Minnesota Duluth
Tier 3: Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn State, Wisconsin
Tier 4: Augusta, Massachusetts, Minnesota State, Bentley

Step 4: Brackets

The teams are placed in pure brackets, meaning 1, 8, 9, 16 are in the first group with the outside teams playing in the first round and the inner teams facing one eanother.

North Dakota, Minnesota Duluth, Cornell, Bentley
Michigan, Quinnipiac, Dartmouth, Minnesota State
Michigan State, Providence, Penn State, Massachusetts
Western Michigan, Denver, Wisconsin, Augustana

Are there any first-round conference matchups? Yes, but just one, Quinnipiac vs. Dartmouth from the ECAC. The change needs to be on the lower end, meaning the third tier, and it can't be with Cornell, which is also in the ECAC. So Dartmouth swaps with Penn State ... for now.

North Dakota, Minnesota Duluth, Cornell, Bentley
Michigan, Quinnipiac, Penn State, Minnesota State
Michigan State, Providence, Dartouth, Massachusetts
Western Michigan, Denver, Wisconsin, Augustana

Step 5: Venues

The regional sites (and host teams) are Albany, N.Y. (Union), Worcester, Mass. (Holy Cross), Sioux Falls S.D. (Omaha), and Loveland, Colo. (Denver). Denver is in our projected tournament so its bracket has to be in Loveland. North Dakota, the top seed for the first time in our bracketology, is a natural fit to play in Sioux Falls. Then things get a little tricky.

We're down to Albany and Worcester, and need to bring in the final factor, attendance. The selection committee can make small changes to boost the draw of a regional as long as they don't compromise the integrity of the bracket. We're going to push that boundary to achieve a specific goal: getting Cornell to Albany.

There are a couple of ways to do so, but the easiest way is to place Michigan's bracket in Worcester, and send Michigan State's group to Albany, and switch Dartmouth and Cornell on the third tier. Yet we're still not done.

The real question mark is on the fourth tier. It's very tempting to move Augutana to Sioux Falls, which would deny North Dakota's advantage of playing the 16th team in the first round. It would also give the top team in that tier the toughest opponent. We don't like that, but will do it under these circumstances. So do we move Bentley, located in Waltham near Boston, to nearby Worcester? No. We've already sold out for the extra gate receipt so UMass goes to Worcester, which is about an hour away from campus. It Bentley in Albany to face No. 2 Michigan, and Minnesota State heads out West.

There's a local team in each regional and two with more than one:

Projected NCAA Tournament Brackets, March 9

Sioux Falls: North Dakota, Minnesota Duluth, Dartmouth, Augustana
Worcester: Michigan, Quinnipiac, Penn State, Massachusetts
Albany: Michigan State, Providence, Cornell, Bentley
Loveland: Western Michigan, Denver, Wisconsin, Minnesota State

Regionals will be played March 26-29. The Frozen Four will be held April 9 and April 11 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Women's National Championship Bracket

The brackets for the 25th National Collegiate Women’s Ice Hockey Championship were revealed and were exactly what we projected in bracketology.

NCAA Tournament
Regional Semifinals
Thursday, March 12
Minnesota Duluth vs. Yale, 5 p.m. CT
Princeton vs. Connecticut, 6 p.m. CT
Franklin Pierce vs. Quinnipiac, 7 p.m. CT

Regional Championships
Saturday, March 14
No. 2 Wisconsin vs. winner of Quinnipiac-Franklin Pierce, 2 p.m. ET
No. 3 Penn State vs. winner Princeton-Connecticut, 2 p.m. ET
No. 5 Northeastern at No. 4 Minnesota, 2 p.m. CT
No. 1 Ohio State vs. winner of Yale-UMD, 6 p.m. ET

Frozen Four
Friday, March 20
Winner of Ohio State Regional vs. winner of Minnesota Regional, 4/7:30 p.m. ET
Winner of Wisconsin Regional vs. winner of Penn State Regional, 4/7:30 p.m. ET

Championship Game
At Pegula Ice Aren, Penn State
4 p.m.

The automatic qualifiers were the winners of the conference tournaments: Penn State (Atlantic Hockey America), Quinnipiac (ECAC Hockey), Connecticut (Hockey East), Franklin Pierce (New England Women’s Hockey Alliance) and Ohio State (Western Collegiate Hockey Alliance). The at-large teams were, in order, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Northeastern, Yale, Princeton and Minnesota Duluth. Ohio State is the No. 1 seed.

The 2026 NCAA Women’s Frozen Four will be played March 20 and 22 at Penn State's Pegula Ice Arena.

Puck Drop: Monday, March 9, 2026

• After playing in 521 AHL games, former Northern Michigan right wing Dominik Shine, 32, scored his first NHL goal for the Detroit Red Wings. He became the oldest Red Wing to score his first career goal since Vaclav Nedomansky in 1977. Moritz Seider assisted on it along with James van Riemsdyck (New Hampshire) assisted. Incidentally, it was the first game with the Red Wings for former Minnesota Duluth defenseman Justin Faulk, who was acquired in a trade with St. Louis last week.

One to remember! pic.twitter.com/rAf9gmQWmX
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) March 9, 2026

• Minnesota State outshot Ferris State 46-17 en rote to a 2-0 victory to win their best-of-three quarterfinal series and advance in the CCHA Tournament. Luigi Benincasa scored his ninth goal of the season and Mason Wheeler notched his first his first, while Alex Tracy made his 13th career shutout. With the win, the Mavericks will host Michigan Tech, and Augustana will visit St. Thomas in the semifinals, with all four teams between 13 and 19 in NPI.

• Sunday was International Women's Day, and the final day of Hockey Week Across America. Three PWHL players — Toronto's Natalie Spooner, New York's Anne Cherkowski, and Minnesota's Vanessa Upson — switched their jersey numbers to No. 23 for the day to raise awareness and support girls in sports through "The 23 Hour Play." Why 23? Because of Daylight Savings beginning shortened Sunday by an hour.

Gold Medalist ABBEY MURPHY is on the panel today 🥇👏 pic.twitter.com/F5eLWXihYN
— NHLonTNT (@NHL_On_TNT) March 8, 2026

All times are local to where the game is being played.

AHA Tournament

Quarterfinals
Best of 3
Friday, March 6
Bentley 4, Mercyhurst 3 (3OT)
Sacred Heart 3, Niagara 1
Air Force 3, Robert Morris 2 (2OT)
Holy Cross 2, RIT 1 (OT)

Saturday, March 7
Sacred Heart 2, Niagara 1
Bentley 6, Mercyhurst 0
Robert Morris 4, Air Force 1
Holy Cross 5, RIT 4 OT

Sunday, March 8
Robert Morris 5, Air Force 2

Semifinals
Best of 3
Friday, March 13 (Through Sunday)
Robert Morris at Bentley
Holy Cross at Sacred Heart

Big Ten Tournament

Quarterfinals
Wednesday, March 11
Ohio State at Wisconsin, 7 p.m. CT
Notre Dame at Michigan, 7 p.m. ET
Minnesota at Penn State, 7 p.m. ET

Semifinals
Saturday, March 14
Lowest seed remaining at Michigan State
Quarterfinal winner at highest seed remaining

Championship
Saturday, March 21
Semifinal winners at top-advancing team

CCHA Tournament

Quarterfinals
Best of 3
Friday, March 6
St. Thomas 4, Lake Superior State 3 (OT)
Augustana 5, Bemidji State 2
Minnesota State 5, Ferris State 1
Michigan Tech 5, Bowling Green 3

Saturday, March 7
Augustana 2, Bemidji State 1
Ferris State 2, No. 16 Minnesota State 1 (OT)
Michigan Tech 3, Bowling Green 2
St. Thomas 5, Lake Superior 2

Sunday, March 8
No. 16 Minnesota State 2, Ferris State 0

Semifinals
Saturday, March 14
Augustana at St. Thomas
Michigan Tech at Minnesota State

ECAC Tournament

Opening Round
Friday, March 6
Harvard 4, St. Lawrence 3 (OT)
Clarkson 2, RPI 1

Saturday, March 7
Union 9, Brown 0
Colgate 3, Yale 2

Quarterfinals
Best of 3
Friday, March 13 (through Sunday)
Clarkson at Quinnipiac, 7 p.m. ET
Colgate at Dartmouth, 7 p.m. ET
Harvard at Cornell, 7 p.m. ET
Union at Princeton, 7 p.m.

Hockey East

Opening Round
Wednesday, March 11
Vermont at Boston University, 6:30 p.m. ET
New Hampshire vs. Northeastern (at Boston College), 7 p.m. ET
UMass Lowell at Merrimack, 7 p.m. ET

Quarterfinals
Saturday, March 14
Third-lowest remaining seed at Connecticut, 1 p.m. ET
Second-lowest remaining seed at Massachusetts, 4 p.m. ET
Maine at Boston College, NESN, 7 p.m. ET
Lowest remaining seed at Providence, 7 p.m.

Semifinals
Friday, March 20
At TD Garden, Boston
Semifinal 1, 4 p.m. ET
Semifinal 2, 7 p.m. ET

Championship
Saturday, March 21
Semifinals winners, 7 p.m. ET

NCHC Tournament

Quarterfinals
Best of 3
Friday, March 6
Western Michigan 5, Colorado College 2
Minnesota Duluth 4, St. Cloud State 3 (OT)
North Dakota 5, Omaha 3
Denver 3, Miami 0

Saturday, March 7
Western Michigan 2, Colorado College 1
Denver 6, Miami 2
Minnesota Duluth 2, St. Cloud State 1 (OT)
North Dakota 5, Omaha 1

Semifinals
Saturday, March 14
Minnesota Duluth at North Dakota, 6 p.m. CT
Western Michigan at Denver, 7 p.m. MT

Hockey Quote of the Day

“The unity wasn’t there. Some guys came together; others fell farther apart, that’s what it was all about. We had lost the heart and soul and a big part of our hockey team."
Glenn Anderson on Wayne Gretzky trade

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We'll Leave You With This ...

the answer is yes https://t.co/J5gyKgREP5 pic.twitter.com/11VyZ69sGP
— LA Kings (@LAKings) March 8, 2026

Meanwhile, the Lightning and Sabres tried to figure out how many players could fit in each penalty box during their fight-riddled game Sunday. After 15 goals and 27 minutes for 102 minutes, Buffalo won 8-7.

That kind of game 😅 pic.twitter.com/5O5JFO96iA
— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) March 8, 2026

A couple of these might be the best photos of an NHL fight that you'll ever see:

We're going dancin' tonight #LetsGoBuffalo pic.twitter.com/m5LeruivUB
— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) March 8, 2026

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