NCAA notebook: For some teams, hot starts don't matter as much

Most people understand at this point that Michigan State has been the best team in college hockey these last seven weeks. The Spartans have "elite" everything: offense (3.7 goals per game, tied for eighth in the country), defense (1.4 goals against per game, second in the country), special teams (net percentage of 103.7, and that's with some very bad shooting luck), depth (every skater with at least five games played has at least a point) and of course top talent. They consequently have the second-highest adjusted points percentage in the country.

So we'll just take that as a given. But the two teams on either side of them, by adjusted points percentage, are fascinating.

No. 1 in the country? Dartmouth, who hasn't lost in their six games so far this season. The Big Green got off to a similar start last season, but things are a little different this time around. Yes, their PDO is an astonishing 109.7 so far (15-plus percent shooting, .945 team save percentage) but they're also getting like 59 percent of the expected goals and 57 percent of the shots on goal. Last year at this time, those numbers were more like 109.0 PDO on 45.4 percent of the shots and 46.5 percent of the shots.

So while you can say this isn't a true-talent 109-PDO team, the underlying numbers are fully in their favor and they should be able to keep some level of extremely successful, winning hockey going for quite a while — unless something changes dramatically.

The No. 3 team, right behind Michigan State? It's actually RIT. The Tigers are coming off an OT loss on Tuesday against Niagara, and that result snapped a nine-game winning streak. Unlike Dartmouth, though, they haven't really dominated opponents (plus-16 in goals, but only plus-12 in shots and plus-4.3 in expected goals), but they've controlled play pretty effectively. You would, I think, not expect them to maintain their pace.

In either case, though, all you can do is bank wins. Wins are great. Everyone loves to to get them. Dartmouth going 6-for-6 is literally as well as they could do, and RIT had just three wins at this point last season, so having nine now is, by my math, three times better.

But for these two teams, and other 20 in the ECAC or Atlantic Hockey, and the nine in the CCHA, winning a bunch of games in the regular season doesn't often matter. The ECAC will almost always put two teams into the NCAA tournament, but a year like 2023, when it had four qualifiers, is an extreme outlier. That's especially true since the return to the normal tournament system in 2022 — they canceled the tourney in 2020 for obvious reasons, then didn't use the Pairwise to determine qualification in 2021; none of the Ivy League teams played at all that year, schedules were insane and unbalanced, two qualifying teams got first-round byes after their opponents dropped out, there was basically no non-conference play, and so on. In total, when you take out every conference autobid, there have been 40 NCAA tournament spots available to the ECAC, AHA, and CCHA over the last four seasons, and they've won just seven. That's only 17.5 percent, and all but one of those seven has gone to an ECAC team. (And even then? That's usually a "Quinnipiac hasn't won the conference tournament in the last four years" situation.) Atlantic Hockey, in fact, has just one at-large bid in its 22-year league history: Niagara in 2013.

All of which is to say the 30 ECAC/AHA/CCHA teams not-named Quinnipiac have picked up a whopping three at-large bids in the last four years. I don't say any of this as a knock on those conferences or teams, of course. I'm trying to illustrate the reality that even these mega-impressive starts mean Dartmouth and RIT are still balancing on the edge of a razor.

Barring complete catastrophe, Michigan State is almost certainly going to make the NCAA tournament regardless of what happens the rest of the season. They've banked the wins and their strength of schedule is such that they're probably going to be fine unless, again, the bottom totally drops out on them, which I can't imagine. But RIT losing three games in a row to Atlantic Hockey teams, for example, will greatly imperil them; they're already 14th in the NPI and they have the seventh-weakest schedule to date, meaning their three losses were devastating. Dartmouth might have a little more of a cushion, but not much. Their schedule so far is even weaker than RIT's (currently third-worst), but their competition the rest of the way is, I think, notably better. Losses here and there won't hurt them as much, but because they're currently undefeated, even one will drop them from first in the NPI to, if they're lucky, the high single digits.

None of the conferences we're talking about have a points percentage above .500, and usually it has to be closer to .550 to get a single at-large bid. One team can always go off, win 20-something games, and make it in. But how likely is that? I gotta think "not very." Maybe a 10 percent chance, and that's dependent on a team really putting some distance between itself and the rest of the conference, then also probably losing the conference final come March. That's how thin the margins for error are in these three conferences.

Good luck. You're unfortunately gonna need it.

Let's take a look at some of the fun matchups, news, and notes from around the country:

An awards thought

The "honor," if you want to call it that, of the most convoluted and frankly silly way any major college hockey award is given out every year belongs to the NCAA equivalent of the Jack Adams.

College hockey's coach of the year gets the Spencer Penrose award. They say it goes to the coach of the year, but you can only win it if you win one of the six conference Coach of the Year awards, or if you get your team to the Frozen Four. So the qualification standard slices things a lot thinner than you might think. Why? Because conference coach-of-the-year awards are given out only based on in-conference play.

By way of example, we can talk about Wisconsin. They are currently undefeated in non-conference play (4-0-2 with a 22-9 goal difference) and coach Mike Hastings has them playing fantastic hockey. Hard to see them losing too many more OOC games the rest of the way, too. If he doesn't win the Big Ten's coach of the year award because, say, Michigan State runs away with the regular-season title, then he has no chance to be the coach of the year unless the Badgers make the Frozen Four. Like, he's just not even allowed to be considered? Doesn't that seem weird?

I'm not saying he would necessarily deserve it over Adam Nightingale or Brandon Naurato, but Wisconsin is currently third in the NPI and while I dunno how many people think they're that good, this feels like a tournament team to me, very easily. Given how last year went for them (13-21-3), this is a significant bounceback for a premier program in college hockey, but barring the big award or a deep playoff run, it's "Thanks for coming," I guess.

The same logic might apply to RIT (3-0-0 in non-conference play but more middling in Atlantic Hockey despite losing a ton of talent and their long-time coach over the summer), Northeastern (off to an impossibly hot start while Hockey East as a whole struggles), Union (more on their hot start here), Minnesota-Duluth (more on them next week, unless they look horrible this weekend at Colorado College). The list goes on.

A while back, when we looked at expected goals versus actual, I feel like we learned quite a bit about who's just punching above their weight and who's actually great. While there are plenty of the usual suspects in that latter group, the surprising interlopers are numerous as well. Obviously this all gets smoothed out to some extent with sample sizes, and maybe you just say the very best coaches should get results both in and out of conference play. But it doesn't always work out like that. 

Games of the Week

There are currently seven Hockey East teams in the national polls, with Boston University the lowest of them sitting at 18th. There are only four in the top 20 of the NPI, with Boston College at 19th.

However, in both those rankings, the highest any Hockey East team is ranked is 10th. It's Northeastern in the NPI, and Maine in the national polls, and that tells you a lot about where things are at right now for that conference.

Sample sizes are still small but the fact is that Hockey East is having its worst year in quite a while, and it means teams perceived to be among the 10 or 15 best in the country need to do a lot to show that they're better than their counterparts.

A great opportunity for two such clubs arises at Conte Forum this weekend, with No. 10 Maine visiting No. 15 BC for a pair of games. But if you look at the NPI, which determines who will actually make the tournament, the Eagles are, again, 19th (not especially good for a team with big aspirations), and 35th for the Black Bears (brutal!). Things are still fluid. Both are a few games above .500 and merely splitting these games would probably be a bit of a disappointment for both.

With so much on the line, it'll be an interesting stylistic matchup.

The teams are fairly similar statistically, both controlling a lot of the play, but Maine has a higher-octane offense and BC a stingier defense. What's interesting is that you would expect the opposite. The Eagles' raft of high-end prospects haven't really gotten their rhythm, and are shooting under 10 percent, while Maine is filling the net to the tune of the fifth highest-scoring offense in the country, but they have just three drafted forwards.

In goal, it's the opposite problem. Albin Boija was a Richter finalist last season and he's only .912 this year with 0.1 goals saved above expected, well below his finish last season (.928, 21.6 GSAx). Meanwhile, freshman Louka Cloutier is sitting on .919 with 3.3 GSAx, which is probably all you can ask from him.

For me, it's a total coin flip in this series, which maybe you say means a split, but both teams are good enough to steal points from the other, and with BC on home ice, maybe that's the differentiating factor. The Black Bears haven't won at Conte since October 2021.

RL's recs (for watching too much college hockey this weekend)

Starting this week, I'm also including a nice little blurb about what's at stake and why you should watch.

Here are 10 good games you could watch pretty easily with as few repeat teams as possible. All times are Eastern. You do your own math:

Friday

7 p.m.: Union at Cornell (ESPN+) — The Garnet Chargers are 8-2-1 to start the year, having swept two home games last weekend. The Big Red are 4-2-0, and considered one of the two or three best teams in the ECAC.

8 p.m.: Penn State at Minnesota (Big Ten Network) — The Nittany Lions could really use the points here. But quite frankly, the Golden Gophers need 'em even more.

8:30 p.m.: Wisconsin at Michigan State (B1G+) — The hosts can really start to separate themselves with anything better than a split, and Wisconsin needs to get off the mat following a two-point series last weekend.

9 p.m.: Minnesota-Duluth at Colorado College (NCHC.tv) — The Bulldogs have been one of the best teams in the country so far this year, and Colorado College has been getting points off almost everyone this year, so anything they can steal on home ice will be extra hurtful for the favorites.

Saturday

5 p.m.: Long Island at Sacred Heart (Flo) — LIU just went out to Minnesota and picked up a split, but the loss snapped a four-game winning streak. Meanwhile, the host Pioneers need a non-conference win to get back above .500.

6 p.m.: St. Cloud at Miami (NCHC.tv) — The Redhawks were one of the hottest teams in the country to start the year but have cooled considerably since. They're 1-3-0 in league play so far, and St. Cloud is only a point better. Both need the positive vibes here.

6:30 p.m.: UNH at UConn (ESPN+) — The Wildcats aren't playing great to start the year, but they're still usually a handful, and the Huskies, currently first in Hockey East, are clinging desperately to the NCAA tournament bubble.

7 p.m.: Ohio State at Michigan (B1G+) — After a disappointing split at Penn State last weekend, the Wolverines are back on home ice against a Buckeyes club that took four points from Wisconsin at home.

8 p.m.: Western Michigan at Omaha (NCHC.tv) — The Mavericks are dead-even .500 both in NCHC games and overall, but they just beat white-hot UMD. Western, also .500 in league play, just swept Miami to snap a three-game losing streak. The Broncos need to stay on the sunny side of the street.

Sunday

2 p.m.: Alaska-Anchorage at Holy Cross (Flo) — The Seawolves are wrapping up an insane road trip that featured six games in nine days. Holy Cross is trying to continue its winning ways (7-0-1 since late October). These teams met on Thursday, and the Crusaders won 7-2.