Moving On Up!!

With only the one game being Saturday, and the massive amount of snow in New England, things are delayed a bit....

BC moves to # 2 in both the USCHO and USA Today polls this week after a sweep of all 4 available points in Hockey East play. The Eagles had victories over arch rival BU (3-2 on Friday) and UMass Lowell (5-3 on Saturday). Yale remains the top team in the nation, but the Eagles are hard-charging toward the Bulldogs claim to #1. Other teams from Hockey East that are UNH (7, 8), Maine (12, 11), and Merrimack (14, 14). BU drops from both rankings after a tough weekend that saw the Terriers lose two of three to their ranked Hockey East brethren.

USCHO Poll

USA Today

As far as Pairwise goes, these are the 16 teams that would be in the NCAAs if the tournament started today:
1 Yale
2 Minnesota-Duluth
3 North Dakota
4 Denver
5 Boston College
6 Michigan
7 Wisconsin
8 RPI
9 Notre Dame
10 New Hampshire
11 Merrimack
12 Western Michigan
13 Union
14 Nebraska- Omaha
15 Dartmouth
16 RIT (auto bid from Atlantic Hockey)
Bubble: Miami, BU, Colorado College, Princeton

At first glance we see a very diverse tournament with some new faces, like Merrimack, N-O and Union, but any of those teams could find themselves on the outside looking in if they slip up or lose in conference tourney games. RIT, a Frozen Four team from a year ago as the 16 seed, is still in the hunt to repeat their fate, but Niagara is right behind them in the AH standings.

The Eagles seem to be getting screwed here by the computers, simply because they played Lowell and BU last week. This weekend, and several weeks to come, will be more of the same for BC, as they have Lowell again, then UMass, and then BU in the Beanpot. They do not have a “TUC” game (TUC = team under consideration, or any team that ranks in the top 25 in Pairwise) other than BU (which doesn’t count) until UNH on the last weekend of the regular season. BC, therefore, needs to win these games against “inferior” competition. You don’t get penalized for beating weak teams, but those wins don’t really count for a whole lot either. The best you can do is keep winning, and win more pairings in the rankings. A Hockey East regular season title, and a tournament title would most definitely garner the Eagles a #1 seed in the NCAAs and what should be a automatic nod to Manchester for the Northeast Regional (provided UNH doesn’t get a #1 seed as well, which would bump them into the NE and move BC elsewhere).

There’s still a whole lot of ifs, ands, or buts floating around, so that’s why they play the games. BC only has one this weekend, so they will need to focus on Lowell and winning in a place they seldom do.