Hockey Bracketology Shaped by Rankings Logjams, Michigan Schools at Top, ECAC in Middle: Puck Drop

Normally on a Monday we focus first on the polls, noting which teams got voted up or down, and we're going to do that, but this week we're going straight to bracketology.

The reasons why are threefold:

1) We want to find out how much having a different team at No. 1 might impact the projected brackets;

2) The Beanpot championship game is Monday night and we're going to have complete coverage on Boston College Eagles On SI.

3) The men's hockey tournament at the Olympics begins on Wednesday. It's obviously going to draw a lot of attention as well.

Besides, there were no men's games on the schedule for Sunday, when most of the sports world was focussed on the Super Bowl and/or 2026 Winter Games in Italy.

Just like last time we're going to first display where we finished with the previous bracketology to hopefully make it easy to see how much things changed, plus we're going to show you all our work to make it clear how the projection came together.

Our Feb. 4 projection:

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

Step one: Select our version of the six automatic qualifiers, which for our purposes are the teams atop the conference standings. The key to remember for the real thing is that the more surprise teams that win that win their conference tournaments the fewer at-large spots available. That's why we continually give reminders that any team outside of the top 10 in the National Collegiate Percentage (NPI) Index, which is used to determine the at-large teams and seeding can always be knocked out of the16-team tournament field.

Our six conference "representatives" are Bentley (AHA), Michigan State (Big Ten), St. Thomas (CCHA), Quinnpiac (ECAC), Providence (Hockey East), and North Dakota (NCHC). In NPI they're respectively ranked No. 27, 1, 12, 9, 6 and 3. All of those teams have the best NPI in their conferences except the Bobcats, who are actually third behind No. 7 Dartmouth and No. 8 Cornell. How good is the ECAC tournament going to be in a few weeks?

Step two: There are 10 slots remaining, so the next 10 teams in NPI, regardless of conference affiliation, are our at-large teams. Michigan, Western Michigan, Penn State, Dartmouth, Cornell and Minnesota Duluth are all in the top 10, giving us 12 teams. The next four, in order, are the ones that would to be sweating out the conference tournaments if they don't win the championship: Denver, Connecticut. Boston College and Wisconsin.

That's our field. The first four out include three teams from the CCHA: Minnesota State, Augustana, Michigan Tech and Massachusetts. We're also going to mention two other teams that deserve shoutouts for having really strong seasons No. 21 Miami and No. 22 Bowling Green.

Step three: Put the teams in order based on their NPI, 1-16.

1 Michigan State
2 Michigan
3 North Dakota
4 Western Michigan
5 Penn State
6 Providence
7 Dartmouth
8 Cornell
9 Quinnipiac
10 Minnesota Duluth
11 Denver
12 St. Thomas
13 Connecticut
14 Boston College
15 Wisconsin
16 Bentley

Next up, let's organize them them into four tiers based on those seedings. Teams have to stay in their tiers for bracket integrity.

First tier: 1 Michigan State, 2 Michigan, 3 North Dakota, 4 Western Michigan
Second tier: 5 Penn State, 6 Providence, 7 Dartmouth, 8 Cornell
Third tier: 9 Quinnipiac, 10 Minnesota Duluth, 11 Denver, 12 St. Thomas
Fourth tier: 13 Connecticut, 14 Boston College, 15 Wisconsin, 16 Bentley

We switch from brackets, based on the seedingg, but in order of the tiers. So the first bracket will be 1, 8, 9, 16.

1 Michigan State; 8 Cornell; 9 Quinnipiac; 16 Bentley ;
2 Michigan; 7 Dartmouth; 10 Minnesota Duluth; 15 Wisconsin
3 North Dakota; 6 Providence; 11 Denver; 14 Boston College
4 Western Michigan; 5 Penn State; 12 St. Thomas; 13 Connecticut

We eyeball the brackets. Is there a potential first-round matchup between two teams from the same conference? Yes, there are two, Cornell vs. Quinnipiac, and Michigan vs. Wisconsin, which need to be avoided while keep the bracket integrity as much as possible. We swap Wisconsin and Boston College in tier 4, an easy change. However, the other one is more more challenging, as what we called the Cornell conundrum has mutated into a new form (the Dartmouth dilemma?).

Dartmouth, Cornell and Quinnipiac are now 7-8-9 over the turn at the end of the second tier and into the third tier, so either we have to make two changes to separate them or move the bottom team more than one spot, which is what we're going to do here to preserve the top two tiers. The question is do we simply swap Quinnipiac with No. 11 Denver, or bump the Bobcats down and move UMD in between up a spot. We opt for the latter.

1 Michigan State; 8 Cornell; 10 Minnesota Duluth; 16 Bentley
2 Michigan; 7 Dartmouth; 11 Denver; 14 Boston College
3 North Dakota; 6 Providence; 9 Quinnipiac; 15 Wisconsin
4 Western Michigan; 5 Penn State; 12 St. Thomas; 13 Connecticut

Finally, we introduce the venues and the host schools, who have to play at home if in the tournament: Worcester, Mass. (Holy Cross); Albany, N.Y. (Union); Sioux Falls, S.D. (Omaha); and Loveland, Colo. (Denver). Denver's in our projected field so Michigan's group is placed in Loveland.

That brings us to our final piece of the puzzle, attendance. From a ticket-sales aspect North Dakota in Sioux Falls makes a lot of sense (even though it's still a 5-hour drive), as does Cornell in Albany, and UConn is only an hour away from Worcester. So there's sort of a local team in each region, which in this scenario we think the selection committee would go with.

Feb. 9 NCAA Tournament Projection

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

The regional winners will advance to the Frozen Four in Las Vegas on April 9-11.

Puck Drop: Monday, February 9, 2026

• Ohio State's stay atop the Women's National Collegiate Percentage (NPI) Index didn't last even 24 hours as the Badgers bounced back from Friday's loss to split the series 4-1. Fifth-year forward Lacey Eden led the team offensively with a goal and two assists, and UW successfully killed all five OSU power plays at LaBahn Arena. UW outshot Ohio State 31-20.

• With the win, Wisconsin (25-3-2 overall, 19-3-2 Big Ten) won the season series 3-1. It also took back the lead in the WCHA standings with (60 points) holds a two-point advantage over Ohio State (26-4-0, 20-4-0), and a five-point advantage over No. 3 Minnesota. There are four games remaining in the WCHA regular season for each team, with the Buckeyes and Gophers playing next weekend.

Saturday: Lose 4-1
Sunday: Win 4-1

No. 1 @BadgerWHockey returned the favor against No. 2 Ohio State.

Watch all 4️⃣ Wisconsin goals 👇 pic.twitter.com/TAcUVjkDqT
— Big Ten Hockey (@B1GHockey) February 9, 2026

• The Big Ten announced that 58 athletes with ties to the conference are competing in six different sports at the Winter Olympics. Of them, 31 are competing for Team USA while 27 will a participating internationally for Canada, Czechia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland. The majority of athletes (81 percent) are competing in ice hockey with the women’s tournament featuring 38 players. Eleven Big Ten institutions will have representation at the Games with Minnesota (16), Ohio State (13) and Wisconsin (12) topping all schools.

Men's College Hockey Sunday Score

No Games Scheduled

Women's College Hockey Sunday Score

WCHA
No. 1 Wisconsin 4, No. 2 Ohio State 1

Games between ranked opponents are bolded. All times are local to where the game is being played.

Men's College Hockey Monday Schedule

Beanpot (at TD Garden, Boston, Mass.)
Third-Place Game: Harvard vs. Northeastern, 4:30 p.m. ET
Championship: No. 14 Boston College vs. Boston University, NESN, NHL Network, 7:30 p.m. ET

Women's College Hockey Monday Schedule

No Games Scheduled

Olympic Hockey Update

• Auston Matthews, out of the U.S. National Developmental Program, was named captain of the 2026 U.S. Olympic Men’s Ice Hockey Team. Matthew Tkachuk (USNDP) and Charlie McAvoy (Boston University) were selected as alternate captains.

• McAvoy was one of four U.S. players who traveled to Milan ahead of the rest of the team and attended the opening ceremony Friday night. Jeremy Swayman (Maine), Jake Oettinger (Boston University) and Zach Werenski (Michigan) were the others.

• The men's team held its first practice in Italy and forward Jack Hughes (USNDT) was a full participant after missing three games before the NHL Olympic break. “As you guys know, if you watched, we did not practice in lines or defensive combinations today. That was by design," head coach Mike Sullivan said. “We have an idea of what we want to start with, and that will start to unfold here over the next couple of days.”

• At the Team Canada practice, former Boston University forward Macklin Celebrini was skating on a line with Connor McDavid and Tom Wilson. Sidney Crosby was named team captain, McDavid and Cale Makar (Massachusetts) were named alternate captains.

🇨🇦 lines at first practice of Milan Olympics

Celebrini - McDavid - Wilson
Marchand - MacKinnon - Suzuki
Stone - Crosby - Marner
Hagel - Horvat - Reinhart
Jarvis, Bennett

Toews - Makar
Morrissey - Parayko
Harley - Doughty
Theodore - Sanheim @TSN_Sports
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) February 8, 2026

• Minnesota Duluth forward Thea Johansson scored her tournament-leading fourth goal as Sweden defeated France 4-0 to close in on winning Group B. It only needs a win or loss by Japan (1-1) to finish first and face the third-place team from Group A in the playoff round.

• The U.S. women's team was off Sunday while the equipment staff switched from the Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena, where its first two games were played, to the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, site of its next two games. Next door in the facility is the locker room for the U.S. men's team.

Women's Olympic Hockey Sunday Scores
Group A
Czechia 2, Finland 0
Group B
Sweden 4, France 0

Women's Olympic Hockey Monday Schedule
Group A
Switzerland vs. United States PalaItalia Santa Giulia, Milan, 4 p.m.
Canada vs. Czechia, Fiera Milano, Milan, 5:10 p.m.
Group B
Japan vs. Italy, Fiera Milano, Milan, 6:10 a.m.
Germany vs. France Fiera Milano, Milan, 10:40 a.m

Hockey Quote of the Day

“Today you’ve got Ovechkin and Crosby scoring some highlight goals … it’s really good stuff, but nobody was like Glennie. He would go to the net and he could deke a goalie who was standing on the goal-line. He was unbelievable. And defensemen didn’t want to take him on because he would catch them with his stick, and it always looked accidental.”
Paul Coffey on Glenn Anderson

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We'll Leave You With This ...

Different sports coming together at the #WinterOlympics 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/wKbORn8hdW
— USA Hockey (@usahockey) February 9, 2026