NCAA hockey notebook: The conference playoffs begin

It's playoff time in college hockey. Mostly.

While Hockey East and the NCHC still have one weekend to go in their regular schedules, every other conference is now fully in postseason mode, and as you might imagine, there's a lot on the line.

For three conferences — Atlantic Hockey, the CCHA, and the ECAC — the most likely outcome as it stands today is that the winner of their tournaments will be the only teams from their ranks to qualify for the NCAA tournament. That puts a premium on performance over the next few weeks. And beyond that, there are a handful of teams in the Big Ten, Hockey East, and NCHC that have at least some hope of qualifying for an at-large bid, and will need to win at least a round, if not the playoff championship, to ensure their NCAA participation.

With that in mind, l